Being a junior member of the Gift of the Givers medical team, my interactions with Dr Yakub Essack, fondly known to us younger ones as Uncle Yakub, were always pleasant. Every time we’d meet, I’d always (only half) jokingly ask that he remembers to pick me for the next medical mission, and despite my persistence, I would always be met with a warm smile and reassurance that I wouldn’t be forgotten. It was the type of smile that made you feel everything would be alright for the mere fact that he was in charge.

Reading through the messages on the core medical Gift of the Givers group, it’s clear that Uncle Yakub’s passing has left an insufferable blow and absence on all the members. There is a pervading theme that permeates all the messages of grief: Uncle Yakub’s unfaltering sincerity in serving humanity and his kindness to all those around him.

Dr Yakub Essack was a general practitioner in Gauteng. (Photo: Supplied)

As everybody recollects their fondest memories of him, a magnanimous man who played the role of a fatherly figure to many is easily built, and his willingness to always lend a helping hand to those who needed it was consistent in his personal and professional life. Working with Gift of the Givers gives you a second family, and Uncle Yakub was undoubtedly a dad to so many – a confidant, sound adviser and patient listener. He was a loving husband, father and brother too – his loss will be a huge void for his family, but a massive loss for humanity.

He paved the way to show us what it truly means to serve selflessly.

Serving as the head of the Gift of the Givers medical team for the past 32 years, including embracing the taxing role of team leader on a number of international missions, Uncle Yakub’s fierce dedication to serving humanity is what drove him. However, he managed to infuse this passion with a gentle and caring nature, making him both responsible and approachable to all those around him. This is a rare trait in a leader. His skill set in being able to assemble a group of medical volunteers and equipment efficiently and at short notice was unmatched. Uncle Yakub will always be one of the foundation blocks upon which Gift of the Givers was built – an organisation which has helped so many and through which his memory will be immortalised.

Dr Yakub Essack in Syria, April 2013. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

Yakub Essack was a giant of a man who lived a life of sincerity, devotion to others and sincere humility – he will always remain the epitome of what the next generation aspires to be. He paved the way to show us what it truly means to serve selflessly, and will remain a constant reminder of the testament to what humble dedication and authenticity mean. 

We live merely in his footsteps, inspired immeasurably by his embodiment of the saying: “Best amongst you are those who benefit mankind.” He has left a legacy of unmatched kindness in doing so. Truly, some men are indispensable and he is one of them. – Aayesha Soni

Syria, April 2013. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

April 2013, AR Rahma Hospital, Syria. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

A human par excellence

Gift of the Givers pays tribute to the head of our medical team, Dr Yakub Essack, who passed on a few hours ago after suffering a massive heart attack. We remember him as a brother, friend, companion, dedicated community member, pure soul, and sincere, humble, compassionate human being, ever willing to assist the elderly, orphans, widows and just about anyone in need. He led our medical teams on numerous international missions, won the hearts of those he served, and was most approachable to team members as a counsellor in cases of secondary traumatisation.

Gift of the Givers 30th anniversary, August 2022, Wits University. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

Syria, April 2013. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

Ever willing to offer a listening ear, a gentle word and a warm embrace, he was a human par excellence. He has been called to the Almighty, to the Realm of Peace, Light and Blessings. May he be received with extended arms in the highest abode of bliss called Janaatul Firdose. May he be blessed and welcomed by the Almighty for his exceptional service to family, friends, community, country and humanity. We say goodbye to a most incredible human being. May the Almighty grant ease to his dear family. We were friends for 32 years. – Imtiaz Sooliman DM

Dr Imtiaz Sooliman is the founder of Gift of the Givers. Dr Aayesha Soni is a specialist neurologist and medical volunteer with Gift of the Givers.

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A man named Lennox Ntsodo has levelled serious allegations against Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe party, alleging that the party forged thousands of signatures to qualify for participation in the 29 May polls. Ntsodo claims that the signatures were sourced from the jobseekers database owned by the Cape Town municipality.

The signature forgery scandal comes as the MK party’s support has been steadily growing, with the latest Ipsos poll showing that if the election were held tomorrow the party would garner 8.4% of the national vote, climbing to fourth position, with more support than all the other new parties.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Zuma’s MK party and unhappy voters whack ANC to 40.2% in latest Ipsos poll

If the allegations against the MK party are proven correct, this could have grave implications for the legitimacy of the elections, Daily Maverick’s Lerato Mutsila reported.

