Table of contents for 2021-08-31 in Mercury

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za SUPER Group shareholders will be delighted after the group yesterday announced its first dividend since 2007 of 47 cents per share for the year to June 30. Chief financial officer Colin Brown said in a telephone interview that the divi- dend followed an outstanding performance by the group for the year to June 30, in spite of the Covid-19 crisis and other challenges in the countries in which it operates, with headline earnings per share up 88.8 percent to 285.4c. “The past 12 years has seen shareholders’ equity grow from R1.2 billion at June 2009 to the current level of R13.8bn, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 22.6 percent,” said group chief executive Peter Mountford. During this time, financial leverage, represented by…

HEALTH authorities are on high alert after the detection of the highly mutated coronavirus strain, C.1.2. In a media briefing last night, experts from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said C.1.2 had been detected in all provinces at relatively low frequency since May. While the C.1.2 lineage shares a few common mutations with the Beta and Delta variants, the new lineage is between 44-59 mutations away from the original Wuhan virus. NICD Principal Medical Scientist Jinal N Bhiman said this has raised alarm. “While the Delta variant continues to dominate infection, C.1.2 has been detected at low frequencies, less than 3% of sequences. “It shares some mutations with the other variants of concern (VOC) or variants of interest (VOI), but also unique mutations that flagged our attention. It…

FAROUK ARAIE | Gauteng The tragic killing of Babita Deokaran is an act of savagery that must be condemned by the nation, and its law-abiding citizens. If the government does not protect whistle-blowers and their identities, murderous assaults like these will become common. Our march against corruption stumbles on flawed law execution. The National Prosecuting Authority needs to extend every possible protection to whistle-blowers as theirs is an altruistic act. The protection of whistle-blowers is a necessary element of a coherent strategy to combat corruption, which includes other measures to create an ethical culture in the public and financial sectors. It was well known investigative journalist, Ida B Wells, who said: “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Babita Deokaran was…

KEVIN GOVENDER | Shallcross From the monochrome grey of hollow blocks and mortar to the perenial green pitches of football fields – that’s the rococo trim of sexy and sassy Durban empress, Shauwn Mkhize, who has just splashed R50 million on purchasing Bloemfontein Celtic FC – now renamed Royal AM FC. The AM is an obvious reference to her beloved son, Andile Mpisane. With all her political connections, it would have been more appropriate if it was called Royal ANC FC. She was married to former metro policeman Sbu Mpisane, and divorced in 2019. The Mpisanes were famous for throwing lavish parties of breathtaking excess, and taking partying to unparalleled swashbuckling levels. Politicians and well-connected influential people attended these soirees at their palatial La Lucia mansion. Endowed with…

I have lived in Indiana since January 1990. A little arithmetic will reveal I have lived almost as much of my life in the US as I have in South Africa. Nonetheless, there’s an indelible longing within some immigrants for home. I cannot possibly be the only one. Nolan Smith, formerly of Beachwood Boys’ High School, and now also a long-time fellow resident in Indiana, lives about an hour from my home. When Nolan calls and invites me for dinner, I drop everything and go. No matter how inconvenient or how horrific I know the traffic may be, I go. When together, Nolan and I can rehash endless irrelevancies, including the merging of Durban North high schools and his strong but misled opinion of how to make the best bunny…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE municipal manager of uMngeni Municipality has been suspended following serious allegations of personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement irregularities. A Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report revealed that Thembeka Cibane was allegedly at the centre of a R20 million PPE procurement scandal, where council funds were irregularly spent. Sources at the municipality, who were present at a meeting where the SIU report was tabled, said the allegations against Cibane include that she allegedly forged a council resolution giving authority to spend the money. She is also facing accusations of not following supply chain processes, and paying companies without authorisation. Cibane is also accused of allowing junior officials to lead the Covid-19 procurement process without a council resolution, while their seniors were “overlooked”. ANC councillors that spoke to The…

Son of Fort Calata, one of Cradock Four, was only three when his father was murdered Koert Meyer NO PARENT can bear to become aware, day after day, of the ordeals other parents’ children have gone through, and are still going through, at the hands of heartless folks who believe it is right to kill and abduct them, and so little is done to stop them. From the beginning of time this misfortune that befell them has gripped humanity. When Christ died on the cross, his mother was there, not able to help him. The day that unknown South American freedom fighter was executed he had written that world-famous poem, Mother was there. And he ended it off by comparing his ordeal with that of Christ’s mother who was…

