Innholdsfortegnelse for 6/7/2020 i City Press

It is only a matter of time before the rest of South Africa reaches the surge in Covid-19 coronavirus cases currently being experienced in the Western Cape, experts warn. Epidemiologists, as well as experts in infectious diseases and vaccinology, spoke to City Press this week. All agreed that a change in social behaviour was the only way to halt the increasing speed at which the virus was spreading. Just this week, the country recorded the highest increase in new cases on Thursday, with a jump of 3 267 new infections identified from the previous day. Friday also saw a large increase of 2 642 new cases from the previous day. According to the latest figures released by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, the cumulative number of people confirmed to have Covid-19…

Friday saw the premiere of a fun, punchy new Channel O series, Remix.Studio, hosted by AKA and Dee Koala. With each half-hour episode, the series sees beloved African musicians – established and emerging – expanding on the fan-favourite anthems by remixing them in a live setting. The artists also give a short interview in which they talk about crafting their songs, and explain the deeper meaning behind the lyrics. Included on the roster will be AKA, Sauti Sol, Tresor, Tshego, Lucille Slade, Sió, Aubrey Qwana, Muzi, Taylor Jade and Dee Koala. The first episode on Friday saw AKA put a spin on his hit single Fela In Versace. Amid protests against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, US, AKA used social media this week to put #BlackLivesMatter to the…

I am one such victim whose scalp has been claimed in a clandestine and unlawful manner Axed SABC chief operations officer Chris Maroleng has approached the Johannesburg High Court to sue the public broadcaster for R12 million for unlawfully terminating his contract, “defamation and reputational damage”. Maroleng also wants the SABC board of directors declared delinquent for the manner in which it dismissed him. In court papers filed with the high court, dated June 4, which City Press has seen, Maroleng challenged his dismissal by the SABC in April 2019, saying the board meeting that resolved to dismiss him was “illegitimately and improperly convened”. His latest court application comes hot on the heels of an application with the Johannesburg Labour Court last month seeking R16 million for the unexpired portion…

Despite concerns about the provision of masks, pupils in grades 7 and 12 are set to return to school tomorrow. Teachers’ unions and school governing bodies told City Press this week that progress had been made by the department of education to deliver the required safety materials for teachers. But stakeholders in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga expressed concern that there was no monitoring mechanism to check whether every school would continue to be provided with all the necessary equipment and safety measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 coronavirus infections. This comes after Friday’s dismissal by the Constitutional Court of an urgent application, brought by the One South Africa Movement, to gain direct access to the court in a bid to stop schools reopening tomorrow. City Press understands…

All that black people demand in this world is that they not be killed. All they want is to exist without the fear of being hunted, violated and shot at just for being. When so much has been taken from them, all they plead for is that their lives be spared. This is a call that they have been making for generations, not only in the US but throughout the world. What then does a scream ignored turn into? What does a voice silenced become? Does it dissipate into nothingness, or does it swell until it explodes? Both are possibilities but which one is preferable? I want the explosion. I am curious to see how the world built on our backs crumbles when we decide to stand up. There was…

For the record, we do not yet know just how much Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu knew about the rot going on in her department. We do not know whether her lieutenants were on a frolic of their own and whether she was genuinely ignorant of their shenanigans. What we do know is that a group of individuals close to her walked into the department and saw a gold mine. They then connived to turn the department’s resources into a trough for their own needs and those of their associates. In addition, they saw it as a means to build a war chest for Sisulu’s bid for the presidency of the ANC and then the country. The latest to be implicated is her adviser, Thami ka Plaatjie,…

The high court has ruled that some of the regulations of level 4 and 3 are unconstitutional and many are irrational. Even if the reasoning of the court itself has been called into question, the regulations raise doubts about the government’s own decision-making processes. The national command council has been criticised for authoritarianism and has even been compared with the former East German Stasi. It has been criticised for locking down South Africa too early and too severely, and for not taking sufficient steps to protect the economy. What no one has criticised, however, has been the need for a response coordinated from the centre. At first the problem was to ensure that the president and the council acted reasonably and on the basis of evidence. As we have moved…

The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent national lockdown have forced many organisations to re-evaluate their processes. It has also affected the political and electoral landscape in a huge way. As a result, it is increasingly becoming clear that the history of the world will be analysed in terms of a period before and after Covid-19. As Bert Olivier, professor of philosophy at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, aptly puts it: “If ever there were a golden opportunity for humankind to press the reset button regarding the unsustainable way in which we live, it is now, in the midst of the global coronavirus crisis.” Covid-19 has rendered certain processes and organisations obsolete. It is, however, also true that in certain instances the pandemic only gave impetus to the demise of the…

