Table of contents for 2022-09-20 in Mercury

In Hong Kong, hundreds kept up with Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on their phones as they queued for hours to pay their tributes. In Sydney, Australia, customers packed into pubs to watch the ceremony on screens. In Paris, France, bar owner Thibaud Dupont showed off his new tattoo of the monarch on his forearm. “She was not our queen, but she reigned over Britain for 70 years. The only other one that reigned longer was Louis XIV,” he told Reuters. Across the globe, crowds gathered outside British embassies and consulates and at cafés, bars and other public places to watch the pageantry unfurling thousands of kilometres away. “Her presence is literally everywhere,” IT professional Victor Lai said outside the British-Consulate General in Hong Kong, where people have queued for the…

DON’T cry for me Argentina … that could well have been the refrain at half-time on Saturday with the Boks ahead 22-6. A doddle to follow? Boy, did the Pumas not turn the tables in the second half! They came out in a fury, played their hearts out and at 22-20 looked on a path to winning the game. Our guys were tackling, tackling, tackling, nothing much else because the Argies were running at us from every conceivable direction, plus some. This was great if disconcerting rugby. The Pumas were on fire. Then the Boks rallied with two converted tries – 36-20 at the close Phew! It was wonderful stuff. The Pumas’ second-half showing would have swamped most sides. The Bok defence was magnificent under the circumstances. And finally they…

When December comes and Christmas holidays, bonuses, warm summer weather and plums, peaches and apricots once again numb our minds to recent history, we will be very quick to respond to anybody who asks the question: “So, how was winter in Durban this year?” “Hardly a winter actually. Lovely warm weather!” That is how memory works – selectively. Cold and hot sensations due to seasonal changes cannot be easily recalled or revived or relived. There is no emotional attachment to shivering at 10ºC or sweating at 35ºC. The mind easily forgets even very serious events that do not directly affect the person. The hundreds of thousands flocking to view the mortal remains of Queen Elizabeth will not remember how the Christian British Empire enslaved a full quarter of this planet…

The massive amount of abuse by those in the corridors of power graphically illustrates the desire for power caused the grotesque abuses of power in post-apartheid South Africa. The day our rainbow nation loses its moral values and its dedication to idealism and accountability, it will cease to be a great country as envisaged by our great leaders who shed their blood to enthrone justice, equality and liberty for us all. Many of our leaders talk glibly about our democratic virtues. They extol high ideals in public forums while corrupting themselves and their protégés with ill-gotten wealth. Under president Nelson Mandela, we were a principled, moral and virtuous nation. Today, we are grimly witnessing tribal rule, graft and governance by a den of thieves. Sadly, as events unfold, we have…

Five soldiers deployed to guard South Africa’s border with Mozambique died in a car crash at the weekend. Spokesperson for the SANDF, Brigadier-General Andries Mokoena Mahapa, said the five died after their vehicle had a tyre burst. “The South African National Defence Force is saddened by the loss of five members who were part of 9 South African Infantry Battalion (9 SAI BN) that is deployed under Operation Corona, border safeguarding, in Mpumalanga province,” he said. “On September 17, the members were travelling from Zonstral to Macadamia operational base along the Coopersdal Road when their vehicle lost control after the front tyre burst and collided with a tree.” All five occupants of the vehicle were declared dead on the scene. “The deceaseds’ next of kin have been officially informed and…

The AA has said that according to data from the Central Energy Fund, another petrol price decrease may be on the cards for next month – however the price of diesel may go up. Layton Beard, spokesperson for the AA, said petrol users could see another sizeable reduction in the fuel price in October, while diesel users were facing an increase. “According to unaudited mid-month data of the Central Energy Fund, petrol is expected to decrease by between R1.14 and R1.24 a litre while diesel is expected to increase by between 43c and 50c a litre in October.” Beard added that while the outlook for petrol was positive, the expected price increases to diesel were concerning as it was mainly used in the freight, mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Therefore…