Lagos: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has called for communities to unite to ease tensions after violence in a flashpoint central city killed dozens of people. Jos, in Plateau State, has in the past suffered from clashes between Muslim and Christian communities, although local officials say recent attacks are the work of criminals rather than religious violence. At least 23 Muslim travellers were killed earlier this month when their bus convoy was attacked outside Jos. Police suspected a Christian militia. Just over a week later, gunmen descended on a predominantly Christian village on the outskirts of the city, shooting dead at least 18 people and setting homes on fire.…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za SHARES in Sun International were firmer on the JSE yesterday after South Africa’s luxury hotel, casino and online sports betting operator turned the corner with less debt and improved income from its operations during the half-year ended June 2021 Sun International, which operates Sun City, Table Bay Hotel and the Boardwalk among others, announced a more than 51 percent increase in income from operations to R3.8 billion from R2.5bn a year earlier with adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (Ebidta) to R739 million from R60m. The share price leapt to a high of more than 4 percent yesterday, before moderating to 0.72 percent higher at R18.24 on the JSE. Debt was slashed to R7.6bn from R11.1bn a year earlier,…

Shania Twain’s second marriage has been an “incredible restrengthening of her confidence”. The 55-year-old singer has been married to Frederic Thiebaud since 2011, and she feels “very grateful” to have found love again after her split from first husband Robert John Lange. Speaking about her divorce, she said: “The silver lining during all of that was falling into love with somebody (Frederic). “He has been an incredible support through those difficult times. My second marriage has been an incredible restrengthening of my confidence, of my will to even want to sing again. “It is just amazing, the power of love, and I am very grateful to have found that again. I had been going along and enduring so much of what I had lost for a very long time. “Finding…

Nicola Daniels nicola.daniels@inl.co.za IN A landmark judgment, described as the “verdict to break the culture of silencing victims”, Reverend June Dolley-Major has come out victorious in her fight to publicly name her alleged rapist. The Western Cape High Court found in her favour – stating that the fears of irreparable reputational harm raised by her accused, Anglican church reverend Melvin Booysen, were non-existent. The Women’s Legal Centre (WLC), who were admitted as a friend of the court in July, said the verdict breaks the culture of silencing victims. Booysen had approached the court earlier this year to stop Dolley-Major from naming him on social media, citing that “defamatory statements” had been made against him in the public domain, after she named him as her alleged rapist. The alleged rape took…

SABER AHMED JAZBHAY | Newlands West my learned friend and a progressively-minded aalim (religious cleric) and intellectual, Mohammad Saeed, penned a heart-searing letter, “No parent should go through losing a child” (The Mercury, August 26). He is stoically trying to come to terms with losing his son, Maseehullah, who was killed by a drunk taxi driver. I more than empathise with him for it is not normal for a parent to bury his child, an upright law-abiding and God-fearing young man. God presents the gift of adversity to the ones He loves and tests, at times severely, as He did to his worshipper and friend, the Prophet Ayub (AS) or Job. No amount of justice will replace his son, but what moved me to tears is his immense…

MARY DE HAAS | Durban UNDER no circumstances should eThekwini Municipality be allowed a cent for an “unrest fund” until it gets its finances in order and deals with corruption and irregular conduct in its metro police. The metro police do not even adequately meet their primary mandate – dealing with traffic infringements, and implementing by-laws. The force is ridden with scandals about irregular appointments and abuse of overtime. Ratepayers pay a hefty price for the capture of the municipality by Zuma-aligned ANC councillors led by his key ally, suspended mayor Zandile Gumede, and their Radical Economic Transformation networks, in 2016. The SAPS have been asked to investigate evidence of eThekwini’s employees and resources being involved in the destruction and looting that followed Jacob’s Zuma’s arrest, and reports…

Vernon Mchunu vernon.mchunu@inl.co.za WITH the mining sector bleeding more than R7 billion due to illegal mining every year, Transnet and the Minerals Council of South Africa have agreed on a multipronged strategy to arrest the long-existing threat of “syndicated organised crime”. In a joint statement, the state entity and the country’s mining companies’ representative body said they would “collaborate more closely on security issues, for the implementation of technologies to reduce theft and vandalism of infrastructure and to put a stop to organised syndicates operating the illegal mining”. “(Latest) estimates were that the annual commercial value of illegal mining and illicit dealings in precious metals and diamonds amounted to R7 billion,” said Allan Seccombe, spokesperson for the council. “Illegal mining has a significant economic impact on current mining operations, both…

POLICING authorities in Tshwane teamed up with the SANDF at the weekend and shut more than 20 liquor outlets for contravention of the law. SAPS acting district commissioner Brigadier Abbey Mbangwa Nkhwashu led the operation that also resulted in the arrest of more than 300 people for various crimes. Shebeens were also raided for defying the National Disaster Management Act. Police spokesperson Captain Augustinah Selepe said the law-enforcement agencies conducted inspections on liquor premises to ensure compliance. At least 20 of them were closed down for non-compliance. Some were charged for non-compliance of the Liquor Act and Disaster Management Act. | Mercury Correspondent…

