Inhaltsverzeichnis für 2022-02-21 in Cape Times

There is an age-old saying: People who live in glass houses should not throw stones . It means that people who have faults should not criticise other people for having the same faults. The raging battle between Dr Survé and his 200 companies under the Sekunjalo Group of Companies, on the one hand, and Nedbank and the other banks, on the other hand, calls to mind this age old saying. The story begins when a young boy, growing up in the southern surburbs of Claremont/Kenilworth, from humble beginnings, used to sell newspapers, The Argus and The Cape Times, to earn extra money, and assist his struggling family. He rose, by his own bootstraps, to qualify as a specialist doctor, practised for a while, built a community health facility, in the…

Tarryn-Leigh Solomons tarryn-Leigh.Solomons@iinl.co.za A report suggesting that Parliament could cough up R1 million a day to use the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) as an alternative base was just speculation, said National Legislature spokesperson Moloto Mothapo. The report claimed that sources within Parliament said discussions were taking place between the leadership and management of the CTICC. The report said moving sessions from the Parliamentary precinct to the convention centre was projected to cost R950 000 a day, or R4.7m per week. But Mothapo said the costs had not been determined yet. The hunt for an alternative base comes after the National Assembly, which hosts sittings of one of the Houses of Parliament and the joint sittings of Parliament, and Old Assembly buildings were engulfed in flames on January 2…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za THE DA, a firm critic of the ANC’s cadre deployment, has refused to comment on the appointment of disgraced former public works and transport MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela as a special adviser to Premier Alan Winde, citing the separation of powers between party and state. Opposition parties have accused Winde of being in blatant contravention of public service guidelines following his application to Public Service and Administration Minister Ayanda Dlodlo to appoint Madikizela as a level 4 special adviser. The remuneration for the position was reportedly about R2 million a year. Madikizela had resigned as an MEC and DA Western Cape leader after it emerged he had lied about having a degree, dashing his hopes of becoming City mayor ahead of last year’s local government elections. Almost a…

Ilse Haas | Bothasig TO SAY the least about the R4.6 million Khayelitsha bridge. Here we have another example of a combination in bad planning, wrong calculation of material and labour, and lack of job supervision. All in all, it's a perfect example of bad workmanship. But worst of all, a very common situation in South Africa. The initial budget of R8 million was given to a contractor for half the price (according to reports). Sure, there have to be short cuts for proper material. But who cares. Blaming wind-blown sand and what else. We all know who is to blame for blocked drains so the water cannot run freely. It's amazing what people are capable of, but then blaming the City of Cape Town for not cleaning…

Kevin Meineke | HOUT BAY HOW sad it is to read that trips on the internationally famous Blue Train, between Pretoria and Cape Town, have been suspended for an indefinite time. Will it ever start again? It is tragic that the Blue Train now joins other well-known, unique and popular trains, which have ceased operation, such as the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe, which ran between George and Knysna and the train from Cape Town to Simon's Town. While it is understood that the train line between George and Knysna was damaged by floods in 2006 and that Alan Winde, in 2010, as the MEC for Western Cape Finance and Brian Molefe as CEO of Transnet in 2012 made noises about repairing the line, very little,…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za IN A GRUESOME murder that sent shockwaves through the Gugulethu community, an 85-year-old woman was found tied up in her bed with one of her eyes gouged. The harrowing discovery of Charllotte Madolo’s body in her NY 132 house was made by her grandchild on Saturday afternoon. Madolo is the eighth woman to be killed in the space of about seven days. A man suspected of the killing was allegedly assaulted by residents and handed to police. Police spokesperson FC Van Wyk said Gugulethu police were investigating a murder case. Van Wyk said a 48-year-old man was arrested in connection with the murder and is expected to appear in court once charged. Madolo’s daughter Lindelwa Bovana said at the time of the incident, the family was attending…

Address governance and corruption vulnerabilities to foster private investment They are like London buses. You wait for hours for one, and then suddenly three of them come at the same time. In the South African context, more a question of months, I am of course referring to the surfeit of reports emanating from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group on the state of South Africa’s economy, public debt and financial sector. First it was the World Bank’s $750 million (R11.3 billion) development policy loan on January 21, requested by the National Treasury to support its efforts “to accelerate the government’s response aimed at protecting the poor and vulnerable from the adverse socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and support a resilient and sustainable economic recovery”. On the…

Firefighters were struggling to put out a fire that broke out on a vessel carrying thousands of luxury cars, which is adrift off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands, a port official said at the weekend. The Felicity Ace ship, carrying around 4 000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, some electric with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. The 22 crew members were evacuated on the same day. “The intervention (to put out the blaze) has to be done very slowly,” João Mendes Cabeças, captain of the nearest port in the Azorean island of Faial, said. “It will take a while.” Lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles were “keeping the fire alive”, Cabeças said, adding specialist equipment to extinguish it was on…