On Tuesday, National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola told reporters on the sidelines of a crime prevention imbizo in Inanda, Durban, that the investigation was still in its initial stages and the police were trying to determine whether there was a case.

Read more in Daily Maverick: SAPS probes allegations that MK party forged signatures

Questions remain on the identity of Ntsodo and why he only came out now with such allegations a few weeks ahead of the crunch elections.

Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections hub

Daily Maverick approached Ntsodo for a one-on-one interview, offering the option to have his legal team present. Initially, he agreed but mentioned he needed to consult first. Upon returning, he stated that his legal team advised him to limit interviews to only two media outlets, which he declined to specify. He also refused to provide the affidavit he gave to the police, citing that the two media outlets would publish his story in the coming days.

Who is Ntsodo? 

Ntsodo is a staunch Zuma supporter and headed the HandsOffZuma campaign in Cape Town before Zuma resigned as President of the country in February 2018. Ntsodo travelled across the city encouraging ANC supporters to defend Zuma and call for the removal of Dr Makhosi Khoza who, at the time, was publicly supporting a proposed motion of no confidence against Zuma.

Daily Maverick last saw Ntsodo in Philippi, Cape Town when Zuma was on the campaign trail in March this year.

Read more in Daily Maverick: MK party’s ‘mission impossible’ to win votes to amend Constitution to re-elect Zuma as SA president

Ntsodo was on course to lead the MK party in the Western Cape until aspects of his past were brought to light. Sources inside the MK party sent information to Daily Maverick back in January that included two case numbers linked to alleged fraud while questioning why the party was considering Ntsodo to lead the province.

(Image: Supplied)

An ANC councillor in the City of Cape Town said Ntsodo almost ruined his chances of becoming a councillor when Ntsodo made people work without pay.

“He was well connected in the ANC and before the 2021 local government elections, he said he wanted to assist in my campaign. He came with refuse collection trucks and asked that I bring him 50 people to hire.”

The councillor said he followed the instructions and the local community members cleaned the area. Come payment time, Ntsodo was nowhere to be found.

“People were angry with me because I recommended them to him,” said the councillor. “The people almost did not vote for me because of this and I am still angry at him for what he did.”

Elicit activities suspicion

Just like Zuma, Ntsodo has had a brush with the law and is currently out on bail for fraud charges after allegedly pretending to be a City employee and selling plots of land for R100,000 in Mfuleni.

Together with an accomplice — Nombongo Bidi — and two municipal officials — Gerrit Engelbrecht and Neil Welman, they pocketed close to R900,000 from selling the plots.

According to the charge sheet, the foursome committed these acts between July and October 2022 in the Mfuleni area, where Ntsodo is from. It has been alleged Ntsodo had to flee from his home after being pursued by people he allegedly defrauded.

Recently, a court interpreter, Nomvuyo Dyosi who works at the Blue Downs Magistrate’s court in Cape Town was arrested after she tried to solicit a bribe from Ntsodo’s sister, TimesLive reported. National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said Dyosi allegedly approached Ntsodo’s sister, Zimasa Ntsodo, at his bail application to “buy sweets” for the magistrate to “rescue” her brother, who she suspected had been assaulted in custody.

“The sister asked the accused what the ‘sweets’ she was referring to were, and the accused replied a payment must be made so she (Dyosi) could give the money to the magistrate for her brother to get bail.”

Lennox Ntsodo was subsequently granted bail of R5,000 on 13 November, 2023.

Dyosi then allegedly started demanding payment of R20,000.

The siblings informed a family member — who also works at the court — about the incident. The family member then notified the magistrate about the accusations.

“The magistrate denied the accusations against him and immediately reported the matter to the police,” said Ntabazalila.

Jobseekers database

The City of Cape Town maintains a jobseekers database, from which hiring projects can request names when seeking to employ a specific number of individuals. The names are selected randomly from the database. Many of these job opportunities are part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), a poverty alleviation partnership between the national government and municipalities that provides temporary employment opportunities to the unemployed.

Councillors do not have access to this database — only EPWP managers have access to it. To sign up, unemployed individuals are required to register themselves at their subcouncils.

There have been reports in the past that councillors had their database for record-keeping purposes. This database would be kept to check against hiring the same individuals and keep tallies of the number of people that benefited from the EPWP.