Tarryn-Leigh Solomons tarryn-leigh.solomons@inl.co.za PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says the board of state-owned entity (SOE) Denel has made significant inroads in restructuring it. Gordhan, however, said there was no “quick fix” to the aftermath of state capture. In his response to questions by DA MP Michéle Clarke, Gordhan indicated that one of Denel’s successes was the cumulative cost savings in excess of R1 billion from April 2018 to September 2020. This, he said, was mainly driven by a 27% reduction in employee numbers. In 2019, the board approved Denel’s turnaround plan with the aim of refocusing the business to reduce duplications and dispose of non-core assets. Gordhan said that in addition to the recovery plan, there was the exit of loss-making subsidiaries that could result in an expected annualised saving…

DEBATES in your papers around global warming abound as readers argue whether such a thing really exists, whether it’s just another mindless conspiracy and who or what is to blame if it’s really happening. The carbon footprint, the ozone layer, deforestation, rampant population growth, corporate greed, natural fires, etc, all bounce in and out of these arguments. If we decide to ignore all of these theories as “nonsense” then we need only to look again at some B-grade science fiction movies of old where the future Earth is depicted as heavily laden with a dense opaque fog of some toxic gas, built up over hundreds of years and where survival relies on wearing oxygen tanks outdoors, while indoors has a continuous supply of air, using nuclear-powered generators as solar power…

KWAZULU-NATAL Premier Sihle Zikalala’s failure to impose an appropriate sanction on Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane for defying Covid-19 protocols is a serious blow to the government’s efforts to fight the killer virus. Video footage went viral on social media last week showing Simelane celebrating her birthday and appearing without wearing a mask or practising physical distancing. Announcing his sanction at the weekend, Zikalala said the MEC regretted the failure of guests at the party, including herself, to wear masks. He also ordered that Simelane should within seven days issue a public apology for having been at an event where there was flouting of Covid-19 regulations. Zikalala also announced that 50% of the MEC’s salary would be docked and donated to NGOs involved in the fight against Covid-19 in the Amajuba…

Beijing: Beijing has banned written exams for 6- and 7-year-olds, as part of sweeping education reforms aimed at relieving pressure on pupils and parents in China’s hyper-competitive school system. China’s exam-oriented system previously required students to take exams from Grade 1 onwards. The exams culminated in the feared university entrance exam at age 18 known as the gaokao, where a single score can determine a child’s life trajectory. “Too frequent exams … which cause students to be overburdened and under huge exam pressure”, have been axed by the Ministry of Education, stated the new guidelines released yesterday.…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za MAS REAL ESTATE, the retail property investor in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), has resumed dividends despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and de- clared a dividend of 5.93 euro cents (R1.02) a share for the year to June 30. The group had declined to pay an interim due to Covid-19, and the pandemic was not yet over and vaccination rates in the group’s markets were low compared to Western European averages. However, the group said yesterday that the business had returned to “significant profitability” – it had managed to deal with the Covid-19 fallout in its markets and the group was benefiting from good liquidity. On the JSE, the share price increased 1.68 percent to R18.76 around midday yesterday. Moreover, in its main market, Romania, gross…

The choices we make every day affect the environment, the climate and other species. Many of us may not realise this; but when you drive somewhere you could have walked, throw away something you could have reused or leave electronics plugged overnight, you negatively impact on the planet. The effects of such actions may not be noticeable immediately, but they have long-term, irreversible consequences. Living sustainably helps meet our needs without impacting the planet or compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Here, we explore some easy and practical ways to get you started living more sustainably: Choose reusable alternatives Single-use products, particularly plastic ones cause harm to wildlife and the environment. We can prevent this by choosing reusable alternatives. Start small by using cloth bags…

Sihle Mavuso and Kailene Pillay TWO people appeared in separate magistrate’s courts yesterday charged with instigating the unrest that led to looting and deaths in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last month. One of the accused was granted bail, while the other will remain behind bars for a week pending a bail application. The pair were arrested at the weekend in connection with the looting and burning of Brookside Mall in Pietermaritzburg. The unrest, which spread to Gauteng and left more than 300 people dead and caused billions of rand in damage to the economy, was allegedly sparked by the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma. A woman who allegedly used her social media accounts to incite violence and encourage looting was granted bail yesterday. It was alleged that 36-year-old…

