Indice dei contenuti per 2022-11-10 in Mercury

LEADING alternative stock exchange A2X Markets has grown the number of securities listed on its platform by 55% this year alone. This as it has grown its trade value 40-fold from just R657 million in 2017 to more than R26 billion in its fifth year of operation, despite the many industry regulatory and infrastructural challenges that exist for smaller incumbents. A2X said in a media release yesterday that the potential savings it made available to the financial market to be in the region of R500m per year. This was driven by cost-effective trading fees and the ability to capture price improvement, as a result of the buying and selling of shares at a better price, when brokers transact. “The current savings amount of R500m is set to increase…

Members of the Public Servants’ Association (PSA), who are embarking on a strike over its wage dispute with government, will march from King Dinuzulu Park to the Durban City Hall today. Cosatu said while it supported the strike, it would not join the protest as it still needed to speak with its members. PSA provincial manager Mlungisi Ndlovu said they were expecting thousands of public servants from KwaZulu- Natal to join the protest action. “We will have public servants coming from Paulpietersburg, Dundee, Newcastle, Ladysmith, Howick, Kokstad and Richmond. We are going to have members across South Africa marching today against this wage offer by the government.” Ndlovu said with the rising cost of living and inflation, they were left with no choice but to strike. “We don’t want…

Pope Francis went to Bahrain to promote dialogue with the Arab world and address human-rights abuses in the oil-rich island nation with a Muslim majority. On his final day in Bahrain, he called on the Arab countries to put an end to human-right violations. He also urged the 80 000-strong Catholic congregants to pray for Ukraine and an end to the terrible war. We cannot agree more with the head of the Catholic Church. The Middle East is notorious for its human-rights violations. Capital punishment is still widespread in the Arab world. “An eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth” form part of their penal code. Public hangings, stonings, cutting off of hands and fingers of petty thieves are all part of the Middle East justice system.…

YOUR page 3 story, “Haron family hopes for closure with reopened inquest” (The Mercury, November 8), refers. I’m reminded about what Jacques Pauw wrote in his seminal book, In The Heart of the Whore. “Millions of people,” he wrote, “rightly feel extremely nervous about entering a post-apartheid South Africa in which the guardians of peace and order have provided havens for former hit men.” One of Ahmed Timol’s murderers got away by dying just before the criminal case against him got under way. I’m sure there are many who heaved a sigh of relief and thereby hangs the tale of the small fish that got away. We have no closure but feel cheated by our government’s reluctance and lack of political will. It leaves me, for one, to wonder how…

Police are searching for suspects who robbed a cash-in-transit vehicle on the N4 highway yesterday morning. The incident took place between Simon Vermooten off-ramp and Rossouw Street in Pretoria. National police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda said it was alleged the cash delivery truck and its escort vehicle were driving along the N4 route when they were attacked by suspects travelling in multiple vehicles. “Both the escort vehicle and the cash truck collided with the suspects' vehicles. The escort vehicle is reported to have overturned and two security guards were injured in the process. “The driver of the cash truck and his crew member also sustained injuries from the impact. “The suspects allegedly robbed the security guards of their three firearms, a rifle and two pistols before fleeing with an undisclosed…

UGU District Municipality on the South Coast is considering legalising the illegal water connections in its area in an effort to curb rampant theft and generate much-needed revenue. The municipality is losing millions of rand as a result of illegal connections that are compounding the water supply problems. The culprits are “sucking” out the water from the system and depriving other homes of water supply, said municipal manager Dr Elliot Ntombela. He spoke of the challenges the district municipality has faced, saying they had identified issues that had led to the water shortages and implemented steps to improve the situation. The area has faced severe water supply problems that have triggered community protests and threats of legal action from residents. Opposition parties agreed that in the recent past, they had…