Russian military exercises in Belarus will continue, Minsk announced yesterday, leaving Moscow with a large force near the northern Ukraine border as Western powers warn of an imminent invasion. The announcement came as French President Emmanuel Macron called Russia’s Vladimir Putin for talks the Elysee described as “the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine”. Moscow had previously said the 30 000 troops it has in Belarus were simply carrying out readiness drills with its ally, which would be finished by February 20, allowing the Russians to head back to their bases. But, as the day arrived for the operation to end, the Belarus defence ministry said Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko had decided to “continue inspections”, citing increased military activity on their shared…

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian chief negotiator and adviser on Transboundary Rivers Seleshi Bekele announced yesterday the launch of the first turbine of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River and the beginning of power generation. “Congratulations to All #Ethiopians & Friends. Efforts of over a decade in building #GERD started delivering result. The 1st turbine with generating capacity of 375MW inaugurated today by HE PM Dr Abiy Ahmed,” Bekele wrote on Twitter. The official said when completed, the dam would become the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa with 5 150MW capcity and annual energy of 15.76TWH.…

LAGOS: A 102-year-old Nigerian woman, Nonye Josephine Ezeanyaeche, has declared her intentions to vie for the country’s presidency come 2023. The centenarian revealed this to the local Nigerian Television Authority offices in the federal capital, Abuja, during a visit to the management team of the institution. The founder of the Voice for Senior Citizens of Nigeria group said she is ready to take up the presidency if the country’s younger generation is not willing to run the country. Ezeanyaeche said she has good plans for Nigeria if she becomes the president, saying she has already prepared a campaign manifesto. Ezeanyaeche, who is also called “Mama Africa”, received several awards for her contributions to humanity and nation-building, including the African Peace Award, 2021. Nigeria’s incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari is ineligible to…

Marsha Dean marsha.Dean@inl.co.za MORE than 100 motorists and motorcyclists drove in convoy through some of the busiest roads in Cape Town in support of the Canadian Truckers Convoy who are taking a stand against Covid-19 regulations and vaccination mandates. The Cape Town Freedom convoy event on Saturday formed part of an international effort called World Wide Demonstration. The convoy started at the Koeberg Interchange and travelled in a circular route via the M5, N2, R300 and the N1, ending back at the Koeberg Interchange. By 1pm, the crowd had already dispersed Founder of activist groups including Stop farm killings, Debbie Els said the convoy was a success. “I have never been to such a big convoy before. We have to fight for our future and our children’s future because they…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za | POLITICAL BUREAU ACTING Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and the Constitutional Court have been asked to deliver a judgment that has been pending for five months or face protests by trade union federation Cosatu’s biggest affiliate. The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has written to Justice Zondo, threatening to march to the apex court to express its displeasure at the length of time it has taken the Constitutional Court to hand down the ruling. Nehawu has taken the extraordinary step of demanding that the Constitutional Court deliver its decision. “We wish to record that the matter was heard in the Constitutional Court on August 24, 2021, and to date the judgment remains outstanding. The union deems that period to be excessive, as it…

Okuhle Hlati okhule.hlati@inl.co.za THE grieving family of cousins Mkhululi Thovane and Nolufefe Zongile who died in a fire along with three others in Site B, Khayelitsha are still struggling to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones and are calling for the incident to be thoroughly probed. Thovane, 46, and his friend aged 34, had visited Zongile, 30, who was with her two friends Anitha Bhontsi, 25 and Sinovuyo Chali, 25, when the shack they were in was engulfed by a fire on Friday morning. City fire and rescue service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse said they were alerted to the blaze at about 1.50am. While firefighters managed to quickly extinguish the blaze, they came across the bodies of five people who had sustained fatal burn wounds. Police spokesperson…

Barbie Sandler | Constantia IT IS so maddening to read about poor service at some of our clinics in the Cape. Our First World medicine is so good, but we are let down when one reads about clinics like Nyanga clinic, where sick people stand in long queues with not even a chair to rest their weary bones on, where they get no empathy or sympathy from the nurses, where apparently the clinic closes early. Why can’t we get this right? Is it a ‘(I) don't care attitude’? Why is there no money to buy a few plastic chairs for the patients to sit on? The nurses could make life so much better for their patients by showing a bit of empathy and compassion. Why are they…

