Table of contents for 2022-02-23 in Mercury

Dieketseng Maleke dieketseng.maleke@inl.co.za Mining giant Kumba Iron Ore yesterday reported a stellar performance as it delivered record earnings of R64 billion for the year ended December 31 on the back of higher iron ore prices and cost-cutting measures. Kumba, majority owned by Anglo American, yesterday declared a R30.50 per share final dividend bringing the total dividend for its 2021 financial year to R103.20 per share representing 100 percent of its headline earnings − 46 percent higher year-on-year. Its headline earnings per share was R103.65 for the year ended December 31, from R71.07 in 2020. Kumba’s new chief executive, Mpumi Zikalala, said yesterday that 2021 was an exceptional year of delivery across the business. Zikalala is the former De Beers Consolidated Mines CEO and was appointed Kumba…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za OPPOSITION parties in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature have questioned the government’s respect for Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini and the Zulu royal family when it comes to addressing official government functions. This after KZN legislature speaker Nontembeko Boyce announced yesterday that the king would not address the first sitting of the legislature tomorrow, or any other sitting, until he has been officially recognised by the president and his coronation has taken place. Giving an update on the preparations for the State Of Province Address (Sopa), Boyce said that a thorough consultation between the legislature and the Zulu royal family had taken place over the past few days. The consultation, Boyce added, enabled the legislature to clarify the legal challenge that could have arisen if King Misuzulu had addressed the…

South African history is replete with the gross marginalisation of black thinkers, leaders, warriors, freedom fighters and men and women of exemplary fortitude across the ages. Despite the best will in the young yet visionary progressive scholarship and political agitations commonly known as decoloniality, Africans and their major contribution in human progress and key moments of our history are largely erased or reduced to inconsequential accidents of their times. The life of towering African Christian missionary convert, cultural interpreter, visual artist, teacher, peace emissary, printing manager and writer Magema Magwaza Fuze is a typical story of the untold injustices and the pernicious results of colonial and racist historiography. How many South Africans today remember, let alone know, Magema kaMagwaza Fuze, who also called himself Skelemu (uma ezibongela)? We raise Fuze’s…

YUGEN MOODLEY | ADeC community activist I want to congratulate Mr Raymond Rampersadh, head of Durban Solid Waste (DSW), for taking a decisive decision to dismiss all staff who were embarking on an illegal strike if they didn’t return to work. It’s about time DSW and other service delivery departments take decisive action against employees for non-compliance, incompetence, intimidation and lack of respect for management. The unions cannot hold these management officials to ransom when they have a duty to perform. If these managers find their staff are abusing overtime, not meeting their targets, etc, then an incapacity charge should be instituted against these employees whereby dismissal should be the sanction. The Labour Relations Act is very clear and it seems that the municipality’s human resources department…

Mercury Reporter WORLD-RENOWNED speaker and author John Sanei will speak about TransForMotion, or the transition we are all going through, at the Regent Business School event next week. Sanei, who touches on human psychology, neuroscience, quantum science, futurism and business strategy in his talks, will be the first keynote speaker at the event at Durban’s Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani hotel on February 28. The event will give the audience the last opportunity to hear Sanei speak before he moves to Dubai. Regent Business School managing director Dr Ahmed Shaikh will give the second keynote address. Shaikh, a respected and progressive academic, has made waves with his innovative, disruptive and dynamic approach to business. Shaikh said: “John Sanei is an author, speaker and trend specialist who is fascinated with what…

Se-Anne Rall se-anne.koopman@inl.co.za Police are on the hunt for nine suspects after Monday’s deadly shoot-out in Rosettenville in Joburg’s south. It is alleged that at least 25 heavily armed men were on their way to carry out a cash-in-transit heist (CIT) when they were intercepted by police. Eight suspects were killed and 10 more were arrested. They included Botswana and Zimbabwe nationals and four men from KwaZulu-Natal. Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) spokesperson Grace Langa said police were on the hunt for nine more suspects. She said that due to the shoot-out taking place between police and the gang, Ipid was mandated to take over the investigation. Ipid has confirmed that five police officers were seriously wounded. It said the claim that one officer had died was not true. Speaking…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za CO-OPERATIVE Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has said that ending the national state of disaster was dependent on various factors, including the Health Department taking over the regulation of the Covid-19 pandemic. Dlamini Zuma said the national state of disaster was introduced because neither the department nor other departments had sufficient legislation and regulatory powers in their own legislation to do what was supposed to be done. “Besides looking at the pandemic itself, if it were to disappear, of course, we would end the national state of the disaster almost immediately. “For now Health has been looking at its own regulations to see how to strengthen them and take over the regulation of the pandemic, but also other departments are doing the same,” she…