A former Transnet executive and managers of a company that did maintenance work for the embattled state-owned entity have each been granted R10 000 bail in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court sitting in Palm Ridge. Kenneth Diedricks, who was Transnet Freight Rail’s head of legal and forensics, appeared with Charles Pretorius and Refiloe Martins, who were both employed by a company called Polyzomba, which did rail maintenance for Transnet. The three are accused of corruption and money laundering. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the former executive allegedly signed off a R25 million payment to the rail maintenance company in 2011 following a contractual dispute without Transnet’s approval. “During 2006 (Transnet Freight Rail) TFR awarded a tender to Polyzomba for the replacement of turnouts/track panels on the railway network.…

BLACK staff and students at Stellenbosch University must be feeling some form of vindication by the scathing findings of the commission of inquiry into allegations of racism at the institution. Those readers familiar with this space would recall our October 27 editorial lamenting the slow pace of transformation at the university, which we described as window-dressing. In fact, the report can be summed up as evolving around the word “transformation”. It’s mentioned 223 times in the 184-page report. Our words were rather kind if the report by retired Justice Sisi Khampempe is anything to go by. She released her report following the commission of Inquiry into alleged racism at the university, established after two major racist incidents this year. The first involved a verbal altercation between two final-year law students…

KATHMANDU: An earthquake in western Nepal killed at least six villagers, four of them children, as the tremor destroyed mud and brick houses in remote communities living in the foothills of the Himalayas. The quake struck in the early hours yesterday. Its epicentre was close to a national park in the Doti district, 430km west of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. Some 536km to the south-west, residents of the Indian capital, New Delhi, were shaken awake by the power of the 5.6 magnitude trembler. Nepal is still rebuilding after two earthquakes in 2015 killed almost 9 000 people, delivering a $6 billion blow to the economy. |…

THE South Africa ‘A’ team will play before a sold-out crowd of 42 000 in Cork tonight after opponents Munster moved the game to a bigger capacity stadium. Munster’s home ground, Thomond Park, has a capacity of 25 000 but with tickets in high demand, the game is being played at the bigger Gaelic Football ground, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, in Cork, and all the tickets disappeared in no time. It will be the first time a rugby match will be played at the stadium, which is the home ground of the Limerick hurling team, and Munster coach Graham Rowntree told reporters that the first time his players set foot in the ground will be for the kick-off. “We won’t train there. I want it to be a special moment,” said…

ACTIVISTS and analysts have expressed growing concern about South Africa’s increasing loans to fund its Just Energy Transition Programme (JETP) following more than R10 billion in loans from European countries. France and Germany have signed loan agreements for the two European nations to each extend €300 million, or a combined least R10.7bn, in concessional financing to South Africa to support the country’s efforts to reduce its reliance on coal through a just transition to cleaner energy sources. The announcement was made yesterday amid the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference, or COP27, in Egypt. The loans are provided by the French and German public development banks, AFD and KfW, directly to the South African government via the National Treasury. They are part of investment plans to the International Partners…

A PROPOSED paint deal between Kansai Paint, the manufacturer of Plascon, and Akzo Nobel (AkzoNobel), the manufacturer of Dulux-branded paint products, was scuppered by the Competition Commission in a bid to protect decorative coatings prices. The deal was announced in June as AkzoNobel sought to further strengthen its African footprint after reaching an agreement with Japanese, Osaka-based Kansai Paint to acquire its paints and coatings activities in the region. The commission, in a statement said yesterday that it had prohi- bited a proposed deal by AkzoNobel, an Amsterdam-based company that manufactures chemicals and chemical products, to acquire Kansai Plascon Africa and Kansai Plascon East Africa as it was likely to result in a substantial prevention or lessening of competition. The commission said it found that the proposed merger would…

