Inhaltsverzeichnis für 2022-03-31 in Mercury

SOUTH African households and businesses’ appetite to take out loans grew to a one-and-a-half year high in February as general economic conditions broadly normalised under Adjusted Level 1 Covid-19 lockdown. However, economists have warned that the ongoing interest rates hiking cycle could make consumers wary of piling up more debt as employment prospects also become fickle with the rising jobless rate. The SA Reserve Bank (SARB) yesterday said private sector credit extension rose to 3.62 percent year-on-year in February, from a revised 3.11 percent increase a month before. This reading was above market expectations, marking the eighth straight month of increase in private sector credit and the strongest rise since August 2020. The SARB said that credit extended to corporates, which comprises over half of the total, continued…

TRADE movement Fairplay wants the value added tax (VAT) on some chicken cuts meant for the lower income market to be scrapped to ease the impact of rocketing food prices. According to estimates made in a 2018 report, this could lop off about R1.2 billion in tax revenue. At a roundtable discussion on amongst other things, the impact of the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict to food prices, Fairplay said removing VAT from some of the portions popular with the mass market was one of the levers at the disposal of the state to cushion South Africans from the rising food and fuel prices resulting from the conflict. “Chicken (meat) is a national source of nutrition. The poultry industry is a strategic one. “Mothers need protein when they are carrying…

THE DEPARTMENT of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) needs to speed up its management of rehabilitating 6 100 abandoned mines, as they pose serious health, safety and environmental hazards for nearby communities,” Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke said yesterday. Maluleke commented at the release of a report on the follow-up performance audit conducted on the department’s rehabilitation of abandoned mines, also referred to as derelict and ownerless (D&O) mines. She recognised the efforts the department had made since the first audit in 2009 but said the government needed to “urgently improve” its rehabilitation efforts as they negatively affected local communities and the environment. The 2021 follow-up audit evaluated the progress the department has made since 2009 and whether issues in the previous report still exist. Most of the 6…

Late South African singer Miriam Makeba remains an inspiration after her death, prompting jazz artist Somi to pay tribute to her with new twists on the anti-apartheid icon’s greatest hits. Makeba, who rose to global fame with songs like Pata Pata and Malaika and spent 30 years in exile, set an example through her life as much as through her music, Somi said. “You can put on a record and still feel called to arms,” the Grammy-nominated US singer-songwriter said ahead of a show in Pretoria. Somi, 40, said she created her album Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba as a “love letter” to her idol. Zenzile was Makeba’s first name. The album, released on March 4, when Makeba would have turned 90, melds versions of Makeba’s work with compositions…

Perhaps the only positive effect of the presidency of Donald Trump is that he highlighted various aspects of ignorance and false news. His election confirms Mark Twain’s statement “all you need in this life is ignorance, and confidence and then success is sure”. In this world of “false news” and ignorance, steeped in confidence, the Dunning-Kruger syndrome seems to hold sway, in this country at least. This syndrome is described as the “cognitive bias of illusory superiority which comes from people’s inability to recognise their lack of ability”, or put in more easily understood terms, “there are many people who do not know enough to know what they don’t know”. Added to the observation by Charles Darwin that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”, the South African political…

The Covid pandemic put a damper on the Oscar Awards last year. But this year the glitz and glamour of the awards ceremony were back in Los Angeles. The masks were off and all the Hollywood stars came out to shine, dazzling the audience. While the audience was excitedly applauding the Oscar winners, Will Smith added more drama to the show. Comedian Chris Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s actor wife, calling her a GI Jane because of her shaved head. Will Smith strode up to the stage, struck Rock across the face with a thunderclap and then walked back calmly to his seat. Apparently Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, has a medical condition known as alopecia. Hence Will Smith’s dramatic stage performance. A stunned Rock cried out…