TYGERBERG hospital, yesterday, became the first government hospital in South Africa to perform robotic surgery with the launch of its da Vinci surgical robotic programme. Two da Vinci Xi systems – the fourth generation and most technologically advanced surgical robot available – were acquired by the provincial government in October last year. The main diseases the programme will focus on are colorectal, liver, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers, and women with severe endometriosis. The system gives surgeons an advanced set of instruments to use in performing robotic-assisted keyhole or minimally invasive surgery. The hospital said in a statement that the operation is not performed by a robot alone. The system gives surgeons an advanced set of tools/instruments that the surgeon guides from a dedicated console via fibre optic cables. The…

This sector tends to have a higher impact on jobs than other economic activities WE HAVE a strong base on which to rebuild and expand the tourism sector in South Africa, and our work is cut out for us. In the recent past, I’ve had the privilege of truly experiencing the promise of our tourism sector. Firstly, our visit to Expo 2020 in Dubai was defined by deep and rich engagements with serious global stakeholders. We saw hoteliers and airline executives who took the opportunity to meet with us to affirm their interests and commitment to invest in and support our tourism sector. Since that trip, I have been delighted to interact with local stakeholders in Cape Town, an engagement made more remarkable because it was held at a hotel…

MOSCOW/DONETSK: Russia faced the prospect of harsh new Western sanctions yesterday after President Vladimir Putin recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine and ordered the deployment of troops there, deepening Western fears of a major war in Europe. Ukraine said two soldiers had been killed and 12 wounded in shelling by pro-Russian separatists in the east in the past 24 hours, and reported new hostilities yesterday morning. A journalist saw tanks and other military hardware moving through the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk overnight, but no insignia were visible on the vehicles. Western leaders are trying to work out what Putin will do next, and whether Russia plans a full-scale invasion of Ukraine after massing troops near the borders of its ex-Soviet neighbour. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country might…

The Arab Spring has drawn scrutiny to the wealth Arab elites had stashed abroad. A leak of bank data reveals how figures linked to regimes in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, and elsewhere held hundreds of millions at Credit Suisse before and after the uprising. Credit Suisse customers included heads of state, royal families, ministers, spy chiefs, and government-connected businessmen from across the Arab world, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project said in a report. The account holders came from over half-a-dozen countries hit by the Arab Spring protests, including Syria, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Jordan. These accounts, which provide a glimpse into the wealth held abroad by Arab elites in the decade before the uprising, were worth at least $1 billion (R15.15bn held in just one Swiss bank.…

ROME: The Italian coastguard has rescued 573 migrants who were trying to reach Europe aboard two fishing boats in distress. One body was found, which was that of a migrant who died days earlier. The rescue operation took place off the southern Italian coast yesterday. The migrants were transferred to another vessel which will bring them ashore at the port of Augusta in Sicily. They include 59 minors, many of them unaccompanied . Italy has experienced an increase in boat migrants in recent months. The government is struggling to secure an agreement with EU partners on how to deal with the influx.…

Zaahier Adams zaahier.adams@inl.co.za HEINRICH Klaasen issued a timely reminder to the Proteas selectors with a high-quality half-century to propel the Titans to the top of the Cricket SA T20 Challenge table in Gqeberha yesterday. Klaasen was part of the Proteas T20 World Cup squad that just missed out on semi-final qualification in the United Arab Emirates last year. However, he has seemingly slipped off the national radar after being omitted for the ODI series against India at the beginning of the new year. But the hard-hitting right-hander has found good form at St George’s Park over the past fortnight, with his unbeaten 59 yesterday lifting his aggregate to 226 runs at average of 75.33, which placed the former Proteas T20 captain third on the tournament’s run-scorers list. This bodes well…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za Serious allegations of corruption, tenders benefit facilitation, corporate self-gratification and shifting board room chairs are playing out at the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) as the entity remains silent on the progress of a forensic investigation it launched last year. Samsa said in November it had hired independent firm of forensic investigators, Morar Incorporated, to probe allegations of misconduct and whistle-blowing reports. This as three senior executives were suspended since April last on full pay, while the Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula remains mum. The three ejected executives, chief executive Sobantu Tilayi, company secretary Moyahabo Raphadu, and chief human capital officer Lesego Mashishi, were placed on precautionary suspension with pay from April 26, 2021 amid allegations of misconduct. Samsa and the Department of Transport have repeatedly…