Terence Grant | Cape Town I REFER to the article “Breast Cancer drugs pricing in commission’s sights”(Cape Times, February 10). I recently watched a documentary that focused on the pharmaceutical industry’s unquenchable thirst for profit. And I am convinced that the time has come for governments to expropriate the intellectual property rights, etc of pharmaceutical companies that – despite official warnings – make exorbitant profits off of medicines that would, due to the dominance of their product/the lack of a viable alternative, save a large number of lives if marketed at a significantly lower price. Obviously, the company falling victim to this “extraordinary measure” would have to be compensated generously in order to avoid stifling research. The expropriation also would have to be done by the country in…

Nicola Daniels nicola.daniels@inl.co.za TWO MEN convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Knysna ANC councillor Victor Molosi have lost their appeal in the SCA Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) after a family member recanted prior inconsistent statements. Knysna municipal official Mawande Makhala and former ward 4 councillor Velile Waxa were convicted on murder, possession of an unlicensed firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition charges in the Western Cape High Court and sentenced to life imprisonment. The matter dates back to July 23, 2018, when Molosi was attending a school governing body meeting at Concordia High School in Knysna. He was shot and killed on his way home. During the investigation, Makhala’s brother, Luzuko, indicated that he wished to recount his part in the murder and be treated…

Staff writer NINE Oudtshoorn traffic department employees, as well as the owner and employees of a driving school in the region, are due in court today for allegedly selling driving licences. They were arrested on Friday following a court-driven initiative between the SAPS Western Cape Detectives’ Commercial Crime Investigation Unit, Crime Intelligence and the Western Cape Department of Transport. Police South Cape spokesperson Malcolm Pojie said the “arrests stem from covert operations done over time based on allegations that the suspects form part of an organised syndicate whereby learner and or driving licences were issued to applicants in return for gratification, using the local driving school. “The team pounced on the Oudtshoorn driver licence offices and the houses of identified suspects to execute the arrests.” A Mercedes 14-ton truck, a…

SINCE the dawn of our democracy, researchers and academics have been unceasingly and unapologetically increasing awareness about the neglect of African languages. They, along with other key role-players, have made us realise that African languages can be scientific languages, and therefore need to be intellectualised, as Russell Kaschula and Dion Nkomo have argued in their chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics (2019). African languages deserve to be used just like any other colonial languages in academia. On a day like today, International Mother Language Day, we need to ask ourselves, as academics, what are we doing to ensure that we promote our indigenous languages? Moreover, what are we doing to advance these languages as academic languages in all spheres of education and beyond? These are key questions that…

MADRID: The roof of an auditorium in the Parque de Atracciones amusement park in Madrid partially collapsed on Saturday, injuring 13 people with eight of them in need of hospital treatment. The accident happened during a private event held at the “Grand Theatre” in the park, when a plasterboard ceiling of 200m² fell down, said local emergency services. All those who suffered injuries are reportedly aged between 30 and 50, with eight of them needing treatment for minor cuts and bruises. A fire brigade carried out an inspection of the facility and secured the area, while local police has launched an investigation.…

ATHENS: A passenger on a ferry, which caught fire on Friday off the Greek island of Corfu, was found alive and rescued yesterday, Greek authorities said. Ioannis Plakiotakis, Greek minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy, confirmed the rescue of a 21-year-old man from Belarus. The man seemed to be in good condition, according to TV footage. “I am alive. I didn’t see other survivors, I only heard screams,” he told rescuers before being transferred to a local hospital, according to SKAI. A total of 280 people were rescued from the vessel on Friday, and 11 people are still missing as the rescue operation continues.…

THE appointment of Enoch Godongwana as finance minister in August last year was roundly welcomed by big business and the markets. His inaugural Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement delivered on November 11, 2021 was received with a cautious thumbs up by the markets, with the rand gaining ground against the dollar on the day. As a show of confidence in the budget statement, the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond fell 20 basis points to 9.235 percent, indicating that the statement wasn’t “populist”. Even the equity markets, which are often less sensitive to such statements, the JSE All Share Index rose by a percentage point on the day. All this should have come as very welcome news indeed for the president, the new minister, government, the ANC and alliance partners. This…

Mashudu Sadike mashudu.sadike@inl.co.za A LIMPOPO woman and her alleged lover have been arrested by Hawks Serious Organised Crime Investigation members on suspicion of murdering police officer, Warrant Officer Mogokolodi Cleopas Digama. Yesterday, Hawks spokesperson, Captain Matimba Maluleke, said the 41-year-old woman was arrested at her home in Nebo and her accomplice was arrested at Ga-Mashashane outside Polokwane, on Friday. “The prime suspect, aged 41, who was married to the deceased, was arrested at her home in the Nebo area by the Hawks, assisted by Tactical Response Team members. Her accomplice, who is reported to be her boyfriend, was arrested by the same team at Ga-Mashashane. Preliminary investigations revealed that the deceased’s wife has a child with her accomplice.” Maluleke said the now-dead man, who was on his way home from…