ILYA Rogachev’s defence of the Russian invasion refers (The Mercury, March 24). First off, the idea that Nazi groups in Ukraine could justify the brutal invasion of that country is a flimsy and ridiculous assertion. Tiny fascist organisations exist in every country in Europe, North America, Australasia and indeed most other countries of the world, and the idea that those in Ukraine represented any kind of threat to Russia is to insult the intelligence. The other ideas put forward in defence of this blatant aggression are equally absurd. The simple truth is that Ukraine, close ethnic, family and economic brothers and sisters to the Russians, a nation that produced two Soviet presidents in Brezhnev and Khruschev, has suffered a savage, indefensible, indeed inexplicable invasion from Putin’s Russia. The death and…

A 31-year-old woman has been found guilty of defrauding her sister’s boyfriend of his pension fund worth almost R1 million. Sophia Najjia was convicted and sentenced in the Welkom Regional Court this week to 30 years in prison. According to Free State police spokesperson Captain Stephen Thakeng the victim, a 54-year-old man who is a foreign national, was living at one of the mine premises in Welkom when he met a woman, and they fell in love. “The girlfriend introduced the mine employee to her sister (Najjia) as a traditional healer. They visited the residence of the sister, who claimed she wanted to show him something in Tana Street, Doorn, in Welkom. “He was told to buy a miracle box worth R2 000. After two days, the mine employee gave…

The Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court has sentenced former McDonald’s employee Clement Othusitse Seothaeng to 10 years’ direct imprisonment for extortion and malicious damage to property after he made a recording of himself spitting into an ice cream at work, and then demanded money to avoid leaking the video. North Gauteng regional spokesperson for the director of public prosecutions Lumka Mahanjana said the 27-year-old man, from Pampierstad, Northern Cape, had been employed at a McDonald’s outlet in Montana, Pretoria. “On September 23, 2017, while at work Seothaeng recorded himself with his phone preparing a McFlurry ice cream without showing his face. He spat inside the McFlurry ice cream, and mixed it” said Mahanjana. “After recording himself, he sent the clip to the manager with a different phone number.” He purported to…

UMGUNGUNDLOVU District Municipality has come under fire for proposing steep tariff increases for water. The municipality has proposed a 33% tariff hike for the six municipalities it supplies: uMngeni (Howick), uMshwathi (Wartburg), Impendle, Mpofana (Mooi River), Mkhambathini (Camperdown) and Richmond. The proposal was made at a council meeting on Tuesday and it is now out for public comment until the end of May. Councillors said the increase would be unaffordable for many residents who were already struggling because of the Covid-19 impact. The municipality argued that the proposed increase was not out of greediness, but because of the need to recover the costs associated with the supply of water. DA councillor Hazel Lake said they were opposed to the proposal. “This ridiculous increase at this particular time, when people are…

The names Reeva Steenkamp, Karabo Mokoena, and Uyinene Mrwetyana are ones we are all familiar with as South Africans, albeit due to very unfortunate circumstances. All three women have two things in common: they lost their lives at the hands of men, and they had their trials widely televised live on South Africa’s screens. Today, South Africans are bearing witness to the ongoing murder trial of Tshegofatso Pule, a 20-year-old woman who, along with her unborn child, was found dead, hanging from a tree in Roodepoort on June 4, 2020. Her death, like many others, left South Africans outraged. Alongside this outrage, however, is an air of sensationalism in the consumption and reporting of said news. News channels are in constant competition with one another in the quest to…

LVIV: Ukraine and its Western allies yesterday dismissed a Russian military pullback from near Kyiv as a ploy to refit troops after heavy losses, even as invading forces bombard cities elsewhere and press on with the obliteration of besieged Mariupol. Nearly five weeks into an invasion in which it has failed to capture any major cities, Russia said it would curtail operations near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust” for peace talks. But in an overnight address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made it clear that he took nothing Moscow said at face value. “Ukrainians are not naive people,” he said. “Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion, and over the past eight years of the war in Donbas, that the only…

