Innholdsfortegnelse for 2022-03-27 i Sunday Independent

Using technology in conjunction with changes in workplace structure can boost productivity in all areas. A modern worker multi- tasks to cover their passion as well as their duties daily. People are busy balancing their professional and personal lives to remain true to themselves. Having the right tool for the job can help you stay productive and multi- task without jeopardising your career. It’s critical to strike a balance between work and life. This is not easy for many people, but Arnav Mutneja, founder of ZinQ Technologies, suggests some tech gadgets that can help you maintain a balance and cope with all of your responsibilities without losing productivity. Worried that your laptop's heat is harming your skin? Many people are concerned about their laptops becoming too hot and causing skin…

Don Makatile don.makatile@inl.co.za An employee of the Housing Development Agency (HDA) who misrepresented her educational qualifications when she applied – and was subsequently appointed to – a position she was not qualified for, is trying to frustrate the disciplinary process instituted against her after being placed on suspension. Meloney van Eck, 44, who completed a number of short courses at institutions such as Damelin, Havatech Pretoria and Pretoria Technikon, applied for a high-paying senior management post. This required the applicant to possess a relevant NQF level 7 or similar qualification and, preferably, a postgraduate degree. Apart from her matric certificate, Van Eck holds an accounting information qualification, completed with the now-defunct Pretoria Technikon between February and November 15, 1996. She has also acquired a computer literacy certificate from Havatech Pretoria;…

Siyabonga Mkhwanazi siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za A showdown is looming tomorrow in the Western Cape High Court where the ATM is challenging Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to hold a secret ballot in the motion-of -no-confidence vote on Wednesday. The ATM took the Speaker to court after she turned down its request for a secret ballot in the motion against President Cyril Ramaphosa. But the UDM and the NFP this week urged that the motion be postponed until the court application is heard by the court tomorrow. EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi also asked what would happen if there was no judgment delivered by the close of business. Parliament said the motion would go ahead as planned on Wednesday. It said the Speaker had declined the ATM’s request for a secret ballot last month. “The ATM…

From Page 1 BISHOP Mashashane said this was no longer a matter of containing the spread of the virus, but the constitutional rights of the citizens. He added that the proposed regulations were unlawfully amended, giving more power to the health minister. “We have publicly stated the irrationality and unconstitutionality of this amendment of regulations from time to time. The government’s defence has been a claim of scientific evidence, but the recent announcement has proved contrary since there’s no such scientific evidence for reducing the social distance or demand of PRC or even the purpose of contact tracing,” he said. “Our country is becoming a police state under the dictatorship of Ramaphosa. We have lost all elements of a democratic state with these unconstitutional regulations. Why should people be subjected…

Tshepiso Tshabalala Tshepiso.Tshabalala@inl.co.za THE recent attack on renowned Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga last weekend has highlighted how vulnerable and exposed to crime the elderly are. Mahlangu was attacked in her home by an intruder, who beat her about the head and choked her unconscious. Elderly women are especially affected by crimes, not only by attacks such as that on Mahlangu, but also from abuse and neglect by family members and communities, which is under reported. The SAPS 2021/22 third quarter crime statistics report (October to December last year) shows that of the 6 859 murders committed during this period, 902 of the victims were women. There have been numerous media reports over the past year detailing a spate of attacks, robberies, rapes and murders of elderly women…

I’ve always been fascinated by culture and heritage, and the Zulu culture has always been close to my heart. I would joke around at times, saying maybe I was a Zulu Queen in my previous life. How else do I explain being so passionate about something that’s not even a part of who I am? The closest my forefathers came to the Zulu culture was when they fled the former Transkei and found refuge in Lesotho. Something I only found out after my mom passed away is that my maternal side of the family is actually Xhosa. They ended up settling in Lesotho because only Moshoeshoe’s Thaba Bosiu could “protect” them from Shaka Zulu. This led to my discovery of Route 66, the Zululand Heritage Route, traditional healers and all…

THE government’s case against global networking solutions giant Huawei Technologies raises important questions about the role of the government and business in the fight against the perennial socio-economic inequalities pervading the country. Huawei is charged with contravening the provisions of the Home Affairs’ Immigration Regulations and the Employment Equity Act – mechanisms aimed at tackling the apartheid- created burden of unacceptably high levels of poverty, unemployment and socio-economic inequality most citizens continue to suffer in South Africa. According to the Department of Labour, it decided to take Huawei to court after the company (even after some extension from the department) failed to take steps to bring it into compliance with employment rules. A 2020 Department of Labour conducted audit had revealed the following contraventions by Huawei: By law, Huawei was…