THE time has come for the government of KwaZulu-Natal to ban the transportation of pupils on the back of bakkies. The national government should also move at breathtaking speed to shift the movement of cargo from road to rail. If these two interventions are not done timeously, unnecessary deaths on our roads will continue to haunt us. Last week on Friday, 18 schoolchildren and two adults were killed in a horror crash after a truck crashed into a bakkie on the N2 near Pongola. The children, aged between 5 and 12 and believed to have been pupils at Victorious Independent and Sakhumuzi Primary schools, among others, were being transported on the back of a bakkie after school. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has a scholar transport programme in place that…

Queen Elizabeth’s coffin was lowered into a vault at Windsor Castle, her final resting place, yesterday after a day of inimitable pageantry that drew world leaders to her funeral and huge crowds to the streets to say farewell to a revered monarch. Hundreds of thousands of well-wishers lined the route her hearse took from London, throwing flowers, cheering and clapping as it passed from the city to the English countryside that she loved so much. Many more had crammed into the capital to witness the procession and funeral, in a moving tribute to Britain’s longest-serving monarch who won global respect during 70 years on the throne. Inside the majestic Westminster Abbey where the funeral was held, about 500 presidents, prime ministers, foreign royal family members and dignitaries, including Joe Biden…

The IFP has deployed a task team to investigate allegations that one of its mayors was involved in the murder of a fellow councillor, party spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa confirmed yesterday. The move comes after a video circulated this past weekend in which Lungisani Ntuli, an IFP councillor in Msinga Municipality, accused the mayor, Mlethi Ndlovu, of being behind the killing of Siyanda Magubane, a fellow party councillor. Ntuli, who made the comments at Magubane’s funeral, was travelling with Magubane when they came under attack on September 8. Hlengwa said the party leadership had taken the decision to probe the matter, as they viewed it as a serious issue. “The IFP views this latest development in a serious light, and with immediate effect the IFP secretary-general has dispatched a team of…

Let your “yes” be your yes and your “no” be your no. Don’t agree to something under pressure from others or resist something under pressure from others. Own both. Similarly, let other adults make their decisions without pressure from you. Do yourself and your family and friends a favour by removing all guesswork when it comes to relating to you. When it comes to spending time with you, be as clear as you are able about what you do and don’t want, what you will and will not do, and what you will and will not pay for. Expecting others to read your mind or anticipate your needs is foolish and it is usually the genesis of controlling behaviour. It will lead to disappointment and misunderstanding. Suggest everyone you know…

Your correspondent Yugen Moodley has written a very important letter in your September 9 edition of your newspaper regarding the lack of skills in the eThekwini Municipality. Some time ago, I served for a number of years as a commissioner representing the engineering profession on the Durban City Planning Commission. What I learnt through this experience was that Mr Moodley’s statement that the failure of adequate service delivery is primarily, as he puts it, due to “the lack of proper competent and skilled staff throughout its management structure” is absolutely correct. As regards the engineering function, the government has realised this problem in government bodies and has issued a document number 44 333 of March 26, 2021 which defines the necessary “Regulations for the Identification of Engineering Work”, and the…

THE Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (Seri) has raised its concerns over the ongoing attacks directed at the informal settlement dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. The concerns, which were drafted in a letter, were sent to the government and commissioners of regional and international human rights organisations. It received an endorsement from more than 140 civil society organisations and individuals. Seri candidate attorney Zolile Shude said the letter called for urgent intervention at national level to protect other leaders at risk, and ensure that transparent, independent and expeditious investigations were conducted. “The letter calls for the minister of justice, the minister of police and the South African Human Rights Commission to assist in addressing the situation in eKhenana. The letter also calls on the South African government to invite the…

THE number of patients waiting for operations at hospitals in all nine provinces has jumped by more than 60 000, pushing the national backlog in surgeries to 175 024. This was the response by Health Minister Joe Phaahla to parliamentary questions from Freedom Front Plus MP Philip van Staden, who enquired about the current backlog of surgeries at all government hospitals and actions in place to eradicate the backlog. Phaahla’s responses showed the backlogs in the Western Cape was still at 77 139, followed by Limpopo with 45 690, KwaZulu-Natal 17 906, Gauteng 13 433, North West 5 551, Eastern Cape 5 373, Northern Cape 4 000, Mpumalanga 3 005 and Free State 2 943. Phaahla said backlogs on elective surgery had been building up over the past two-and-a-half years…