Fields, homes, wells and tombs were gradually being buried under shifting sand dunes on a windswept stretch of Madagascar’s southern coastline until the local community fought back, armed only with plants and elbow grease. After years of painstaking planting by hundreds of volunteers, 36 hectares of dunes have been stabilised by long lines of plants that trap moisture in the ground and stop the wind from blowing the sand further inland. The World Food Programme (WFP), a UN agency, provided most of the plants as part of a project to help local communities build long-term resilience to weather-induced problems. “The system came from the villagers themselves. It wasn’t us that brought this technique. They know that the lalanda plant covers the ground and brings moisture,” said Theodore Mbainassem, who runs…

NEW DELHI: Fuel prices were increased again in India yesterday for the eighth time in the last nine days. According to a price notification of state fuel retailers, in the capital city of Delhi, petrol and diesel prices were hiked by INR0.80 a litre respectively. A litre of petrol in Delhi now costs INR101.01 ($1.33) and diesel is sold at INR92.27 ($1.22) per litre. In Mumbai city, petrol is retailed at INR115.88 ($1.53) a litre, while diesel is being sold at INR100.10 ($1.32 dollars) per litre. The fuel rates are the highest in Mumbai among India’s metropolitan cities. The prices vary across Indian states due to value-added tax or local taxation.…

The Proteas are notoriously slow starters in any series. It’s something the Mark Boucher/Temba Bavuma/Dean Elgar era inherited from predecessors, but it’s a problem they haven’t resolved. The awareness about the problem exists, they certainly get reminded about it enough through the media and they talk about it in team meetings. That first hour, of the first session on the first day, will be well worth seeing how they turn those words into deeds It’s now become tradition that Kingsmead is low and slow (Shaun Pollock still sheds a tear), but Keshav Maharaj mentioned yesterday that the first Test will be played on a relayed part of the square so he was unsure how much spin there would be. The Proteas continue to mull over the composition…

IN AN ENVIRONMENT fraught with controversy, but which has until recently been regulated to make the process as fair and transparent as possible, public procurement has now descended into a free for all that is threatening gains that have previously been made in the protection of local businesses and local jobs. A series of court rulings by the Supreme Court of Appeal and now the Constitutional Court in a case brought by Afribusiness NPC against the National Treasury has left uncertainty and confusion for public entities who need to procure all manner of items for their operational needs. The crux of the case lies with B-BBEE regulations and the permissibility of pre disqualification of any bidder for a government tender that does not fulfil the minimum 51 percent black…

Europa Metal advanced its Toral pro- ject in Spain in the six months to De- cember 31, but its share price dropped almost 6 percent on the JSE yesterday. Its shares were trading at R85 yesterday after the interim results for the European focused lead, zinc and silver mining company were announced Europa said its net loss reduced to A$1.36 million (R1.49 billion)compared with A$1.65m a year previously. The company completed an independent updated resource estimate and did metallurgical tests at its wholly- owned lead, zinc, and silver project. This attributed to its Toral project an indicated resource of about 5.9 million tons at 7.1 percent zinc equivalent, within a total resource of 20 million tons at 6.3 percent, it said. The group said it…

ACADEMICS, economists and activists representing the unemployed have collectively warned that South Africa could see the eruption of looting and unrest similar to what was experienced in July last year if the high unemployment rate is not addressed. The warning comes after data released on Tuesday by Statistics South Africa showed an increase in the number of unemployed people in the country. According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for quarter 4 of 2021 the unemployment rate grew by 0.4 of a percentage point, taking the official statistics from 34.9% in the third quarter to 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021. Youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 years recorded the highest unemployment rates of 66.5% and 43.5% respectively. Looking at the unemployment stats per province, KwaZulu-Natal’s unemployment rate…

Another taxi disruption, this time in Cape Town, with the taxi groups striking over impoundments of taxis and other issues, leaving buses and private vehicles burnt, people injured, Cape Town infrastructure damaged, main routes blocked and naturally a big impact on people who rely daily on taxis for transport. Of course, the news reports that the police are as ever monitoring the situation, with no physical action to remove these miscreants, as is the situation in Durban where the city council buckled and gave impounded taxis back and scrapped fines. The law is a toothless old lion, the taxis run the country and that disgraceful industry holds the land forever to ransom. Where in the world does this situation happen, where the police, government, judicial systems are paralysed by the…