HEINZ DE BOER | DA KZN Spokesperson Economic Development The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) official unemployment statistics for KwaZulu-Natal show that joblessness in our province increased by 2%, from 30.5% in the first quarter of the year to 32.5% during the second quarter. The figures, which reflect conditions between April and June 2021, also show an expanded unemployment rate increase of 0.7% to a staggering 47.1%. What this effectively means is that almost half our province’s citizens are either without work or have given up looking for jobs. Tragically, it is our youth who are most affected. Not even the province’s supposed economic hub, the eThekwini Metro, has escaped the jobs bloodbath, with a 28% increase in unemployment – 84 000 people – quarter on quarter. The…

Scientists last month set foot on a tiny island off the coast of Greenland which they say is the world’s northernmost point of land and was revealed by shifting pack ice. The discovery comes as a battle is looming among Arctic nations, the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway for control of the North Pole about 700km to the north and of the surrounding seabed, fishing rights and shipping routes exposed by melting ice due to climate change. “It was not our intention to discover a new island,” polar explorer and head of the Arctic Station research facility in Greenland, Morten Rasch, said. “We just went there to collect samples.” The scientists initially thought they had arrived at Oodaaq, an island discovered by a Danish survey team in 1978. Only…

BOYS will be boys. An account comes this way from America of a group of fellows who trussed up one of their number and tied him prone to the roof of a truck. Then the rest of the group, including the driver of the truck, donned false moose heads – antlers and all – and drove down the 1-35 interstate highway. It caused some consternation, the sight of mooses (I’ve never been able to work out whether that’s the correct form – mooses or meese) peering out of the windows, a human victim tied up prone on the roof. Were they on their way to a barbecue? Was this the moose revenge? It caused such shock on the 1-35 interstate that there were 16 accidents. The pranksters ended up in…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za eThekwini Municipality wants to regulate e-hailing taxi operations and tighten regulations governing metered taxis, in a bid to eliminate problems in these sectors. The regulations could include licensing requirements for e-hailing operators. The municipality said the current rules governing metered taxis were inadequate and the e-hailing services were not governed by any rules. Rivalry between these industries is rife and have often erupted in violence. The municipality tabled a report at a full council meeting recently, calling for the regulations to be drafted. It said the sector was facing challenges that included market share, processes to assess service demand and supply, processes to guide the granting of operating licences, and roles and responsibilities relating to infrastructure required for metered taxis. The regulations are still to be developed.…

Police have appealed for information from the public to help solve the murder of a 41-year-old policeman who was gunned down on Friday night, and his service pistol stolen. National police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili said that Sergeant Nkosinathi Phindokuhle Ngcobo of Richards Bay SAPS, was gunned down while on duty in the Ndaya area at about 7pm. “It it reported that he was on his way to pick up a fellow SAPS member who resides in the Ndaya area. “The member’s state service pistol, wallet and cellphone were taken by the suspects.” Muridili said that no arrests had been made yet. “We are appealing to anyone with information to call Crime Stop number 086 00 10111 or send tip-offs on MySAPS App.” | Mercury Correspondent…

Thandisizwe Mgudlwa “VOTERS create politicians and then the latter run all our lives, up or down, over the cliff – as in the folktale about the nation of frogs who wanted a king. They asked the stork to be the king and he was happy to oblige: he began to gobble his subjects one by one.” – Es’kia Mphahlele, 1977 One is often reminded of this quote when I think of poor leadership and tyranny committed by elected leaders from across the globe, dead or alive. It sure is very interesting to learn what leads nations to produce the likes of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet, Benitto Mussolini and stuff like that. Many would agree that these men are historical “factory faults” who…

WASHINGTON: A UN watchdog report that North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor reflects an urgent need for dialogue and the US is seeking to address the issue with Pyongyang, a senior administration officials said yesterday. “This report underscores the urgent need for dialogue and diplomacy so we can achieve the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” the official said. “We continue to seek dialogue with the DPRK so we can address this reported activity and the full range of issues related to denuclearisation.”…

Zaahier Adams zaahier.adams@inl.co.za “I AM a big boy now.” That’s how new Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams feels after new coach Hugo Broos appointed the SuperSport United goalkeeper as captain ahead of Al Ahly superstar Percy Tau for the two Fifa World Cup 2022 qualifiers against Zimbabwe and Ghana this coming week. “I think Ronwen has the experience. He is a man that can communicate, that’s very important. On the other side we have Percy, he is obviously more quiet. He has experience of playing in several European leagues, and has the respect of all the players,” Broos said of his new leadership group. Williams, 29, made his national team debut back in 2014 against Brazil, collecting 19 appearances over the seven-year period. He is, though, an experienced leader, having…