Sources within the City of Cape Town told Daily Maverick that the municipality was questioning the legitimacy of the allegations surrounding Ntsodo and how the MK party could have accessed the database.

City Spokesperson, Luthando Tyhalibongo said; “The City notes the accusation made of forged signatures obtained from a jobseekers database and submitted to the IEC. The City takes any accusation involving a potential breach of personal information very seriously and complies with the Protection of Personal Information Act. Once we receive any breach complaint we will investigate the matter accordingly and take corrective action if required. We have not received any complaints to date.”

During an interview, MK party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said they would open a countercase against Ntsodo but did not say when. “He offered as a volunteer to help, only [for us] to find that he was involved in frivolous and questionable activities.”

Ndhlela said Ntsodo was disgruntled for not making it into the party’s candidates list. DM

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As flu season is expected to start soon, there are ways to protect yourself and others. We asked Dr Jocelyn Moyes, a medical epidemiologist from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), to answer some questions about the flu. 

When does flu season start?

Moyes said that over the last 20 years (excluding the pandemic years between 2020-2022), the influenza season generally started between mid-April and early June. It peaks in late June or early July and ends in August or September.

Which variants will be most in circulation this year?

Influenza viruses constantly change their antigenic structure, so it is impossible to predict which strain(s) will circulate. In most years, there will be a mix of strains.

Does it matter which of the flu strains you have?

“Influenza from any strain is a self-limiting illness for most people, and people will recover in 3-7 days. However, influenza can cause severe illness, hospitalisation or even death in some people. 

“All influenza strains can cause severe disease. The annual influenza vaccine (available in public health clinics and private facilities) can prevent illness and protect against severe disease. 

“The vaccine is changed yearly to match the expected circulating viruses. People at risk of severe illness are strongly encouraged to get vaccinated,” she added.

Who is at risk of severe illness?

Moyes listed these categories as: pregnant women and women who gave birth within the previous six weeks; people living with HIV; individuals with tuberculosis; persons of any age with chronic diseases, especially those affecting lungs like asthma; those who require immunosuppressive medication or cancer patients; people who have been diagnosed with cardiac disease (except hypertension); people with diabetes and other metabolic diseases; and those with renal or hepatic (liver) diseases or neurologic and blood conditions. 

Moyes also advised that people older than 65 get vaccinated and those younger than 18, including children, receive chronic aspirin therapy.

Should we still test for Covid?

The NICD continues to do surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 to describe the circulation and identify the variant circulating. There is no indication for individuals to test for SARS-CoV-2, unless it is needed for medical management of their illness.

What are the current respiratory diseases circulating?

“SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating at low levels for two years, with no indication of the circulation becoming seasonal. The RSV [respiratory syncytial virus] season in South Africa starts in mid-February, peaks in April or early May and ends in early June, preceding the influenza season. 

“In our surveillance programmes, the peak of RSV circulation for 2024 has been reached and the detection rate is decreasing,” said Moyes. 

Which respiratory diseases are in circulation?

The disease currently identified by the NICD’s surveillance programmes is flu, although the season has not yet started (based on predetermined thresholds).

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable illness caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It’s commonly known as whooping cough.

“From July 2021, we detected an increase in the circulation of pertussis across the country (mostly in young children), lasting until mid-2023. Since then, the numbers have decreased dramatically, and we are only picking up sporadic cases now,” Moyes said. 

“Some respiratory viruses other than RSV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can cause similar symptoms, including adenovirus, rhinovirus, enterovirus, parainfluenza and human metapneumovirus. These viruses can circulate all year round but may increase seasonally,” she added.

How can we protect ourselves?

Moyes said the best way to protect yourself is to get the flu vaccine (for influenza) and implement similar measures to those used during the pandemic. 

These include frequent hand-washing, respiratory hygiene (cough/sneezing into a tissue or your elbow), wearing a mask when you have respiratory symptoms (to protect other people) and isolating if you are ill to avoid spreading viruses.

How vital is it to get the vaccine?

Moyes said it is vital for people in the high-risk group. 

“For others, it is advisable, particularly if they wish to reduce their chances of becoming ill, being absent from work or spreading the virus to other vulnerable individuals.”

Is there a new strain of Covid that we don’t know about doing the rounds?

Moyes explained that the SARS-CoV-2 is constantly evolving, but there is no new variant doing the rounds at the moment. 

“The virus has been circulating at a low level since the end of the pandemic,” she said.

