Mercury içinde 2023-10-13 için içindekiler tablosu

A HIGH-LEVEL eThekwini Municipality investigation is under way into the disappearance of millions of rand meant to build houses for impoverished City residents displaced by floods. While The Mercury could not confirm the total amount missing, sources believe that it could be as much as R32 million. The investigation, which is being spearheaded by the City’s Integrity and Investigations Unit (CIIU), has left councillors shocked after it surfaced that not a single official had been held accountable. The details around the housing project the money was destined for, and conditions under which it disappeared, are still unclear. However, The Mercury understands that not a single house was built, but at least one company with business addresses in Musgrave and Bergville received some of the payments. Municipal spokesperson Gugu Sisilana…

It’s the mid-Seventies. I am in my twenties and I drive a battered green VW Beetle. It’s the middle of the night and I am making the journey after a music gig that ended at midnight to my destination: Eston’s Camp Jonathan. The dust road portion of the journey seems to accentuate my loneliness and nervousness, as does the thick mist. At a sharp bend, almost hidden, my headlights reveal an elderly man who waves me down. Bent almost double over a “knobkerrie” he ambles out of the light to the passenger door. “How far do you wish to ride? It is such a late hour. Where are you walking at this time?” “Beyond, young man. Beyond, my son. The old man is going beyond,” he utters through the snow-white…

By the time this piece goes to print, most of the concrete structures on that tiny piece of land termed Gaza will have been demolished, flattened out of all existence. Thousands dead and gone. Hundreds of thousands homeless. Gaza was already a refugee camp. Now another “exodus” will have survivors of the constant bombardment scrambling out of there to another “promised land”. So what exactly has been achieved? This inexplicable, instinctive, highly frenzied clutch at “freedom” has been intrinsic in all living creatures since creation. Nobody, nothing, wants to be trapped. History spells it out repeatedly: The proverbial 400 Spartans. All die deliberately to defend a strategic battle position. The legend of Masada – a Jewish fortress whose entire inhabitants choose voluntary suicide rather than to be enslaved by…

Municipalities have been urged to adhere to the provisions of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act when recruiting personnel. Chairperson of the co-operative governance and traditional affairs portfolio committee, Fikile Xasa, said the act provided that a municipal employee dismissed for financial misconduct may not be re-employed in any municipality for 10 years. Xasa said the committee had noted media reports about law-enforcement agencies arresting municipal officials suspected of fraud and corruption. “The Hawks recently arrested three municipal officials in Sekhukhune District Municipality in Limpopo and are looking for more suspects who siphoned R5.4 million from the municipality. “The committee is aware of reports of Amathole District Municipality that has appointed an employee who is facing criminal charges. “There are a number of cases in the North West province, too, where…

The 36.8% unemployment rate among black Africans, who account for 81.4% of the country’s population in the Census 2022, has been described as a ticking time bomb. South Africa’s population increased from 51.7 million in 2011 to more than 62 million in 2022. After black Africans, coloureds made up the second-highest population group, at 8.2%, with whites declining to 7.3%, in 2022 from 8.9% in 2011, while Indians/Asians increased slightly from 2.5% in 2011 to 2.7% in 2022. Compared to their black African counterparts, the unemployment rate among white South Africans was 7.4% in the second quarter of 2023, with a -1.2% year-on-year change. This disparity, according to Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks, was a reminder that South Africa remained the world’s most unequal society. “Our inequality, poverty and unemployment…

Interviews for the new SABC CEO and chief finance officer have been concluded, board chairperson Khathutshelo Mike Ramukumba has said. “It is our anticipation that the board will consider and conclude on that process by the end of this month. There is progress there,” Ramukumba said. He was responding to a question when he appeared with other executives from the SABC, Post Bank and the South African Post Office before the communications and digital technologies portfolio committee. The entities were accounting for their annual reports for the 2022-23 financial year. All obtained disclaimer of audit opinions from Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke when she audited their finances. The SABC had a separate session, where it made a presentation on its turn-around strategy, utilisation of the R3.2 billion bailout it had received and…

Two alleged KwaZulu-Natal cash-in-transit robbers made their first appearance in court this week. Sifiso Nicholas Gwala, 50, and Mondli Clifford Shabalala, 47, were linked to a cash-in-transit heist near the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court in July this year. They appeared in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court this week facing charges of contravening the Explosives Act, cash-in-transit robbery and possession of firearms and ammunition. Directorate for Priority Crimes (Hawks) spokesperson Captain Bonnie Nxumalo said the suspects were remanded in custody. “The matter was postponed to October 17 for a formal bail application.” Nxumalo said the duo were arrested in Ntuzuma by a multi-disciplinary team comprising the Hawks, the SAPS and private security companies. “Police pounced on the suspects, during which two pistols with rounds of ammunition and an undisclosed amount of cash were…