South Africans are in serious debt. On average, we spend almost 10% of our household income on servicing debt, according to the SA Reserve Bank’s latest report on financial stability. The good news is that the ratio between debt and disposable income changed between 2009 and 2018, indicating that people are doing a better job of paying off their debt. South African households might be in a better debt position than they were a decade ago, but the nature of the debt is different and much more expensive. On average, 9.4% of household disposable income was spent on the cost of debt, the Reserve Bank said. Over the past decade, this percentage was slightly higher on only two occasions, in 2016 and during the global financial crisis that began in…

South Africa is choking under the dictatorship of the judiciary. Petty public squabbles among judges, their drunken sprees and unbridled biases have made people cynical about them. The pretentious frock and pompous demeanour parody the judges as false gods of a staid theocracy that has no understanding of a modern society that is besieged by rapacious diseases and malicious technologies. Expect no progress because law, like all belief systems, has a narrow perspective of the world, fuelled by fundamentalist proselytising that there can be no better system. Contrary to popular belief, the law has never protected society from anarchy, much less from viruses that virologists still battle to understand. Little is understood about the Covid-19 coronavirus, but judges are already making decisions that could affect the health of millions. Philip…

It’s a given that the PSL will play to the finish. If there were any doubts before, they should end as the league is now preparing to complete the remaining matches – by hook or by crook. It’s even more pressing as this will be the final instalment of the Absa Premiership after the bank confirmed this week that it would sever its ties with the league at the end of the season. Obviously, the sponsors would want to go out with a bang and squeeze as much mileage as possible from the remaining matches of this campaign. This brings me to the players’ contracts, which is a burning issue. There is no loyalty in football, particularly in the South African context, where some club bosses treat players as slaves.…

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane (pictured) is expected to put a spanner in the works of former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s political project. Mkhwebane is expected to come down heavily on Mashaba for some of his alleged wrongdoing while in office in Johannesburg. This as he launches what he terms a “tell-all” book that details how, during his mayorship, he uncovered corruption committed by the ANC-run administration before 2016. Today’s release of the book, Accidental Mayor, is a precursor to the August formation of Mashaba’s new political party. He has accused the ANC of having a hand in leaking a report from the Public Protector to sabotage this effort. The Public Protector is expected to make several adverse findings against the now leader of the People’s Dialogue civil society initiative when…

The charismatic and highly opinionated Sizwe Dhlomo is returning to the airwaves, following the announcement of his new afternoon drive show on Kaya FM. And the regional radio station couldn’t be more thrilled about having this media personality and businessman in its ranks. “Greg [Maloka] gave me a call about a week before the lockdown began. He told me what his plan was, asked if I was interested – and for me, it was a really simple decision to make. I obviously consulted some close friends and mentors about it and everyone seemed to agree that it was a nobrainer,” Dhlomo explains. A few weeks ago, he was involved in a Twitter spat with rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, with the two taking broadsides at each other. However, AKA went too…

People are paying up to 30% more for food than they were before the Covid-19 coronavirus-enforced lockdown began on March 26. This increase will be felt across the board, but poorer families will be hardest hit because school-feeding schemes remain closed, so more food than usual is needed in households. According to research by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group NGO, this situation raises questions about whether government’s efforts to distribute food parcels to destitute households have been adequate. A researcher for the group, Julie Smith, said: “Lockdown restrictions have meant that, with children and workers stuck at home, food runs out faster and [people] can no longer shop around for the cheapest prices. Our research suggests that low-income families may have been spending about 30% (R974) more on…

Donald Trump is a dangerous man. Aside from the devil himself, the only people who deny this are the lunatics on America’s far right. Since he came into office in 2016, he has been on a mission to wreck almost everything. He has torn up international agreements; started risky trade wars; upended global institutions; and taken the US to the brink of war. Domestically, he has fanned the fires of right wing extremism, and encouraged racial and religious prejudice. He has undermined and demonised constitutionally enshrined institutions and, when he could, manipulated them. His disastrous handling of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has seen the US – now the global epicentre of the virus – lose more than 100 000 lives in just three months. It has been said a million…

Failed wannabe It’s tough being the grandson of an international legend – especially when you have ambitions of being like him but you just don’t have the brains or the discipline. Jozi man-about-town Ndaba Mandela, grandson of world-renowned statesman Nelson Mandela, tries hard to do this activist thing but the good life gets in the way. This week our celeb revolutionary organised a #BlackLivesMatter protest near the US consulate in Johannesburg. Just more than a handful of his drinking buddies turned up for the epic act of international solidarity. Or was it because of social distancing? No booze no cry Gauteng community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko is not known for having a filter. When she thinks it, she just says it, often resulting in confusing garble. This week was no…