Sihle Mavuso sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za ALMOST 10 months before the ANC holds its decisive conference to elect a new leadership that will steer the party in the 2024 general elections, some veterans are frantically trying to stabilise the party. Independent Media understands that some stalwarts have been meeting behind closed doors to hatch possible solutions to unite the party’s factions and avoid another bruising contest at the end of the year. Their fear is understood to be based on lessons learnt from the unity slate that emerged out of Nasrec in 2017 where the Radical Economic Transformation (RET) and CR factions shared the spoils. Some veterans are worried that such a move may not work as all the factions did not work together to bring stability. Instead, they continued to pull in…

VISVIN REDDY | Morningside The outcome of the National Water and Sanitation Summit, held over the weekend, is an attempt to address the water crisis facing South Africa. The 2002 National Water Strategy document warned that by 2025, South Africa would not be able to meet the water requirements of its population. Speaking after the conference, water expert Professor Anthony Turton said South Africa ran out of water in 2002. Financial instability, ageing and inadequate infrastructure, contaminated dams, lakes and rivers, lack of co-ordination by stakeholders, including government departments in the sector, have worsened the situation. The summit resolved to set strict time lines to improve the state of water and sanitation service delivery. Water Minister, Senzo Mchunu, will be tabling the resolutions of the summit on…

PEOPLE asked if I was nervous, even scared, when I left the hospital as a single man with my sons when they were very young babies. I was not at all afraid. Both occasions were moments of holy awe. I got a lot of similar questions: Did my babies’ sizes, vulnerability, fragility make me nervous? Did I feel like I’d break them when they were so tiny? Was I concerned that I would do the wrong thing, even damage them? I was asked questions no one would dare ask a mother unless they were surely kidding. Perhaps the most staggering was the suggestion the baby would go hungry and I wouldn’t know it and he’d starve while I slept through infant appeals for baby formula. “Mothers just know; it comes…

Registration for returning students at the Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) will only open tomorrow. Registration was meant to open on Monday. Mbali Mkhize, MUT senior director of marketing and communications, said the registration period would end on March 2. The university advised returning students not to travel to campus but to make use of the online registration facility when registration opens. On Saturday, acting Registrar for MUT, Phumzile Masala, attributed the postponement to the list of National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funded students being received late on February 18 from NSFAS. “Work on the list to clear these students for registration requires three working days.” MUT said registration for new students was continuing, with more than 1 812 new students having been registered since February 14. The academic…

Siyabonga Mkhwanazi siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is facing mounting calls not to deliver an austerity budget today as the country struggles to grow the economy and create jobs. The EFF will march on Parliament before Godongwana delivers his Budget speech. It will be his maiden Budget since he took over from former minister Tito Mboweni in August last year. The Budget Justice Coalition yesterday called on Godongwana to abandon any austerity budget, saying the focus must be on job creation and cushioning the poor. It said this was an opportunity for Godongwana to table a pro-poor budget. But the DA, IFP and Good Party said this was one of the toughest Budgets, in which Godongwana would have to get his priorities right. DA MP Dion George said Godongwana would…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za PARLIAMENT will soon start a process to appoint an external evidence leader for the impeachment inquiry into the fitness of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to hold public office. This after the committee decided to push ahead with the inquiry despite Mkhwebane asking for the impeachment proceedings to be put on hold pending her rescission application to the Constitutional Court. The court recently ruled that Mkhwebane be granted full legal representation during the proceedings. Yesterday, the committee heard that Mkhwebane wrote to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Monday notifying of her intention to apply to the Constitutional Court for the rescission of certain parts of its order. Parliamentary legal adviser Siviwe Njikela said Mkhwebane asked that Parliament put on hold the impeachment process pending her rescission application.…