Chevon Booysen chevon.booysen@inl.co.za IN A VICTORY for the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), former Black First Land First (BLF) member Lindsay Maasdorp has been ordered to remove hate speech comments on social media. Maasdorp’s hate speech comments included those on his Twitter page, that he had “aspirations to kill white people, and this must be achieved”. The SAHRC said Maasdorp was also ordered to undergo sensitivity and diversity training before year’s-end. The SAHRC said it had instituted proceedings in the Western Cape High Court, sitting as the Equality Court, against Maasdorp after receiving several complaints relating to his hate speech on social media. These included that on September 24, 2016, on his Facebook page, during a conversation in relation to white people in South Africa, he posed the question “when…

MICHAEL BAGRAIM | Highlands Estate YOUR Wednesday edition “The Constitution is not immune from criticism” refers: It is absolutely correct to state that the Constitution can be questioned and debated, however, this is not acceptable from the very person who is charged with defending, upholding and enforcing the Constitution. It must be remembered that Lindiwe Sisulu is not only an MP but the Tourism minister. Sisulu has been a minister for many years, and annually swears her allegiance to the Constitution. What am I missing here? The main function of any government is to ensure law and order. The judiciary are at the forefront of ensuring that those who breach law and order are punished and kept in check. For a government minister to strike out at the judiciary, like…

R. Bartes | Manenberg DESPITE constant concerns about food security, preventable food wastage in Cape Town is on the increase. This commonly occurs at grocery shops; especially chain stores. There are indeed various reasons why stores have specific quantities of a food item in stock. It does not, however, make sense that a store always has that particular quantity, whereas it usually sells only half that amount. It is as if sales reports that reflect buying trends are not well-analysed at branch level. Whereas some poor-selling foodstuffs are processed and used as ingredients in other food items, the rest are simply thrown away. Although their prices are commonly reduced, many poor-selling items will, however, still end up in the dustbin. If the poor-selling foodstuffs were marked down earlier,…

THANDISIZWE MGUDLWA INFORMATION and access to information tools are vital for nation-building. Yet in South Africa the majority of our people are not provided the right kind of information to empower themselves, communities and broader society. Mainly, the problem stems from the elected representatives in local, provincial and national government.This includes elected representatives in Parliament, and its related organs. It’s a curse and a crime if you think about it, that public participation events are not communicated as widely as they ought to be or shared through all media platforms, especially community newspapers, radio and TV. Those people and groups who are familiar and have somehow been able to follow developments at all government-levels, would know that the process of communicating information to all citizens and stakeholders was long…

Experts have predicted that after the Omicron wave, Covid-19 will return but the pandemic will not. The suggestion is also that the extraordinary measures by the government and societies to control transmission will come to an end. It is now time to put in place plans to have an epidemic response unit in the country, and to create foundations in biotechnology and build a unit that can create a vaccine from scratch, and not just to test other people’s vaccines. The announcement by the World Health Organization to start an mRNA Hub in Africa will realise the potential to establish Covid-19 manufacturing sites in low- and middle-income countries in the midst of vaccine inequality. The mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub will be based in South Africa, and will help…

Somalia’s president and premier have declared null and void a deal signed by their energy minister with a US company to explore for oil and gas off the coast of the troubled Horn of Africa nation. Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed and Coastline Exploration had announced seven production sharing agreements (PSAs) covering deep water offshore blocks. Ahmed hailed it as a “huge moment” for Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world, which is in the grip of a political crisis over long-delayed elections and also battling a jihadist insurgency. “Recently completed seismic programmes indicate that Somalia has the potential to become a significant oil and gas producing country,” he said. The PSAs “will have an immediate positive effect on the country”, he said, and…

BUENOS AIRES: The number of people who had died in the Brazilian town of Petropolis north of Rio de Janeiro as a result of heavy rains and subsequent landslides had increased to 152, media reported yesterday. On Saturday, media reported 136 victims. The Brazilian Institute of Forensic Medicine said that 27 minors were among the dead. According to the G1 broadcaster, 165 more people remain missing, 967 were left homeless. Heavy rainfalls hit Brazil on Tuesday, triggering deadly landslides and flooding. Governor of Rio de Janeiro Claudio Castro calls the rainfall the heaviest since 1932…

Chennai: The Sri Lankan Navy has arrested six Indian fishermen and seized their boat allegedly for poaching in the country’s territorial waters. The arrest was made at the weekend near the Kovilan lighthouse, Jaffna. The Sri Lankan Army website said the fishermen and the boat were captured for crossing the IMBL. The fishermen’s leaders said that they have set sail from Nambuthalai on February 18. With this incident, 29 fishermen and six fishing boats are under the custody of the Sri Lankan authorities in the month of February alone.…