I commiserate with Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga at her announcement of a phased-in reopening of schools tomorrow after their closure due to the Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown. With public anxiety at a peak, Motshekga did her best to justify her decision. Regrettably, scepticism and fear harden emotions about school safety and readiness to resume classes. She conceded that there were varied levels of readiness, but she was confident that schools certified to be ready, in terms of prescribed health regimes and protocols, could open and resume teaching. She acknowledged that her decision was based on contributions from designated entities and relevant stakeholders. The teachers’ union federations still contest and plan to approach the courts on the legalities of her decision. The battle lines are drawn. It’s an emotive situation, requiring…

Motorists in the interior of South Africa may experience ongoing fuel shortages this week due to damage to a Transnet pipeline carrying fuel from Durban to Gauteng. In the current financial year, Transnet pipelines have already suffered 21 incidents of tampering by perpetrators hoping to steal fuel. The 61cm diameter multiproject pipeline in question stretches from Durban to Jameson Park in Johannesburg. The damage to the pipeline, which was done between Villiers in the Free State and Heidelberg in Gauteng in Mpumalanga’s Balfour area, has already been repaired, but could lead to delays in the provision of fuel to distribution points in the interior. The latest petrol shortage comes in the wake of a nationwide diesel shortage over the past two weeks, which has led to the rationing of diesel.…

Top Eskom executives will be hauled back to Parliament to explain why the power utility has failed to recover billions of rands that were allegedly erroneously paid to a contractor. Following Eskom’s refusal last week to name the contractor who benefited from the estimated R5 billion in overpayments, it this week issued a media statement denying that there was ever an accounting error that saw an unnamed contractor mistakenly overpaid by billions. This statement has evoked the ire of Parliament’s standing committee on appropriations, which on Wednesday said the power utility appeared to confuse the unlawful Tegeta Exploration and Resources contract with another case in which a hefty sum of money was paid “in error” to an unnamed contractor. The committee is still waiting for a full report on this.…

In its 2019 annual report, the ombud for short-term insurance found that 49% of complaints related to motor vehicle insurance claims. Of these, the majority were for vehicle credit shortfalls and uninsured accessories. A vehicle credit shortfall is the gap between the vehicle’s insured value and the amount owed to the bank. This is usually the case for the first few years of your car finance period, as your vehicle has depreciated significantly and you owe more on it than it is worth. If your car is stolen or written off in an accident, there would be a gap between what your comprehensive insurance would pay out and what you owe the bank. You can buy credit shortfall insurance as top-up insurance on your existing comprehensive insurance to cover this…

Let us know. Send an email to tipoff@citypress.co.za SUBSCRIBE TO CITY PRESS IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS AROUND THE HOME DELIVERY OF YOUR NEWSPAPER OR WANT TO SUBSCRIBE, THE DETAILS BELOW WILL HELP CONTACT CENTRE NUMBER: 0861 248 977 087 353 1300 EMAIL ADDRESS: subscribers@citypress.co.za NEW SUBSCRIBERS SMS LINE: SMS “SUBS” to 32368 SUBSCRIPTIONS WHATSAPP NUMBER 087 353 1333 Subscribe (retailers) • On The Dot Retail contact number: 0861 888 989 • On the Dot retail email address: assistance@onthedot.co.za PRESS COUNCIL City Press subscribes to the Code of Ethics and Conduct for South African Print and Online Media that prescribes news that is truthful, accurate, fair and balanced. If we don’t live up to the Code, please contact the Public Advocate at 011 484 3612, fax: 011 484 3619. You…

There seems to be trouble between former president Jacob Zuma and his 25-year-old fiancée Nonkanyiso Conco. The pair, who have a young son together, have allegedly separated and Conco has since moved out of the house that was rented for her by Zuma near Ballito, Durban. Conco’s father, Fartescue, said that, although he had lost contact with his daughter, he had never approved of her relationship with Zuma and was unhappy with the former president for not having paid lobolo. Fartescue said he heard that his daughter was no longer together with Zuma and was made aware that she was now staying with her mother in the Eastern Cape. “She blocked me on all her contacts, but I know that she does not stay in Ballito any more. I wish…

The ANC in Johannesburg ran a sophisticated system of corruption that was as bad as that of former president Jacob Zuma, the man whom the leaders of South Africa’s commercial engine loved to hate. So says former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba in a new book, Accidental Mayor, published today. The book, written by Mashaba’s former chief of staff, Michael Beaumont, also reveals that the DA has now resigned itself to be “only good enough to remain in opposition”. Mashaba served as mayor of Africa’s wealthiest city from August 2016 – when a DA-led coalition ousted the ANC in local government elections – to November 2019, when he resigned from both his post and the party. Mashaba is now head of the People’s Dialogue, a civil society initiative, and Beaumont is…