THE ANC manifesto review process launched at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto on September 4 is a listening exercise in a markedly different place 29 years after the first democratic elections. Disapproving community voices say the ANC has not transformed the economy enough to serve the people, and has not sufficiently advanced social transformation to build safer communities. Many ANC leaders appear to have embraced the spirit of critical introspection with the arrogance of a party that used to be in government. Their engagement with the people on the successive election mandates is underwhelming in the face of a festival of complaints about the conditions of South Africa today undisturbed by the lack of contrition for having presided over its decline. The ANC leaders do not like a country shaped by…

Kenya warned yesterday of the risk that groups such as al-Shabaab could carry out attacks in “solidarity” with Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s bloody assault on Israel. The country has suffered a number of attacks carried out by the Somalia-based al-Shabaab since sending troops into its neighbour in 2011 to battle the al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists. “Conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza impacts global security,” Kenya’s counterterrorism police service said on X, formerly Twitter. “Terror groups like al-Shabaab may conduct attacks in solidarity with Hamas to remain relevant. “Kenyans need to be vigilant and report terror activities to police for action,” it added. Al-Shabaab, which has been waging a deadly insurgency for more than 15 years against Somalia’s fragile central government, issued a statement on Wednesday praising the surprise weekend…

BEIJING: The number of births in China tumbled 10% last year to hit their lowest level on record – a drop that comes despite a slew of government efforts to support parents and amid increasing alarm that the country may become demographically imbalanced. China had just 9.56 million births in 2022, according to a report published by the National Health Commission. It was the lowest figure since records began in 1949. The high costs of childcare and education, growing unemployment and job insecurity as well as gender discrimination have all helped to deter many young couples from having children. | Reuters…

THE fishing is really starting to follow the weather with the summer heat getting the fish going. We have had a fairly cold winter with most of the hydration taken with on trips being tea and coffee. Now that summer is rolling around the switch needs to be to electrolyte drinks and water. These can make the difference between needing to end an epic trip early or having "the best fishing day ever!" Remember to pack more than you need just in case. The summer flatfish are here! The start of what will hopefully be an exciting summer season has begun. The north coast is always the first area to produce summer fish and quite honestly, they never really disappear on the upper north coast. Bloodier baits and deep water…

BUSINESSMAN Brett Lang, former operator of the now-defunct Executive Turbine Aviation (ETA) in Johannesburg, has shared his ordeal at the hands of South Africa’s banks, claiming they are engaged in a nefarious network of mutual protection and ruthless tactics. In a recent interview, Lang likened his experience to that of Dr Iqbal Survé and the Sekunjalo Group of Companies, who have been locked in a high-stakes battle against major banks. Lang, a staunch supporter of Survé and his “David vs Goliath” showdown with the banking giants, disclosed that he endured similar heavy-handed tactics and witnessed the banks’ attempts to cripple Dr Survé’s Independent Media. Lang now finds himself without a bank account, as the banks seized his assets and funds. Lang said: “The banks don’t like the media, they don’t…

HEY, it’s Friday the Thirteenth. Be on your guard! Avoid being sweet-talked by shysters into putting your money on anything but a Springbok victory over France in that World Cup quarter-final on Sunday night. It can be done and should be done. It should have happened in the pool match, except our goal-kicking went awry. That must not happen again. Kop hou, kerels! We’ve got the forwards. We’ve got the backs. We’ve got the tacklers. We’ve got the wild card breakaways. We’ve got the goal kickers. Let’s get it all together. The country is at fever pitch. The damsels of the Pub With No Name are, as ever, strumming at their knickers in anticipation of supplying elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the time-honoured celebrationary feu de joie in…

The South African democracy has become a kleptocracy. Every day one hears in the news about money that is misused, missing, etc. Politicians pay themselves inflated salaries while the people suffer. People are paid salaries while they are in jail awaiting murder trials. People who have retired or been fired continue to receive their monthly salaries (probably with all the benefits). The system is blamed. Surely the system should be supervised by competent people? It is easy enough with the technology available today to ensure that things are managed properly. No wonder there is no money available to repair and upgrade the infrastructure. It is time that the powers that be are held responsible for mismanagement of public funds. Why is it that private businesses are able to manage their…