An educational psychologist and the KwaZulu-Natal Parents’ Association have urged matric pupils to speak out about any challenges they are facing amid their final exams. This comes after the KZN Department of Education said yesterday that a matric pupil from Umqhele Secondary School in Clermont allegedly died by suicide at home after writing her isiZulu Home Language Paper 1 on Tuesday. KZN Department of Education MEC Mbali Frazer extended her condolences to the pupil’s family, school and community. The department said its psychology services unit must be informed when parents, guardians and teachers came across unusual behaviour patterns in pupils, to avoid such tragedies. Educational psychologist Professor Kobus Maree said while it was not known what happened in this incident, in general pupils in Grades 10 to 12 were inexperienced…

BRITISH aristocrat Lord Lucan, who mysteriously disappeared 48 years ago after battering the family nanny to death with a lead pipe – mistaking her for his wife – is back in the news. Long presumed to have died by now, hiding out with an assumed identity in some remote country, the mystery of how he escaped has never been solved. The early theory that he died by suicide, jumping into the sea at Newhaven, East Sussex, to which he had driven, was torpedoed by a woman who saw him at a party in the Algarve, Portugal, only weeks after the murder. And a review of the case by the London’s Daily Mail now brings an eerie twist. It seems police found in his car three cards from a game called…

Although we take pride in the fact that South Africa is a democratic state after years of enduring apartheid, close to 30 years after independence we are disillusioned and despondent with the reality of a “dream unfulfilled”. The nation is on the brink of a disaster waiting to happen, fuelled by the downgrading of the quality of governance and the progressive widening of the quality of lives of the people. Aware of the deep schism within society of the socio-economic conditions and more particularly deepening poverty, our leaders are promising a better life for all through mitigating measures such as increasing grants and providing other monetary support, creating an “expectation” that poverty and other socio-economic ills like lack of housing, education, employment and health will be a thing of the…

The DA has established that KwaZulu-Natal’s Disaster Management Centre is operating at about 50% capacity, with 17 out of 35 posts vacant. To make matters worse, 13 of the 17 posts are classified as critical. The information forms the basis of a written parliamentary reply by Cogta MEC Sihle Zikalala, to questions by the DA. The DA is deeply concerned by this revelation. As a province, KZN has more than its fair share of natural disasters and this is supposed to be the nerve centre for all operations relating to such incidents. That it is functioning at half of its capacity is unacceptable. The DA demands answers from the MEC about how the situation was able to develop. The finding comes at a time when our province is trying to…

The DA in Gauteng has welcomed the re-election of Tania Campbell as Ekurhuleni mayor. She was initially voted out in a motion of no confidence two weeks ago. However on Tuesday she returned to the position after securing 124 votes to the ANC candidate’s 99. Her victory means the EFF, with 31 council seats in Ekurhuleni, backed the DA and snubbed the ANC’s candidate, Jongizizwe Dlabathi. Before Campbell was re-elected, drama unfolded in council chambers when the EFF withdrew its candidate for the mayorship just before voting. EFF councillor Nkululeko Dunga, who is also the EFF’s provincial chairperson in Gauteng, had been in the running to become the new mayor. However, Dunga withdrew his nomination after the ANC nominated Dlabathi for the position. It is understood the EFF, which had…

The Department of Home Affairs says its Branch Appointment Booking System (Babs) is helping to eliminate long queues at branches. The portfolio committee on Home Affairs was briefed this week on the progress being made to deal with the issue of long queues at Home Affairs offices using Babs. The department launched the system in June, in an effort to improve service delivery to clients. Babs is currently active in 163 front offices. By the end of this month, it was expected all modernised offices would have a booking system. The department also expanded its footprint and entered public-private partnership with banks, with 27 bank branches currently operational and available to service Home Affairs clients. The department said it envisaged rolling out the service to a further 43 sites once…

Thakasani Khumalo SMALL-SCALE and commercial sugar cane farmers in KwaZulu-Natal have welcomed the news that a payment agreement has been reached between members of the South African Canegrowers Association and the business rescue practitioners of Tongaat Hulett. In a statement, SA Canegrowers Association chairperson Andrew Russell said the agreement covered payments still outstanding to cane growers and industry service providers as well as the payments that would become due at the end of November for the cane delivered in October 2022. An affected sugar cane farmer from Felixton in Empangeni, John Mzimela, said he had not heard about the agreement but if it was true then it was good news for them. “That is good news, even though I have not been paid yet. I know that they started to…