The 1994 first democratic election in South Africa was characterised by euphoria, especially among the black majority who were going to vote for the very first time. The ANC emerged victorious with 62%. On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the first democratically elected president. Mandela led the Government of National Unity, which included other political parties such as the outgoing National Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party. Mandela’s Cabinet was a reflection of a negotiated settlement. De Klerk became the second deputy president with Thabo Mbeki being the first deputy. By all accounts, Mandela’s presidency was not characterised by too much power. Actually, Mandela did not actively lead South Africa for five years. He allowed Mbeki to do the bulk of the work. When opposition political…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za DEAN Elgar’s worst nightmare came to pass on Thursday with confirmation that he won’t have his primary fast bowling attack at his disposal for the two match Test series against Bangladesh because of the Indian Premier League. Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi, all frontline members of the attack, who starred for the Proteas in their series win against India and the second Test triumph in New Zealand will play no part in the series against Bangladesh that starts in Durban on March 31. It is a hammer blow for Elgar, who is desperate to continue the Test side’s upward trend of this summer in a series in which vital ICC World Test Championship points are up for grabs. In addition to the bowlers, Rassie…

Mike Greenaway mike.greenaway@inl.co.za THE weather is supposed to be the Sharks’ friend in Durban at this time of year but the humidity they are used to gave way to a torrential downpour and they slipped and slithered to a 21-5 defeat to the better composed Edinburgh. The teams ran out into teeming rain and the Scots would have felt right at home in conditions cosily familiar to them. For the Sharks, the quagmire negated one of their strengths, their fleet-footed outside backs, and although Edinburgh also enjoy running the ball, the conditions were a leveller. Edinburgh were also boosted by the return of seven internationals from Six Nations duty, including flyhalf Blair Kinghorn, who started in their last match against Ireland, and he was significantly influential especially when his opposite…

The amount of money South African brands are prepared to spend on digital marketing is on the increase, hitting more than R2 billion in 2020, an increase from R1.4bn in 2019. Covid-19 saw brands needing to make a dramatic shift in thinking, moving from traditional advertising to the digital way of doing business. A survey conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) found that, on average, South Africans are using the internet more than ever before to shop, game and stream television. South Africans are online, so as a brand, your business should be investing resources into meeting them there. Here are three ways you can market your brand without breaking the bank. Start with email marketing If you’re not yet leveraging the power of email marketing, now’s the time…

Karabo Ngoepe and Manyane Manyane THE government lacks a proper health plan to fully open up the country and allow life to return to normality. That is the view of many sectors of society who believe restrictions associated with Covid-19 are no longer necessary. Analysts and political parties believe President Cyril Ramaphosa missed an opportunity to return life to normal when he eased some restrictions and retained the National State of Disaster until next month. Dr Ralph Mathekga this week said the country did not need to be in a State of Disaster. “It seems we have a president that enjoys managing crises. We don’t have a clear health plan to proceed forward from here,” Mathekga said. “It’s worrying, given what people have endured during the lockdown. It’s almost like…

From Page 1 Ramaphosa said: “I did not have any direct and specific information on the alleged misuse of public funds for party political purposes.” A complaint was lodged with Mkhwebane’s office to investigate the matter. The Sunday Independent in January this year reported that she would be interviewing people who attended the meeting, including suspended secretary-general Ace Magashule, MP Bongani Bongo, and former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni, to ask them to submit affidavits to help with her investigation. Magashule’s interview stemmed from being the custodian of the ANC’s record of all official meetings before he was suspended. Bongo’s affidavit was needed because the president mentioned that money was also misused from the State Security Agency, where he was minister after David Mahlobo. The president was responding to Yengeni…

THE parents of two teenage high school learners who were robbed, kidnapped and raped in Dithakong Village, Northern Cape, allege that the police are dragging their feet to resolve the case. Eighteen-year-old Kedibone Mokwena and Molebogeng Kgwele, 17, (not their real names) had their lives turned upside down when on Tuesday, February 22, at about 2am, four men broke into their rented room, demanding that the two hand over their phones and money. According to one of the victims’ mothers, her daughter had R150 which she gave to the assailants, hoping they would leave without causing them any harm. But a few minutes later they ordered the girls to undress, and then raped them. Thereafter, the girls were blindfolded and dragged out of their room to a veld where the…

Lesego Makgatho lesego.makgatho@inl.co.za wITH many South Africans dealing with a mental health crisis on a daily basis, resulting in the high rate of suicides, even among teenagers, some families turn to traditional healers, who also form a major part of the mental health workforce countrywide. However, there’s been little awareness or systematic examination of the effectiveness of traditional healers when treating mental illness or alleviating psychological distress. Gogo Manzini, known to her friends and family as Tyra, believes traditional healers are the backbone of many communities as they have a good relationship with the people they live with and this is the reason why she believes traditional and spiritual healers could play a key role in improving access to treatment for common mental health conditions. “Mental health awareness is…