IF THERE was one thing to be optimistic about in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, it would be his self-imposed target of 100 days to finalise a “comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger”. It would have been commendable if this was a country with no pressing needs that required urgent attention. It’s somewhat strange that the president, who has been at the helm of the country for almost five years, is only now realising the urgency required in addressing the needs of the majority of people in the country. Whether this is just more Ramaphosa talk, is another topic for another day. The point is that it would be news to us and possibly many South Africans if the president did…

At least seven people were killed and 12 others injured yesterday in a blast inside a fireworks factory in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The blast took place at a unit at Bathri industrial area in Una district, about 150km north-west of Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh. “Today an explosion took place inside a fireworks factory here, in which seven people were killed on the spot and 12 others injured, 10 of them critically,” an official at Himachal Pradesh State Emergency Operation Centre said. “The explosion triggered a fire inside the factory.” According to the official, the injured were admitted to the nearest medical facility. Following the incident, rescue teams and firefighters were rushed to the scene and brought the fire under control. The victims are said to…

Canberra: Australian homes, businesses and communities need billions of dollars more in government funding to cope with worsening extreme weather conditions, according to the nation’s insurance industry. A report released yesterday by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) said the federal government’s natural disaster funding should be doubled to A$200 million (about R2.2 billion) a year and that the figure should be matched by the nation’s six state and two territory governments for the next five years. “Insurers are at the frontline when it comes to climate change and extreme weather,” said Andrew Hall, head of the Sydney-based ICA.…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za EMPLOYEES in eThekwini Municipality have spoken out about security concerns after one of their colleagues was gunned down in his office at the Water and Sanitation depot in Springfield. The employee, who was a superintendent and movement controller in charge of municipal vehicles at the depot, was shot on Monday afternoon. The Mercury was unable to track down the victim’s family yesterday. It was not immediately clear whether his relatives had been informed of his death, and his name has not been released publicly. “The workers are tense at the depot today, they not only heard the gunshots but they went there and they saw him. There have been other incidents, but he was shot in his office, you can imagine how that makes us feel. They…

NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully completed the first year since touching down on Mars in February 2021. Weighing roughly 1 025 kg, Perseverance is the heaviest rover ever to safely land on Mars. The six-wheeled scientist has provided many insights on the Red Planet. The rover served as an indispensable base station for Ingenuity, the first helicopter on Mars, and tested MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment), the first prototype oxygen generator on the Red Planet, Nasa said. Perseverance also recently broke a record for the most distance driven by a Mars rover in a single day, travelling almost 320 metres on February 14, 2022, the 351st Martian day, or sol, of the mission. And it performed the entire drive using AutoNav, the self-driving software that allows Perseverance to…

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN | Kloof Alcohol abuse is a major social problem worldwide. It has become a headache for loved ones, families and social welfare organisations. Consumed in moderate amounts alcohol can uplift your spirits, albeit for a while, and liven up a party. But so many of us don’t know when to stop. The one for the road often leads to tragedy. The effects of alcohol on society were clearly seen during the lockdown. When the sale of alcohol was banned, hospitals breathed a sigh of relief. Trauma patients from road accidents and violent crime and sexual assaults declined sharply. But as soon as the ban was lifted, doctors and nurses were run off their feet, attending to the spike in casualties. Who were they to give priority…

THE peacock: A splendid, colourful creature, the male spreading his tail in courtship, one of nature’s marvels. The peacock: A dreadful noisy, squawling menace who pecks at cars, drops his dung on cars, builds untidy, unsightly nests and intimidates entire neighbourhoods. There’s a big debate in South Florida, in the US, according to Associated Press. A commission has agreed to loosen a law protecting the birds, which was passed 20 years ago. Cities will be allowed to opt out if they are able to present appropriate plans to humanely remove them from localities where they have become a nuisance. “Mating season is when we get the most complaints. They get very aggressive,” says commissioner Raquel Regalado, whose district includes suburbs where peacocks roam freely. “They lay their eggs, they…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za The Department of Justice and Correctional Services must pay up after a woman fractured her arm when she slipped and fell on a veranda at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria. The incident happened as the machine with which an inmate was cleaning the floor sprayed soapy water into her path. Judge Norman Davis, sitting at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, ordered that the department was 80% liable for the damages Sandra Kleinhans could prove that she had suffered. She was 20% liable for her fall, he said, because she saw that the inmate was cleaning the floor. While she realised it may be slippery, she did not ask her son-in-law, who was with her, for assistance, nor did she hold on to something while…