CLIMATE change is bringing to the forefront of the public conscience the critical issues about the linkages between human rights and the environment. African cities are at the mercy of the weather and other forces of nature, with the continent being vulnerable to frequent storms, cyclones, and droughts. As these extreme weather events become more common, there must be a more concerted effort to safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable. Governments across the continent are falling behind in their obligations to protect the rights of persons in the face of climatic change. As a result, people – especially those displaced by armed conflicts or climate change itself – continue to suffer under despicable conditions. There is potential here to descend into a dual crisis with human rights becoming a…

Republican hopes for a sweeping rebuke of President Joe Biden in congressional elections failed to materialise, with both parties picking up seats following a campaign fought against a backdrop of stubbornly high inflation and fears for US democracy. Republicans needed one seat to wrest control of the evenly divided Senate but by yesterday the only one to change party hands went to the Democrats, with John Fetterman, a burly champion of progressive economic policies, triumphing in Pennsylvania. In the House of Representatives, early results suggested Republicans were on track to wrest control from Democrats – but only by a handful of seats, a far cry from their predictions. Top Republican Kevin McCarthy – who hopes to be the lower chamber’s next speaker – struck an upbeat note as he addressed…

Athens: Public transport in the Greek capital was severely disrupted yesterday and television and radio news went off-air after unions called a general strike to protest price hikes amid spiralling inflation. Athens’ busy roads were all but empty, with the walkout affecting bus, underground, tram and suburban train services as well as taxis. Boat services from the mainland to the Ionian Islands and those in the Aegean Sea were also halted by the industrial action. It is the second such strike in Greece since September. Energy-linked price hikes have sent inflation soaring. Unions are insisting on the need for salary increases. |…

MSUNDUZI Municipality has launched a forensic investigation after employees were suspended for allegedly siphoning money off workers’ salaries, and accepting bribes from consumers to scrap their debts. The municipality in Pietermaritzburg yesterday confirmed the suspension of 21 staff members who are now the subject of an internal probe into wrongdoing which involves thousands of rand. The suspended staff members are from the Budget and Treasury Division within the Finance Business Unit, while others are from the Community Services Businesses Unit. Municipal spokesperson Ntobeko Mkhize said the officials were suspended on various dates during the period from July to October this year. “The business unit received tip-offs from consumers and also identified wrongdoing through their own internal detection processes. Some suspensions relate to wrongdoing identified at the work site of the…

The Ferrari driven to five race victories by Michael Schumacher during his World Championship-winning 2003 Formula 1 season was put on auction yesterday in Geneva, auction house Sotheby’s said. The red “Chassis 229” Ferrari raced by German world champion driver Schumacher nine times could fetch up to $9.4 million (about R167m), according to the sellers. “It’s ... special because this car is one of the only four cars with more than four wins in Ferrari history and especially with one of the most skilled drivers of his generation, Michael Schumacher,” said Vincent Luzuy, executive assistant to the director of RM Sotheby’s sales. He said the target market were race course buyers, since the car is “track-ready”, as well as art collectors. Sotheby’s is also presenting eight rare “Fancy Blue” diamonds…

On the morning of Saturday, November 5, I drove through the intersection of uMgeni and Sandile Thusi roads in Durban. The traffic lights were out. This is a major intersection and there was significant traffic on all arms. A couple of “volunteers” were directing traffic within the intersection and, as so often happens, some drivers were obeying their directions and others were ignoring them. This resulted in a dangerous situation, so much so that I was afraid to cross the intersection as I had intended and, after doing what Mrs Google calls “recalculating”, turned left instead. After leaving the intersection and travelling about 200m along uMgeni Road, I was “pulled over” by a metro police officer manning a “roadblock” (old car, old driver, pull him over every time). The roadblock…