She added that current Covid levels are low, with little change in the past two years.

According to the latest genomic surveillance report by the NICD, JN.1 is the current dominant strain of Covid-19 in South Africa. 

JN.1 is a subvariant of Omicron that was first identified in the US in September 2023. While it is distinct due to some mutations on the spike protein, there is no clinical evidence that it causes more severe diseases than other subvariants of Omicron.

Can you get the flu and Covid at the same time? 

Yes, although this is uncommon, Moyes said.

How can your flu help others?

The NICD is inviting eligible community members to join its respiratory health survey.

The online survey developed by the NICD is known as CoughWatchSA and aims to monitor respiratory symptoms for influenza-like illness. 

CoughWatchSA will ask people to report their respiratory symptoms (or lack of symptoms) on a weekly basis for six months during the influenza season. The NICD will use this data to monitor trends in respiratory illness.

CoughWatchSA needs eligible participants to join a home-based testing study, CoughCheck. This study will ask participants to take a nasal swab in their homes for a laboratory confirmation for flu, respiratory syncytial virus or Covid. 

This service is only available in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and there are no cost implications. Participants can also register for WhatsApp notifications to fill in the survey. DM

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The looting of Prasa, South Africa’s passenger rail service, began around 2012 under the leadership of CEO Lucky Montana. If you want to understand the scale of the graft, a Treasury investigation into 216 contracts awarded by Prasa between 2012 and 2015 found that only 13 were legit. The total value of the contracts was around R15-billion.

The result of this corruption has been the destruction of South Africa’s commuter train service. In 2010, rail passengers were making over 500 million train journeys a year. By 2022, this figure had fallen to 19 million. In Cape Town, the most significant Metrorail line servicing underprivileged communities including Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain, has effectively not been operational since 2019.

According to estimates, this has forced an additional 1 million passengers onto the roads daily, whereas previously they would have used trains. So if you are a Capetonian frustrated by the terrible traffic in the city in recent years, you can trace that back pretty directly to the looting of Prasa.

Read more in Daily Maverick: How Prasa was looted and left for scrap

Now let’s talk about Transnet, the government’s custodian of ports, rail and pipelines. Transnet is in charge of the trains that transport cargo rather than humans.

As revealed by the Guptaleaks investigations, the scale of Transnet corruption was the biggest since the Arms Deal in the 1990s. To give just one example, a contract was signed with the Chinese Railway Rolling Stock Corporation in 2014 to buy just over 1,000 locomotives for the price of R54.4 billion, with almost a quarter of the value of this going to Gupta companies.

Of the trains which have arrived so far from this contract, they have been late and pretty much useless. This in combination with the full picture of Transnet corruption, and a spiralling issue with criminal syndicates stealing cables, has meant that the ability of local businesses to transport their goods via rail has been drastically reduced.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Transnet turnaround looks promising, but set to be a long haul

How are those goods being transported now? Via trucks. Which is presenting huge problems for roads and for traffic. In fact, the heavy volume of trucks on the roads is tearing up road infrastructure. This is the reason for many of our potholes, because the roads simply cannot take this kind of pounding. Trucks also account for almost 10% of fatal crashes on South African roads these days, according to a recent study from the Road Management Traffic Corporation.

Together, the collapse of Prasa and Transnet have made all our lives more difficult in multiple ways. That’s the thing about corruption. It isn’t just an abstract concept. It brings down nations. And this is why we need civil society and we need journalism. To expose corruption and to put pressure on those in power to hold the corrupt accountable. DM

Read more in Daily Maverick: State of the Media news hub

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Patients and healthcare workers at 60 healthcare facilities in the Eastern Cape bore the brunt of a taxi strike in the central part of the Eastern Cape on Thursday as staff was forced to close doors and patients were intimidated.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Non-payment of scholar transport fees triggers huge taxi strike in Eastern Cape

“Healthcare workers could not get to work because of blocked roads, making clinics unable to open. This is while some sections of some hospitals had to operate with a skeleton staff,” Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson MK Ndamase said.

Facilities in Buffalo City Metro were the most affected, with 54 clinics not opening.

The Mount Coke Community Health Centre (about 60 km from East London) also could not open. At the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in East London, several units, including patient administration, outpatient departments, the laundry and maintenance departments, had to operate on a skeleton staff.

Theatres only performed emergency cases.