Three in four people worldwide want single-use plastics to be banned as soon as possible, according to a poll released yesterday, as UN members prepare to begin talks on a global treaty to rein in soaring plastic pollution. The percentage of people calling for bans is up from 71% since 2019, while those who favoured products with less plastic packaging rose to 82% from 75%, the Ipsos poll of more than 20 000 people across 28 countries showed. Activists say the results send a clear message to governments meeting in Nairobi this month to press ahead with an ambitious treaty to tackle plastic waste, a deal touted as the most important environmental pact since the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015. “People worldwide have made their views clear,” said…

Yogashen Pillay yogashen.pillay@inl.co.za THE KwaZulu-Natal Parents’ Association has called for tough action against learners that commit criminal acts. This follows the arrest of a 15-year-old pupil who allegedly fatally stabbed a 17-year-old pupil at a school in Verulam on Thursday last week. The National Association of School Governing Bodies said that communities must work with police to end violence in schools. Vee Gani, the chairperson of the KZN Parents’ Association, said the organisation was very worried about the safety of children at schools. “The safety of children should not be compromised. There is so much going on; pupils have just returned to full-time learning, there are more engagements among learners, and even though there can be disagreements between learners, it is not acceptable for a learner to commit a criminal…

Nomonde Zondi nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za THE Parents’ Association and National Association of School Governing Bodies are calling for disciplinary action against pupils participating in the TikTok #SchoolsChallenge that has seen pupils climbing on building roofs and teachers’ vehicles. The TikTok #SchoolChallenge started in January when pupils went back to school. As part of participating in the challenge, pupils would carry various household items to school instead of their backpacks. The challenge gained momentum and went viral when pupils started climbing on top of their educators’ vehicles and on school rooftops. Some would put their books in wheel barrows, prams and supermarkets trolleys. Vee Gani, a chairperson of Parents Association in KZN, said the children were destroying state property and risking their safety and that of others. “This is not acceptable, these kids…

Staff Reporter THE Youth Business Chain is concerned about “the politically motivated racial profiling of the progressive Sekunjalo Group and other black-owned companies” and has called on companies owned by young people to suspend their trading with such banks “if this frivolous behaviour continues”. It said in a statement: “We are highly aware that there is a political agenda to collapse anything related to the Sekunjalo Investment Group, also posing a huge risk to collapsing more than 40 000 jobs of mostly young people employed in this group.” The Youth Business Chain called for the establishment of a state-owned commercial bank, stating that the big four banks in South Africa were “controlled by politicians to suit their ambitions”. “This is where the problem started, instead of changing the banking…

Passenger traffic at Dubai international airport, the world’s busiest, would not recover to pre-Covid levels before 2024, its CEO said yesterday. Traffic remains “nowhere near pre-pandemic levels” despite rising to 29.1 million passengers last year, Dubai Airports chief Paul Griffiths said. The figures announced yesterday, up 12.7% from 2020, mean that Dubai remains the world’s busiest airport for the eighth consecutive year. However, it is still a long way from the 86 million passengers seen in 2019, before the pandemic ravaged the air industry. “We are nowhere near the pre-pandemic levels,” said Griffiths, adding that Dubai had weathered the storm better than many other airports. “I think it’s gratifying that for the eighth year we are the world’s busiest international airport,” he said. Passenger figures collapsed to 25.9 million…

Bogotá: In a 5-4 decision, Colombia’s Constitutional Court voted to decriminalise abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Monday’s decision expands on a 2006 ruling allowing for abortions in the cases of rape, a risk to the mother’s life, or an unviable fetus. Since the 2006 abortion ruling in Columbia, some 400 criminal cases a year have been opened over women seeking or receiving an abortion in the nation. Without access to legal abortion, only 12% of the nearly 400 000 abortions in Colombia occur in official health centres. As a result, at least 70 women die every year undergoing an unsafe or unsanitary procedure.…