This morning members of the Dutch Reformed Church in Krantzkloof in Durban will attend service for the first time in more than two months. The 50 congregants, aged between 25 and 60, were able to book their seats for the 9.30am service in advance. Then later in the day at 5pm, it’ll be the turn of young people to worship. At 11.30am on Wednesday, “when the sun is nice and warm”, there will be a service for fit and healthy congregants who are aged 60 and older, said Barry Tolmay, the congregation’s pastor. He said communion had been held online and the church’s friends and other people in their local network – including some in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK – could participate. “Everyone was asked to get…

SABC3 talk show Trending SA has once again come under the glaring glow of the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The producers of the night-time social media commentary panel talk show are said to have sacked their deck of presenters. Informants say that hosts Pabi Moloi, Kuli Roberts, Nina Hastie and Musa Mthombeni were told via email that their contracts had been terminated. Moloi and Roberts were allegedly the first to receive the bitter news. Roberts, Mthombeni and Hastie confirmed to City Press sister publication Sunday Sun that they received email informing them that the show would be coming back, but that their services as presenters had been terminated. They said they were told that the show would have new presenters. Asked if he was disappointed, Mthombeni said: “Well,…

‘I can’t breathe.” These were some of the last recorded words of 46-year-old African-American George Floyd of Minneapolis in the US, as a police officer pinned him to the hard pavement by placing his knee and his full body weight on Floyd’s neck. After a few minutes of pleading with the officer and his colleagues to release him from the chokehold and let him stand, the handcuffed and unarmed Floyd can be seen in the bloodcurdling video eventually lying motionless. He was pronounced dead on arrival in hospital. A more undignified and cruel death is hard to imagine. Seeing the life being snuffed out of Floyd in that ghastly manner got me thinking back to an interview I did last year with some visiting US luminaries, who included Dr Julius…

The chaos that the country experienced recently over the reopening of schools was cause for concern, and rightfully so. Parents who were asked to risk their children’s lives by sending them to schools which were ill-prepared to deal with the Covid-19 coronavirus put their collective foot down, resulting in the postponement to the restart of the academic year. At the centre of the mayhem was Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and her bureaucrats, who seemed hellbent on reopening schools despite overwhelming evidence that they were not ready to accept children. Teachers’ unions and parenting bodies raised the alarm bells on the potentially disastrous impact the June 1 event would have in the country. Still the department was, at least until the eleventh hour, adamant that the date was feasible. Personal…

Dear whoever is running government, we get that you don’t like us to drink and smoke. Seriously, we get it. But what is happening now borders on Nero fiddling while Rome burns. For the past two months, you have asked us to stay home, stay safe and carry on with our lives. But what have you done? You policed smokers and drinkers. If those two vices were the only problems faced by this country, then your actions would have been acceptable. The problems we face are not just lifestyle issues – millions are unemployed, hungry and desperate; the majority of our schools are in a disgusting state; social grant queues stretch for miles and miles, and yet… We get that you don’t like us to drink and smoke. Seriously, we…

The Covid-19 coronavirus might not be a disaster in the ordinary meaning of the word. As when faced with a tsunami, most people cannot protect themselves against it. It requires extraordinary measures, and the responsibility to provide such protection rests with the state. For the affluent, who can practise social distancing – and keep the vulnerable masses at bay – because they benefited from the exploitation and conquest of the majority, a disaster will have a different meaning. They have the resources and capacity outside the state to protect themselves. And the rich will be the first to use the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to fight off anything they regard as an invasion of or intrusion on their “rights”. The vulnerable majority will be their excuse as to…

If rumours making the rounds are anything to go by, the new owners of Bidvest Wits could be left with no players. City Press has reliably learnt that “vultures” are already circling around some Wits players – even before the sale has been finalised. With reports suggesting that the club could move to Limpopo – Venda in particular – it is expected that most of the players would not want to make the move, but would prefer to stay in Gauteng. It is believed that Orlando Pirates, Mamelodi Sundowns, Cape Town City and SuperSport United are among the clubs vying for signatures from some of the key players. Kaizer Chiefs are still hamstrung by a Fifa ban that prevents them from registering new players. The Court of Arbitration for Sport…

After losing Absa as the headline sponsor, the PSL might also lose Telkom’s financial backing. City Press has reliably learnt that last year’s instalment of the Telkom Knockout competition, which was won by Mamelodi Sundowns, may have been the last edition as the telecoms giant is mentioning financial challenges. But PSL clubs have put their faith in league chairperson Irvin Khoza to find a new headline sponsor. One club official said: “In the chairperson we trust. Obviously, the leadership knew all along that Absa would not renew [the sponsorship] and I have no doubt that the chairperson already has a plan up his sleeve. He is always ahead of all of us.” Soon after Absa and the PSL announced the termination of the 16-year relationship when the sponsorship contract expires…