Workers at Ngcobo Community Health Centre were intimidated and illegally instructed to leave the facility withinin 30 minutes and the All Saints Gateway Clinic remained closed, Ndamase said.

MEC for Health Nomakhosazana Meth condemned the blocking of roads that lead to health facilities.

“People must not infringe on other people’s rights when they exercise their right to protest. Healthcare workers sometimes provide essential services that can mean life or death, so they can’t be prevented from getting to work.”

Ndamase said there were no reports of casualties or adverse outcomes caused by the roadblocks.

Strike suspension

After a long meeting that started at 4 pm on Thursday afternoon, the taxi organisations agreed to suspend the strike. In a notice distributed in communities, Gabs “Putin” Mtshala from Santaco Eastern Cape said they do not have money for petrol and will suspend the scholar transport routes until they are paid in full for January, February and March.

According to the notice, the Department of Transport has agreed to pay outstanding fees by 10 May. Mtshala said they would check if everybody had been paid before resuming their scholar transport routes.

The latest standoff is yet another chapter in the beleaguered scholar transport programme that has been limping from crisis to crisis in the past decade.

Transport promises unfulfilled

In 2014, the Eastern Cape government had promised that all deserving students would have scholar transport by 2019, but 10 years later, thousands are still walking long distances to school. The South African Human Rights Commission and the Legal Resources Centre are currently in court to obtain scholar transport for more learners.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Through thick bush, up hills and across rivers – Eastern Cape learners’ long trek to school

A damning forensic report by the Eastern Cape Treasury that served before the provincial legislature’s committee on public accounts in February shows how the Department of Transport had ignored the advice from the provincial fiscus and continued with a scholar transport scheme that was as chaotic as it was unsustainable.

Primary school children are walking kilometres daily to get to school and back as the scholar transport programme in the Eastern Cape is failing. (Photo: Hoseya Jubase)

Ironically, the Eastern Cape Department of Transport cited the threat of litigation and instability in this report as reasons why they were forced to continue with an unaffordable scheme to provide scholar transport.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Pupils describe the long walk to school, amid fight for scholar transport in rural Eastern Cape

Provincial Treasury said in their assessment of the programme that the Department of Transport had “painted itself into a corner”.

The fiscus had sounded warning after warning and highlighted the unsustainability of the scheme plagued by duplicate payments that were not recovered.

A damning forensic report has highlighted the mismanagement of the scholar transport scheme in the Eastern Cape, leaving many children, like these girls from Mbizana Village in iXesi (Middledrift) with no choice but to walk long distances to school. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)

Chaotic system

According to the report, the latest blow to the scheme was a decision in 2020/2021 that more learners could be accommodated in the scheme because of savings from the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown period. However, in the report, the Treasury noted that this was not budgeted correctly. The system was also flawed as taxi operators were paid per taxi and not per learner ferried, making some routes unaffordable. These contracts were also extended for an extra year.

This issue was flagged by the Auditor-General as long ago as 2014 and 2016 when auditors found that three children were ferried over 100 km to school in an otherwise empty taxi.

In this report, the Auditor-General stated: “The Bloekomlaan pickup point was the longest pickup point on the learner transport database, at 129 km return, allocated to three learners. However, this and several other pickup points were materially inaccurate in distance on one route. The total annual value of the overpayment on this one route was R1,408,718.” Bloekomlaan is near Humansdorp.

Problematic routes were later cancelled.

In 2014 the Auditor-General further warned that “the tariff and cost structure of the implemented learner transport scheme was not economical in all circumstances. This had a direct impact on the number of learners provided with learner transport. It cost as much as R347,239 and R366,544 each to transport two learners for the 2014 academic year”.

The report also revealed how the system was run with an Excel spreadsheet (there are about 125,000 learners in the system) and that this dataset was in the hands of a few individuals.

After bailouts and threats, the Department finally switched to a digital system to administer the scheme this year (2024)  after the province exco made it a condition of yet another bailout to ensure that the programme can continue.

Budget blown

In 2022/2023, the Department had overspent by R131-million on the scholar transport programme, which meant the department’s bank account went into overdraft by R63-million.

This was in August last year, and the Provincial Treasury then called for an explanation.

The Department of Transport then blamed the Department of Education’s inaccurate database and said they were constrained by “systemic challenges” and late submissions.

But this week, despite the new system being put in place, the Department of Transport said it will take “partial” responsibility for the latest snag in the system but also pointed out that the taxi operators had not all signed contracts and some had tax problems.