THE dispute over two rival applicants for city manager in eThekwini has been settled. Both are to be appointed as well as three others who are yet to be selected. This means the city will eventually have five city managers, each responsible for a section of the Metro. This follows a report by a little-known municipal committee, Building Up Long Lasting Departments And New Goals (BULLDANG). According to BULLDANG, exhaustive research has shown that five city managers will make the Metro five times more efficient than before. Said a BULLDANG spokesperson: “This will be a great leap forward. Gone are the dark days when Durban was one of three debt-free cities in the world. We are about to join the 21st century with a bang, big spending and big…

Civil society organisations have welcomed the Gauteng High Court’s decision to delay the analogue switch-off, which was set to take place today, by at least three months. The news follows an outcry by organisations after Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the switch-off would not be delayed despite over 2 million households not being registered to receive an STB (Set-Top Box) for the migration to the digital transmission. While the court postponed the switch-off to June 30, acting Judge Henry Msimang ruled in favour of the minister, noting that: “It is in the interest of the country, the economy and for South Africans in general that the digital migration be finalised.” He also noted that South Africa had to meet its international obligations and that it would be…

THERE was a relationship between Azapo and the PAC during the era of negotiations in this country, but it disappeared. It is now high time that the former liberation movements closed the gap between them and spoke the same language. Both should know that the first step towards solving a problem is identifying it. Azapo’s hard stance towards white people continues, while the PAC in Langa, Cape Town, was/is “friends” with the DA. Like an athlete whose baton fell, the two must pick up the baton and chase. They must not allow themselves to be distracted from focusing on fundamental issues affecting black people. Government corruption is rife, but there is also a private sector involved, predominantly owned by white people. People of colour are deliberately made poor, especially Africans,…

The Australian coastal enclave of Byron Bay, known for its celebrity residents and idyllic beaches, was flooded yesterday as severe storms again battered the country’s east. Torrential rain began on Monday, with nearly 300mm falling in the area in 24 hours, forcing many shops in the Byron Bay town centre to close. Byron’s normally buzzing high street was transformed into a river by the metre-high mud-brown floodwaters. In the nearby town of Alstonville, 420mm of rain fell in 24 hours. By yesterday afternoon, there were 16 evacuation orders in place across the affected region, urging people to leave their homes for higher ground. For weeks Australia’s east has been smashed by extreme weather, fuelled by La Nina weather patterns and climate change. Record rainfalls and deadly flooding have killed at…

Helsinki: A Finnish court yesterday found a Christian Democrat MP not guilty after a hate speech trial over her writings and social media posts condemning homosexuality while quoting the Scriptures. Paivi Rasanen, a former interior minister and Christian Democrats leader, said the decision to free her on four charges of incitement against a minority group was expected. “I would have been shocked if the verdict was otherwise,” she said. She thanked “God and everyone who has supported us”, referring to the international attention the case garnered, particularly among Christian groups who framed it as a fight for freedom of religion. Rasanen had denied the four charges, related to a 2004 pamphlet, a 2019 radio interview and a series of social media comments about same-sex relationships. She described homosexuality as a…

SEOUL: South Korea’s military has said North Korea’s largest missile test yet used an older, smaller intercontinental ballistic missile, and not the massive new Hwasong-17 ICBM, in part to try to head off negative domestic reaction to a failed launch. South Korean and US officials have concluded that the March 24 launch appears to have been a Hwasong-15 ICBM, a defence ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that the test was still being analysed.…