The beleaguered South African Post Office (Sapo) has fired almost 500 employees who have been involved in fraud, corruption and theft in the past three years. Sapo CEO Nomkhitha Mona told members of the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on communications that some of the employees had been arrested by the SAPS and charged for these crimes. Sapo and Postbank this week tabled their audited financial statements to the committee. Mona said Sapo last posted a profit in 2006 and had been struggling since then. The Post Office is one of the entities that has relied on bailouts from National Treasury. The Treasury has pumped in hundreds of billions of rand in bailouts for struggling state-owned entities in the past decade. Mona also said that Sapo has been working closely with…

Two iconic guitars played by Eric Clapton and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain could each fetch $1 million to $2m each when they go up for auction next month. Clapton’s “The Fool”, a psychedelic painted guitar, was known for its unique sound. The Beatles’ George Harrison gave it to Clapton after his guitar was stolen. “It was the guitar he used to create the very famous woman tone that guitar players today try and recreate 50 years since,” said Martin Nolan, founder of Julien’s Auctions. The other guitar, also estimated between $1m and $2m, is Kurt Cobain’s guitar, the “SkyStang I”, which Cobain played during his final public performance on Nirvana’s “In Utero” concert tour. Described as his “workhorse” because of the amount of time he used it during the tour, the…

South African Local Government Association (Salga) president Bheke Stofile says the killing of councillors and municipal officials underlines how the outsourcing of some municipal functions has seen the involvement of other groups, including business forums that demand work without following due processes. He was briefing the media yesterday on the second day of the Salga National Executive Committee gathering. A representative from iLembe District Municipality lamented how in many of the projects they were undertaking they had business forum members halting their activities by demanding work. “They arrive with assault rifles and demand contracts and this is something that needs to be addressed,” said the municipal official. Stofile said the outsourcing of some of the key services had allowed for such groups to thrive, citing water provision as one such…

What a tremendous sporting week this is for the people of South Africa. The Springboks are gearing up for Sunday night’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final against France in Paris, the Proteas took on Australia at the Cricket World Cup in Lucknow, India yesterday and Bafana Bafana will face Eswatini in an international friendly in Johannesburg this evening. At the moment, the biggest game of them all is the Boks’ showdown with the French. Siya Kolisi’s team have not reached their absolute best form yet, although it was a titanic tussle in the 13-8 defeat to Ireland a few weeks ago. The Boks are doing things the hard way again – like they did at Japan 2019 – in bidding to become the only team to win the Webb Ellis Cup…

Australians are set to overwhelmingly say “No” to a proposal to constitutionally recognise the country’s Indigenous people in a referendum tomorrow, one of the final opinion polls ahead of the vote showed. Australians have to vote “Yes” or “No” to a question asking whether they agree to alter the 122-year-old constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, and create a body, called the Voice to Parliament, that can provide advice to the government. More than 4 million people have already cast their ballot after early voting began on October 2. Those opposed to the proposal lead the “Yes” camp by 56% to 38%, according to the final poll by YouGov published yesterday. Some 6% of those polled were undecided. Yougov polled 1 519 voters for the survey. Australia’s…

Gibraltar: Gibraltar voted yesterday in a tight election which could affect talks on a deal settling the tiny British overseas territory’s ties with the EU following Brexit. Around 25 000 people are eligible to cast ballots for candidates from two parties, as well as an independent, who are vying for representation in parliament in the enclave on Spain’s southern tip. Polls have put the ruling centre-left Socialist-Liberal alliance neck-and-neck with the opposition centre-right Gibraltar Social Democrats. Gibraltar, which has a land border with Spain, has been in limbo since Britain’s withdrawal from the EU in 2020 left it outside the bloc’s customs union. | AFP…

Sunday is a day of reckoning for the Springboks, who will have their world champion status put to the toughest test when they take on host country France in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup. The Boks will either advance to the semi-finals or be on a plane home on Monday, and the players say they will leave nothing in the dressing-room when they take to the pitch to play for their country. Captain Siya Kolisi and his South African team will face a massive challenge against an in-form French team that went through the pool stages unbeaten, having secured victories against New Zealand, Italy, Uruguay and Namibia. In contrast, the Boks had a difficult Pool B to deal with, where they lost to World No 1 side Ireland,…

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) has been clear on its support for the emancipation of indigenous languages. In 2006, the university proudly promulgated a bilingual language policy and plan with a bias towards the Zulu language. The university has been at the forefront of the language development discourse. This is demonstrated by the number of academic publications on the matter by the likes of Professor Nhlanhla Mkhize, Professor Nobuhle Hlongwa and many more academics, some of whom have left the university. UKZN has not shied away from its mandate to be the premier university of African scholarship. In the past 10 years, the university has pronounced on a number of groundbreaking policies aimed at not only demonstrating commitment to this cause, but also making meaningful contributions to the cause of…