Unathi Binqose from the Department of Transport said that it is not a question of having run out of money but of technical difficulties. He has not yet issued a comment on the latest developments. DM

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Visit the Daily Maverick elections hub here.

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Tadej Pogačar is such a huge favourite for this year’s Giro d’Italia, the 107th staging of the Grand Tour race, which begins in Turin on Saturday that the real battle looks like being for the runners-up spot.

The 25-year-old Slovenian, making his Giro debut, has been imperious this season, racking up seven wins in 10 days of racing including the Strade Bianche and Liege-Bastogne-Liege which he won with audacious long-range solos.

“He’s doing something that’s not normal and he can win every race he enters,” retired Spanish great Alberto Contador said when looking ahead to the three-week battle around Italy.

“For me, he is the best cyclist in the world. It’s true he could have a crash or a mechanical problem, but he goes well in the short climbs, long climbs, he flies in time trials, he has everything.

The Yellow Jersey Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard (right) of Jumbo Visma and Slovenian rider Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates cross the finish line for the 12th stage of the Tour de France 2022 over 165.1km from Briancon to Alpe d’Huez, France, 14 July 2022. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Yoan Valat)

Pogačar won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021 but was usurped by Jonas Vingegaard in the last two years and Contador says the Dane will again be the main obstacle for Pogacar winning for a third time in France this year.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Pogacar eats up opposition to become youngest back-to-back Tour de France winner

But he says Pogačar can break new ground and write himself in the annals of cycling alongside the likes of Eddy Merckx as can Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel.

“I think we are in a golden moment for men’s cycling,” the 41-year-old Contador, who retired in 2017, said.

“Maybe in France, Italy, Spain they don’t have a big star but we need to enjoy it whether they are from Slovenia, Netherlands or Belgium. It’s so incredible, riders like Pogačar, Vingegaard, Van de Poel.

“Pogačar is doing something that never happened in the history and also what Mathieu (Van de Poel) did in Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders we need to enjoy this time.

“Pogačar for me, he can win every race and when I say every race, if he trained 100% for Paris-Roubaix he can win that too.”

No rider has ever won all three Grand Tours in the same season but Contador believes Pogačar could do the treble.

“I think that if Pogačar wins the Giro and wins the Tour de France this year he will try for the Vuelta a Espana to make history.”

Alberto Contador of Spain (pictured), a former Grand Tour winner, predicts that Tadej Pogačar will win his debut Giro d’Italia (Photo: Sara Cavallini/Getty Images)

Immediate focus

While the UAE Team Emirates rider has never ridden the Giro, there is no doubting his ability to soak up the punishment of a three-week slog, having twice won the Tour de France.

He will also contest the Tour de France later this year and some think if he won both he might be tempted to go for an unprecedented treble and take on the Vuelta a Espana too.

The Yellow Jersey Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard during the 18th stage of the Tour de France 2022 over 143.2km from Lourdes to Hautacam, France, 21 July 2022. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Guillaume Horcajuelo)

For now, though, his thoughts are on Saturday’s 140km stage from Venaria Reale just outside Turin and ending in the city after a hilly route with three categorised climbs — a profile that gives him the chance to slip straight into the leader’s jersey, the maglia rosa.

“I’m ready to embrace all the twists and turns that Grand Tour racing brings,” Pogacar said of the challenges ahead.

“The route itself is one that should suit me and the team, but this is World Tour Cycling, and anything can happen. We’ll be taking it day by day, stage by stage, ensuring we give ourselves the very best chance of success.

“It’s truly an honour to debut in this legendary race.”

Britain’s Geraint Thomas will lead the Team Ineos Grenadiers charge for the Giro d’Italia title in 2024. (Photo: Sara Cavallini/Getty Images)

Quality field

While the likes of Tour de France champion Vingegaard and Wout Van Aert, both injured, Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel are all absent, there is still enough quality in the field to test Pogačar.

Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) finished second to Roglic last year and the Welsh former Tour de France champion is the highest-profile rival to Pogačar although, at the age of nearly 38, a repeat of last year might be his best hope.

Thomas has a strong team around him with Dutchman Thymen Arensman (sixth last year) and Norwegian Tobias Foss capable of challenging in the general classification.

Australian Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) arrives in good form, while Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks has the chance to make his mark after being handed his first leadership role with powerful Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike.