FITCH Solutions has warned that sub-Saharan African countries who are heavily reliant on Russian imports could soon be faced with political instability due to rising fuel and food prices. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month has added pressure on global supply chains, resulting in sharply rising costs for energy and food, and adding a new dimension to the inflation picture. Fitch Solutions global head of country risk, Cedric Chehab, yesterday said the direct impact of Russia’s war on African economies was limited, but secondary effects would be larger. Chehab, however, said rising energy prices were going to be painful for economies that were dependent on fossil fuels to generate electricity, as energy costs would hit markets hard. As a result, Fitch Solutions downgraded South Africa’s economic growth forecast from 1.8…

THE AUSTRALIA-based property investment company Irongate Group (IAP) board, after rejecting several initial offers, has unanimously recommended the company’s security holders vote in favour of the Charter Hall PGGM Industrial Partnership No 2 offer. Through schemes of arrangement, security holders of IAP, formerly Investec Australia Property Fund and which is also listed on the JSE, will receive A$1.90 (R20.80) per IAP share cash, as well as the company’s distribution to March 31, 2022, of up to A$4.67 per security. The share price traded at R20.62 on the JSE yesterday morning, but the deal strike price represents a 21 percent premium to the closing price of A$1.57 on January 28, 2022, the last trading day prior to announcement of the offer. The offer also represents an 11.8 per- cent…

THE fate of the motion of no confidence in President Cyril Ramaphosa lies with the programming committee, which will discuss how to process it after parties could not reach an agreement yesterday. This was after African Transformation Movement (ATM) leader Vuyo Zungula called for the Speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, to shelve the motion pending the court application by the party. The programming committee will meet today to discuss how to deal with the motion. Mapisa-Nqakula said it was out of her hands and the programming committee had to take a decision. “I now rule that we are not proceeding with this matter and the details of what we do next will be dealt with tomorrow in the programming committee,” said Mapisa-Nqakula. This followed a day of drama with points of order…

The early bird is getting even earlier. With climate change spurring earlier springs across much of North America, many birds are laying their eggs earlier in the year, according to a new study – adding to mounting evidence that global warming is turning wildlife habits upside down. Of 72 bird species examined around Chicago, roughly a third lay their eggs about 25 days earlier than they did a century ago, researchers report in the paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. The scientists so far haven’t found any clear traits shared by these species, such as size or migratory status, that might explain why they’re changing their schedules. But “the majority of the birds we looked at eat insects, and insects’ seasonal behaviour is also affected by climate”, said…

To feel better about life and everything around you there are a few simple things you can do. These actions will improve your physical and mental health, and even begin to realign things in your family if you stick with the plan: Move more. Stand more than you sit. Walk more than you stand. Walk a little more each day, even if it is a few metres that are added. You will be surprised at how quickly you will feel the benefit of getting yourself up and going as you are able. Drink more water and add more each day. The more you exercise (walking, jogging) and the more water you drink, the “cleaner” you will begin to feel. This “success” will promote a desire to push yourself a little…

Saturdays were, and still are, to some retrieving extent, a refuge from the high-speed rat race of the five weekdays. Some small party at home, a visit to a late-night film at a movie house, a braai at the beachfront – all or any of this made the mostly awful humdrum of the previous 40 working hours somewhat tolerable. Sundays provided, and still do, a buffer zone between Saturday heaven and Monday hell. Visiting relatives till five in the afternoon before heading home to restart the life-cycle all over again was, and is, thankfully still the norm. But after Covid-19 comes some very alarming changes: the world explodes into another category of strange behaviour. Another shell-shocking implosion in men’s heads. Prices for every commodity go through skyscraper-height windows, only heading…

The Public Service Commission (PSC) has warned national and provincial governments that non-payment of service providers could lead to costly litigation against them. PSC commissioner Anele Gxoyiya issued the warning yesterday in Pretoria, while delivering the Pulse of the PSC quarterly report from October 1 until December 31, 2021. Gxoyiya said departments were required to settle all contractual obligations and pay all monies owed within the prescribed 30 days from receipt of an invoice, the date of settlement or court judgment. He said late or non-payment of invoices imposed dire consequences on the financial health of businesses, such as liquidation. “Late and non-payment of suppliers can expose departments to costly litigation for non-payment, including being ordered to pay interest on late payments resulting in the already scarce financial resources being…