THE South African Local Government Association (Salga) has pleaded with the police and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to speedily prosecute those responsible for the growing number of killings and intimidation of councillors in the country. This comes after the murders of three councillors in KwaZulu-Natal in the past few weeks. Last Wednesday, Zakhele Khuzwayo from ward 11, under KwaMaphumulo Local Municipality in northern KZN was shot dead. This comes after the murders of two other councillors – ward 11 councillor in Msinga Municipality Siyanda Magubane on September 8 and eThekwini ward 99 councillor Mnqobi Molefe on September 12. Earlier this month, the Salga conference on mayors also heard that more than 300 councillors were killed between August last year and January this year. The motive for the murders remain unknown.…

THE assumption that local governments and provincial departments in the Western Cape are reluctant to build housing for its most vulnerable residents is an often-punted and misleading claim by those in the opposition. The province’s commitment to building inclusive, social housing is evident by the sheer number of initiatives and financial commitments made by the Western Cape government and municipalities across the province. Since the DA came into government in the Western Cape, the administration has implemented various housing programmes, such as the Breaking New Ground (BNG), Help Me Buy a Home (FLISP), Serviced Sites, and Free Housing Units programmes. This is because the provincial Human Settlements Department is committed to ensuring that those people who were previously dispossessed and denied access know the dignity of formal housing and home…

Kyiv accused Russia yesterday of attacking Ukraine’s second-largest nuclear plant, in the south of the war-scarred country, in the latest burst of fighting around atomic facilities that has raised fears of a radiation emergency. The Kremlin dismissed outright claims that their forces had been responsible for mass killings in recently captured areas of east Ukraine and said Ukraine’s claims of mass graves were made up. Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Enargoatom, said the Russian army “carried out a missile attack” on the industrial site of the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, with a “powerful explosion” 300m from its reactors. The strike damaged more than 100 windows of the power station’s building, but the reactors were operating normally, according to the agency, which published photos of glass shattered around blown-out frames. It also…

San Juan: Puerto Rico has suffered a massive power outage following the arrival of the powerful hurricane Fiona, the media said yesterday. The Caribbean island’s electricity operator said the system lost power as winds reached 140km/h, the BBC reported. As Puerto Rico is a US territory, President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency for the island, allowing authorities to provide disaster relief as forecasters have warned of rain and catastrophic flooding due to the hurricane. Ports have been closed and flights out of the island’s main airport have been cancelled. | IANS…

The truck driver whose vehicle hit a bakkie, killing 18 children and two adults near Pongola, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, on Friday last week has been charged with culpable homicide. The driver, Sibusiso Siyaya, 28, made a brief appearance in the Pongola Magistrate’s Court yesterday. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said the matter was adjourned to September 26 for a bail application and Siyaya was remanded in custody. Siyaya fled the scene of the accident but handed himself over to the police the next day after a call was made by Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Sipho Hlomuka for community assistance to track down the driver. The death toll was revised yesterday from 21 people to 20 – 18 pupils, a teacher and the bakkie driver. A provincial government…

Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma yesterday called on Eskom to be transparent about why it was lurching from one crisis to the next. On Sunday the power utility’s CEO André de Ruyter said Stage 6 load shedding had been implemented as the system had been under pressure last week as Kriel unit 2 had tripped and Kusile unit 3 was coming back from a submerged scraper chain failure. By late yesterday, Eskom announced that load shedding would move to Stage 5 at midnight, saying units at Camden, Kriel, Kusile and Kendal had been returned to service, although a unit at Duvha had developed a boiler tube leak. Dlamini Zuma said the country had emerged from the Covid-19 crisis but the Eskom crisis was similar in that…

The DA is extremely concerned that ongoing calls for the regulation of informal modes of scholar transport are being continuously ignored by KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Transport. “Malumes”, as they are called, have, over time, cost many lives in our province notwithstanding the fact that KZN’s latest road tragedy near Pongola was due to a different cause. The DA welcomes the arrest of the truck driver concerned. This after he first fled the scene and later handed himself over to authorities. Sadly, there can be no doubt that this situation was compounded by a single bakkie being overloaded with pupils. The department’s own scholar transport – which is legitimately provided – is also often overloaded. This was confirmed some time back through a parliamentary reply by former MEC Kwazi Mshengu…