Bongani Gosa and Boitumelo Mohube The SA Human Rights Commission recently held an inquiry into the advertising industry. The five-day probe, held in Rosebank, Johannesburg, focused on the production chain within the advertising sector to look at ways to eliminate racism, tribalism, homophobia and sexism, among other forms of discrimination. There is no doubt that reform is needed. The problem is not so much racial discrimination in the advertisements. If we are being honest, since the TRESemmé and H&M incidents two years ago, we have not really had another racism incident. The biggest problem is the racial exclusion of black-owned and black-run agencies from lucrative advertising projects. According to Nielsen AdEx research, the total advertising spend in South Africa is ±R42bn. Of this substantial amount, less than 2% is spent…

Globally state banks provide cheaper commercial banking for poor people, collect savings that are loaned on to small businesses, and ensure competition to private banks. Volkskas was a prime example of a fourth objective, which was to build economic muscle to advance political dominance as it did for the apartheid National Party. The current day formal financial sector in South Africa appears to have no interest in creating a banking product that meets the needs of the vast informal stokvel savings sector in South Africa. Likewise, the formal financial sector seems unable or unwilling to meet its targets for supporting black SMMEs. Without letting the financial sector off the hook for not meeting its transformation targets, it seems that it would be a clear win for the state to establish…

It Is not a conspiracy nor a theory. The talk of US superpower unipolarity and the new cold war is old. Today, the real talk is about the new-new world order. It’s about re- defining and creating a more inclusive geopolitical and geo-economic world order. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia creates more impetus for the coming order, possibly a multipolar world and sets a new turning point in world history. But the coming new world order, from unipolar to multipolar, is very uncertain and uncomfortable to the US and its allies, rightly so. Peering through a looking glass of this new world, one might ask – so what’s next? Who or which nations will lead the world? Remember a decade or so ago the BRICS club – the group…

herman.gibbs@gmail.com SOUTH Africa’s ‶experimental” combination produced encouraging signs going forward but were not clinical enough in the striking zone in Friday’s goalless stalemate against Guinea at the Guldensporen Stadion in Belgium. In the first half, Bafana enjoyed a whopping 68% possession. They fashioned 10 shots at goal, but none were converted. Evidence Makgopa, who operated as the lone striker in the team's 4-2-3-1 playing pattern, and Lyle Foster, who was deployed as an attacking central midfielder, were wasteful when scoring chances emerged. The team's first-half superiority was built on the back of a sterling combination, which operated with great effect down the right flank where national team debutants Khuliso Mudau and Bandile Shandu were impressive. They both exuded loads of energy and relentlessness that helped to expose the opposition's…

Mike Greenaway mike.greenaway@inl.co.za THE altitude factor is real and definitely not imagined, and overseas teams in the United Rugby Championship are going to have to find a way to combat it when visiting the Highveld. That is the view of Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen and his captain, Burger Odendaal, who were commenting after their team had put the Ospreys to the sword at Emirates Airline Park on Friday night. The Lions ran in seven tries in their 45-15 victory as the Welshmen wilted, especially in the second half when they were visibly exhausted. “We have seen it in our games and in those of the Bulls against touring teams. Altitude plays a role and we knew if we moved the Ospreys around we would get opportunities,” Van Rooyen said.…

Maria Leonard Olsen I revel in opportunities to question older people about what they have learned. My family used to beg me not to talk to random strangers, but my endless curiosity yielded fodder in my professional life and guidance in my personal endeavours. Reading Ellen Warner’s The Second Half: Forty Women Reveal Life After Fifty is like having one of those intimate conversations with each of 40 women from around the world as they share their formative experiences and advice for younger generations. Their insights are particularly valuable in a country where intergenerational learning is often lost, where finding assisted-living housing for our senior family members is more common than moving them into our homes. The Second Half profiles a curated group of interesting women who have hit their…

Oluthando Keteyi oluthando.keteyi@inl.co.za UK SINGER Becky Hill is a pop powerhouse who has forged her own path to stardom. The 27-year-old has become one of the UK’s most successful musicians and the best part is that her success is entirely on her own terms. Becky Hill burst onto the music scene when she auditioned for The Voice UK at the age of 17. Entering the singing competition may have been Becky’s escape from school, but little did she know that she would make it to the semifinals, and as the saying goes, the rest is history. Following her recent win at the 2022 Brit Awards, IOL Entertainment caught up with Becky to find out more about the singer songwriter, who is making waves in dance music. Becky says that winning…