A man stormed into the Jane Furse police station in Limpopo this week, disarmed the officer on duty and held the rest of the staff hostage. The suspect was later shot dead by members of the Tactical Response Team after he refused to surrender. Independent Police Investigating Directorate spokesperson Lizzy Suping said they were investigating the matter because the man died at the hands of police. She said his identity was unknown. The man was found in possession of used nyaope sachets. An inquest was opened. | Mercury Correspondent…

CHILD author and child rights activist Stacey Fru has achieved something many adults have not achieved yet, as she was voted in as the director and president of an education-focused tech company. Philanthropist, child rights activist and author of five books, Stacey has taken up the positions of director and president of an education-focused tech company AfroStory, which has six adult team members and 10 shareholders. The 15-year-old is the youngest member on the board of the company and one of few South African teenagers to lead a company not founded by herself. The multiple award-winning Grade 10 pupil, book enthusiast, community builder and internationally recognised child rights activist founded the Stacey Fru Foundation in 2018. The foundation reaches out to donate books, food, computers and other items to disadvantaged…

THE Gauteng businesswoman who was accused of instigating the July 2021 unrest says the charges will remain a permanent stain on her life, because they took a toll on her family, emotionally and financially. Speaking exclusively to The Mercury’s sister newspaper Pretoria News yesterday shortly after her case was struck off the roll at the Germiston Magistrate’s Court, the social commentator known online as Sphithiphithi Evaluator said she had to spend thousands of rand on security upgrades to her home. This was after the police unmasked her as the person behind the social media account which was openly critical of President Cyril Ramaphosa late last year. Sphithiphithi Evaluator, whose real name is known to Independent Media, but has been withheld at her request for safety reasons, said her life had…

IT DID not take that long to expose the ANC’s hypocrisy in how it selectively applies its step-aside resolution following the conviction of women’s league president Bathabile Dlamini for perjury. The party has yet to publicly announce that it is taking action against her. We recently learnt through news reports that it intends asking her to resign, failing which may lead to disciplinary proceedings. However, only being charged was enough for the ANC to suspend its secretary-general Ace Magashule, who this week lost his bid to have the case against him quashed. He must now have his day in court. The “rush” in suspending him, however, now raises a number of issues, one being that the party has failed to act consistently, especially in light of the Dlamini matter. Other…

Foreign ministers from Russia and China yesterday condemned what they called illegal and counter-productive Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its action in Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where China was set to host two days of meetings on Afghanistan. The meeting came a little over a month after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in what it calls a special operation, triggering unprecedented Western sanctions. Russia is looking to China for support and partnerships as it becomes ever-more isolated from global financial systems and supply chains. The ministers had a thorough exchange of views on the situation around Ukraine. “The head of…

Singapore: Singapore has proposed lifting a long-standing ban on women freezing their eggs to have children in later life but campaigners yesterday criticised the policy as not going far enough. The work-obsessed city-state has long battled low fertility rates but with little success. Last year the rate stood at 1.12 babies per woman, compared to a global average of 2.3. Women in many countries choose to freeze their eggs to give them a greater chance of having children in later life. Under current rules in the socially conservative city-state, women can only do so for medical reasons, but calls have been growing for the policy to be loosened.…

IT is Curwin Bosch or bust for the Sharks after the flyhalf was backed for Friday’s United Rugby Championship match against the Dragons in Durban, and now it is time for him to repay the faith shown in him. The 24-year-old’s presence in the Sharks team was much discussed and debated after the 21-5 defeat to Edinburgh in atrocious conditions last week but he continues on Friday and, in fairness, he probably is the best option for coach Sean Everitt at this point with neither Tito Bonilla nor Boeta Chamberlain bashing the flyhalf door down. And then there is the nagging fact that Bosch is one of the most talented players in South Africa and prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Sharks were topping Super Rugby, he…