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has announced that it will use next weekend to embark on a major re-registration process for thousands of KwaZulu-Natal voters affected by the demarcation process. The commission says the demarcation process, which was undertaken early this year, affected 774 voting districts (VDs), and after it was completed, 32 more voting districts were created. KwaZulu-Natal will now have 4 973 VDs, up from 4 941. Most of the affected VDs are in urban centres like Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Port Shepstone, Ladysmith, and KwaDukuza (Stanger), historically strongholds of the ANC. The IEC said that before any general election, it redraws some voting district boundaries in an effort to increase voter access. Some of the causal factors include the re-demarcation of ward boundaries by the Municipal…

The recent spike in the cost of potatoes has raised the ire of consumers. Currently, a 7kg bag of potatoes costs between R110 and R120, while a 10kg bag costs about R189.99 at grocery stores. South African Agricultural Union president Jaco Minnaar said load shedding, drier conditions in the country’s northern regions where about 60% of local potatoes were farmed and low output by suppliers had all contributed to the price hike. Minnaar said because the South African potato farming market was struggling to meet the needs of production, the country was relying on importing. However, even that was hard hit by high-cost prices influenced by factors such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “The cost of producing potatoes has increased significantly over the past year or two. This affected the number…

The Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum (HSACF) has addressed growing concerns about the rise in fraudulent medico-legal claims and organised crime in the health sector. The forum emphasised the need for a united front against corruption in health care. Bringing together a collaborative effort involving civil society, the private sector (including medical schemes and professionals), and the public sector (law-enforcement agencies, regulators, and public medical schemes), the HSACF advocated for a “whole-of-society” approach. The forum is on a mission to combat maladministration, malpractice, fraud, and corruption. A concern raised by the HSACF was the alarming increase in fraudulent medico-legal claims. The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) recently briefed the HSACF on medico-legal investigations across several provinces, pointing out instances of ghost medical billing and potential fraudulent claims. The SIU is now actively…

The Westville community is reeling in shock after the bodies of an elderly couple were found in their home yesterday. ALS Paramedics spokesperson Garrith Jamieson said they were alerted to a call for assistance at the home in Westville North. “On arrival, paramedics met with the gardener, who informed the medics that he had arrived for work and couldn’t gain access to the premises. He saw two occupants lying in a pool of blood on the dining room floor.” Jamieson said paramedics entered the home to find the couple, both in their eighties, with fatal gunshot wounds. “Unfortunately, both of them showed no signs of life and were declared deceased on the scene. Police arrived a short while later, and paramedics handed the scene over to them. At this point,…

‘No amount of human resilience can stave off the impacts of such a cornucopia of adversities’ WORLD Mental Health Day 2023, observed on Tuesday this week all over the world, could not have come at a more poignant time with the increased incidence of mental health conditions converging into a perfect storm due to the manifold impacts over the past three years of global, regional and national events. As if the effects of Covid-19 since its declaration in March 2020 as a global “once in a century” pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO); its socio-economic, health and loss of life and livelihood effects; the food and fuel supply chain disruptions caused by the Ukraine conflict, catastrophic climate-related events, natural disasters and a stubborn global cost-of-living crisis, are not enough.…

As Israel cuts off electricity to the Gaza Strip, hospitals are at risk of being turned into morgues while civilians are struggling to access drinking water, Fabrizio Carboni, the regional director for the Near and Middle East for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said yesterday. “As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk, kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken. Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” Carboni said. He said Palestinians in Gaza were already having difficulty accessing clean drinking water. Meanwhile, Israelis were worried about their loved ones being taken hostage, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law, he added. The ICRC was in contact with both sides to help resolve the situation, and…

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin yesterday called for strengthened military ties with Kyrgyzstan in a trip to the Central Asian country, his first foreign visit since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March. Putin is wanted by the court over the deportation of Ukrainian children. Its ruling requires members of the ICC, which does not include Kyrgyzstan, to make the arrest if he sets foot on their territory. Televised footage showed Putin greeting Kyrgyz counterpart Sadyr Japarov in the capital Bishkek for a summit of the post-Soviet group Commonwealth of Independent States. “I would like to thank the president for the invitation. We have good reasons (to be here), but even without reasons this visit is long overdue,” Putin said in talks with Japarov. “I expect…

Stockholm: A Swedish court yesterday convicted a man of inciting ethnic hatred with a 2020 Qu’ran burning, the first time the country’s courts have tried the charge for desecrating Islam’s holy book. The conviction comes after a wave of Qu’ran burnings earlier this year that stoked international outrage and made Sweden a “prioritised target”, prompting the country’s intelligence agency to heighten its terror alert level. The Linkoping district court in central Sweden found the man guilty of “agitation against an ethnic group”. | AFP…