YOU may not be an expert in ancient biblical languages (I am not) but you are probably an expert in the Beatitudes, if you have heard them or not. The Beatitudes refers to the prologue in Jesus’ best known sermon. Meet them wrapped in a real person and you know it immediately. The finer nuances of “poor in spirit” may elude you but the counter – brashness, arrogance, haughtiness – are obvious. Humility and gentleness are attractive, easy to discern. Their opposites, as unattractive as they are, you know just as quickly. You may not be a biblical scholar but in seconds you recognise meekness, and its absence. You know who among you is exerting unnecessary power just because they can. Such people can’t hide from you. Same goes for…

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has postponed its meeting on matters related to SAA, including the sale of 51% shares, at the request of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. Gordhan wrote to committee chairperson Mkhuleko Hkengwa on Friday, asking for a postponement. “Please note that late this week, I was requested by the president to accompany him on a state visit to Kenya, from the November 8-9. This will clash with your planned meeting, at which I would have wanted to be present,” he wrote. Gordhan requested a postponement so he could attend the meeting on his return, since the SAA-Takatso transaction was being led by his department. Hlengwa confirmed that the meeting was postponed. “The minister is in Kenya, and the meeting is rescheduled for November 15,”…

The man dubbed the Ekurhuleni “monster” has been found guilty in the Pretoria High Court, sitting in Palm Ridge, of 90 counts of rape, four counts of compelled rape, three counts of compelling or causing a child to witness a sexual act, 43 counts of kidnapping, two counts of assault as well as four counts of theft. Gauteng spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority, Lumka Mahanjana, said Nkosinathi Emmanuel Phakathi committed the offences in and around Ekurhuleni from 2012 until 2021, when he was arrested. “Most of his victims were schoolgoing children, the youngest being 9, while the oldest was a 44-year-old female,” Mahanjana said. “Initially, Phakathi was facing 203 charges. However, the State withdrew 55 minor charges. In court, Phakathi pleaded guilty to 148 charges and his guilty…

THE eThekwini Municipality has announced that it has recently acquired buildings to house flood victims and that plans to close all mass shelters were at an advanced stage. The municipality said progress was being made to permanently move all displaced residents from mass care centres and provide them with decent transitional accommodation. EThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda will unveil some of the buildings that were recently acquired by the municipality to house flood victims in oThongathi today. “One of the buildings to be unveiled will accommodate victims from three mass care centres. Some of the families have already moved into the building. “Mayor Kaunda will also provide a detailed update on the work being undertaken by the municipality to fast-track the repairs of sewer infrastructure,” said mayoral spokesperson Mluleki Mntungwa. The…

HAVE you ever noticed that, at first glance, everything looks normal in all the best horror movies? It is a classic scene of the South African spring season. Look at the events leading to the ANC’s 55th national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg in December: candidates campaigning in branch meetings across the country, social media buzzing with slate tables emblazoned with candidates’ smiling faces, and other behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings. Even the predicted election outcome fits a template as familiar as blossoming plants. Most experts agree that most delegates will re-elect party president Cyril Ramaphosa, even though he will probably lead a sharply divided executive committee. He will return because he is the incumbent leader – and incumbent leaders almost always secure re-election – and because times are uniquely tough for the…

Iran has warned Britain it will “pay” for what it labelled as actions to desta- bilise the Islamic republic amid the protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, state media reported yesterday. Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib also accused Iran’s major regional rival, Saudi Arabia, of financing media outlets behind the wave of unrest, now in its eighth week, state news agency IRNA reported. Iran said Britain harbours hostile Persian-language media reporting on the protests sparked by the death of Amini, 22, following her arrest by the morality police for an alleged breach of Iran’s dress code for women. “In recent events, the involvement of the British in the propaganda, and the Saudi regime in the financing, was more than obvious,” the minister was quoted as saying. “Unlike Britain, we will never…