IT IS CUSTOMARY at funerals not to talk ill of the dead. No matter what a miserable wretch the deceased was in life, you sing only his praises. And so it is with the death of the British monarch. There was an overwhelming outpouring of grief, sorrow and tributes from all around the world. Many travelled from all corners of the earth to London to witness the funeral procession and join the exhausting several kilometre-long queues to view, not her face, but just the royal coffin with her gilded imperial crown on top, reminding all that she was once a proud imperial monarch par excellence. But not everyone was saddened by her death. While the media focused mainly on those mourning her death, there were some isolated incidents of protest…

Former Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has written to the head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), advocate Andy Mothibi, and given him until Friday to provide him with the evidence used to make adverse findings against him. Mkhize and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma have both recently announced that they will stand for candidacy at the ANC’s December elective conference if they are nominated by branches. Mkhize resigned as health minister in August 2021 when he was implicated in the irregular awarding of contracts to Digital Vibes. The SIU was asked to investigate tenders awarded by the Health Department. It found that the department irregularly awarded the R141 million media awareness campaign tender for the National Health Insurance (NHI) and another R125m tender for…

Almost 1 500 people drown in South Africa annually. “The majority of these deaths occur in children under 14 years of age, with the largest group within those deaths being from birth to 4 years,” said Dr Jill Fortuin-Abrahams, National Sea Rescue Institute’s executive director for drowning prevention. And according to ER24, of the 1 450 drownings reported, most were male. Fortuin-Abrahams said: “It’s a major concern that almost 1 500 people – an enormous number – drown every year in South Africa, especially because most of these deaths are preventable.” She said the highest numbers of drownings were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal, followed by the Eastern Cape and then Gauteng. “Most people in South Africa drown, not in the ocean, but in fresh water, be it a swimming pool, a…

Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke said the true test of good governance is whether it delivers on the promise of human rights. Maluleke was speaking yesterday at the Good Governance & Accountability Seminar that took place at the Durban International Convention Centre. She said more work was needed to create and enhance a transformative and accountable way forward. “With better governance and compliance with legislation, processes and policies, we can support our collective desire to ensure that public institutions and officials deliver a better quality of life for all our people. Now more than ever, the need for strong governance, capable institutions and competent public officials that deliver on the hopes and aspirations of citizens is unanimous and undisputed.” In June, Maluleke painted a grim picture of the state of KwaZulu-Natal…

‘We need to shake up the status quo and propagate a new way of thinking’ AS THE world mourns the death of the UK’s longest-serving matriarch, Queen Elizabeth II, for a minute I thought of the devastating loss of one of the most revered individuals of our lifetime. Whether the legacy she left behind was good or bad, the death of the Queen has torn the world apart; it polarised nations from hemisphere to hemisphere. As an African espousing the spirit of Ubuntu, I would like to extend my condolences to Great Britain for the great loss they suffered as a result of the queen’s death. I wish them strength in this difficult time of bereavement, but cannot forget how they brutalised our fore- fathers during colonial rule. So as…

Typhoon Nanmadol brought ferocious winds and record rainfall to western Japan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the country in years killing at least two people, disrupted transport and forced manufacturers to suspend operations. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delayed his departure to New York, where he was due to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly. “I postponed my scheduled departure from today to take stock of the damage caused by the typhoon and to take all possible measures for recovery,” Kishida said yesterday. Japan’s 14th typhoon of the season made landfall near Kagoshima city on Sunday before battering the western island of Kyushu and roaring onto the main island of Honshu yesterday. A river in Kyushu’s Miyazaki prefecture overflowed, flooding fields and roads, footage from…

BEIJING: The Chinese foreign ministry said yesterday that China has lodged “stern representations” with the US after President Joe Biden said that US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. China reserves the right to take all necessary measures in response to activities that split the nation apart, said Mao Ning, spokesperson at the foreign ministry, at a regular media briefing. She also urged the US to handle Taiwan-related issues “carefully and properly”, and not send “wrong signals” to separatist forces. | Reuters…