Benowned global sporting organisations – through their short-sightedness – are the latest victims of the Russia –Ukraine conflict that continues to rage with unabating fury. By following their hearts instead of their heads, coupled with vivid emotional turmoil, they elected to let politics conquer their administration of sports. They dropped the ball – pardon the pun – when they opted to mimic their national governments in their drive to isolate Russia and Belarus as part of a multi-faceted punishment for the invasion of Ukraine. I want to argue that their collective move, taken in indecent haste, is bound to boomerang spectacularly much sooner than they can imagine. In my book those who stand accused are, but not restricted to, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), world football governing body Fifa and…

From Page 1 The qualification that she used to apply for the position of head of strategic support and organisational performance management, was an advanced management diploma programme from the University of Pretoria. The course ran for six months, from October 2007 to March 2008. In November last year, the HDA was informed by the enterprise faculty at UP that: “This letter serves to confirm that the completed certificate, Advanced Management Development Programme, is categorised as a short course and/or skills programme and is not a registered qualification on the National Qualifications Framework. There are no credits attached to the learning content of this course.“ According to HDA’s acting chief executive officer, Daphney Ngoasheng, the remuneration package for the senior position was R1 481 188, but this was increased to…

Lesego Makgatho lesego.makgatho@inl.co.za In a country marred by youth unemployment which hovers at about 63%, Lungile Jafri, who is passionate about empowering the youth, in May 2019 founded the Kempton Park-based Initium Venture Solutions (IVS), an organisation that provides training to upskill unemployed youth and eradicate unemployment. She says she couldn’t sit back and watch the youth, especially those with disabilities struggle to get jobs. The 39-year-old started IVS, which is a 100% black female-owned accredited training provider, to offer programmes to provide training to up-and-coming entrepreneurs, with a focus on practical business skills, including financial management, regulatory compliance and market penetration strategies. Jafri also helps them with company registration and their business plans. IVS provides programmes geared at eradicating the skills gap in South Africa, such as technical support,…

There are so many inexplicable things happening in almost every sphere of our lives in this troubled land, Azania. Of particular concern are the socio-economic and political events and trajectories emanating from these. The seemingly never-ending state of economic subjugation, landlessness and poverty that black people, the natives of this land, are subjected to, is overwhelming. The fact that all this persists under a “black-led” government is frustrating. It’s a plethora of insignificant, though not irrelevant, issues that seem to have preoccupied us, at the expense of what constitutes the core of the essence of our liberation struggle. We have lost focus on our painfully constructed historical mission. This is what many of our heroes, heroines and martyrs sacrificed so much to achieve. However, we are obsessed with things that…

Chad Williams chad.williams@inl.co.za Burkina Faso-born architect Diébédo Francis Kéré has become the first African to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s most prestigious honour. According to various international reports, Kéré was honoured for “pioneering” designs that are “sustainable to the Earth and its inhabitants – in lands of extreme scarcity”. Kéré is the first African to win the honour in its more than 40-year history. Kéré, a dual citizen of Burkina Faso and Germany, said he was the “happiest man on this planet” to become the 51st recipient of the illustrious prize since it was first awarded in 1979, AFP reported. He is renowned for building schools, health facilities, housing, civic buildings and public spaces across Africa, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique, Togo and Sudan, according…

John Otis Madeleine Albright, the first US female secretary of state, died of cancer on Wednesday. She was 84. Albright, pictured, came to the US as an 11-year-old political refugee from Czechoslovakia and was an ardent and effective advocate against mass atrocities in Eastern Europe while serving as US ambassador to the UN. Her Jewish family, who narrowly avoided extermination at the hands of the Nazis, fled to England shortly after Hitler’s tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1938. Several of Albright’s relatives, including three grandparents, died in the concentration camps of Terezinstadt and Auschwitz. After the war, Albright’s father, a Czech diplomat wary of communism, feared he would be arrested following a 1948 coup by hard-line Stalinists in Prague. The family escaped once more, this time to the US. She…

Matshelane Mamabolo @Tshiliboy AMONG the first people to congratulate Steven Khanyile on his election as the new president of the Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) was former Two Oceans Marathon winner Thulani Sibisi. Sibisi posed for a picture with the veteran CGA administrator and posted it on his Facebook page, captioning it: “You are the right person to be CGA President, Mr Khanyile. Congratulations.” Khanyile amassed 92 votes. His closest rival Karabo Mabilo got 46 votes and won the vice president position. That the likes of Sibisi are delighted by his elevation is because Khanyile has spoken about the need to get a lot of the country’s former top athletes involved in the sport. For a country that used to have world superstars in running in the 1970s and 1980s in…