This year’s Giro is the shortest in terms of overall distance since 1979 and, while there are some savage days ahead in the Alps, the climbing will be a tad less arduous than in previous years, another factor suiting Pogačar.

Italian interest will likely centre around Filippo Ganna who will be favourite for the two-time trials on offer this year.

The race finishes in Rome on May 26. Reuters/DM

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Tulbagh Valley in the Western Cape may be seen by some as a land of abundance, ringed by mountains and filled with fertile farmland suited to the production of wine and fruit. But for many in Tulbagh village, located about 120km outside Cape Town, opportunities are hard to come by. 

When Daily Maverick sat down with the local youth forum, its members said many young people were sceptical about the government and what it had achieved in the past five years. One member, Amy Booysen, said there was a perception that some political leaders only cared about their position and the money that came with it, rather than the needs of young people and other struggling residents.

“They are not visible, they are not active… So, what I feel is our youth feel that it’s useless to vote because people are only there for themselves,” she said.

Members of the Tulbagh Youth Forum, from left: Akhanye Mdlokovana, Veronique Gabriël, Amy Booysen, Semone Cupido and Dinene Coetzee. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

However, all but one of the five Tulbagh Youth Forum members Daily Maverick met said they planned to vote in the 29 May elections. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

Booysen said: “I feel that we should all vote, we are entitled to vote. In my party, the DA, I feel that we are moving forward and we have put many good things in place for our youth now… As an activist for the DA, I feel that we can go forward and all of us can save the country right now.”

Tulbagh falls in the Witzenberg Local Municipality, an area within the Cape Winelands District Municipality. In the 2021 local government election, the DA received the majority of the votes in Witzenberg Municipality at 36.8%, followed by the ANC at 30.2% and GOOD at 6.3%.

A residential area in Tulbagh. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Concerns of the young

The youth forum would like to see more government action to address issues such as job creation and the provision of proper housing in Tulbagh. Many in the community rely on seasonal work, either on the surrounding farms or at the local canning and packaging factories. Outside of this, one of the larger opportunities for employment in Tulbagh Valley is the tourism sector.

Dinene Coetzee, chair of the forum, said: “Job creation is a big issue in our town and there really needs to be a change because children sit on the corners of the streets with no direction… This is one of our biggest challenges in our town, job creation. And many of our children have qualifications but they don’t get jobs.”

There was a need for political leaders to work together across party lines, she continued: “Whether we are DA, whether we are PA, or whatever the case may be, for me it is [about] the changes that must happen. And things have to happen.”

Not all young people in the community are convinced that voting can bring about change, however. Akhanye Mdlokovana, another youth forum member, said she would not be voting as she believed politicians would just keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour.

“South Africa at the moment is not going forward. There’s a lack of jobs; the health system is not doing what it’s supposed to do; the system is actually failing people… So, I don’t see the need to vote when nothing is being done, nothing is happening, especially for the youth… For me, I’m not going to vote because there’s actually no use,” she said.

Jacques Steyn, founder of Care4Tulbagh, at his home in Tulbagh. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Children and food security

Poverty, particularly its impact on children, was also flagged as an area of concern by Jacques Steyn, founder and director of the nonprofit organisation Care4Tulbagh, which conducts research and seeks to unite other interest groups in the area behind the common goal of creating a more sustainable community environment.

One of the organisation’s focus areas has been bringing together the many soup kitchens in Tulbagh so that they can tackle food insecurity in a collaborative way and attract greater support from the government and the private sector. 

Older residents of Tulbagh wait to receive meals from a local soup kitchen. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Steyn identified a need for more places in the community where children could be engaged constructively and kept off the street, such as public sports facilities and well-equipped early childhood development (ECD) centres. 

“We need to introduce activities. If you can imagine when they’re coming to the soup kitchen now, having educational videos, having talks, having games… just to show the big world out there and expose them to things,” he said.

Jolene May, owner of an early childhood development centre in Tulbagh. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Daily Maverick visited a local ECD centre run by Tulbagh resident Jolene May. She looks after 18 children and is looking to expand her capacity. However, she said one of the major challenges she faced was that parents were often unable to pay for the service, despite the fact that she charges only R350 per month. Money is particularly scarce during the off-season for the farms and fruit canning factory.

For May, voting in the elections is important since it gives her the right to speak out and be listened to. She said: “I know that the majority in our country will want to elect another government. Me too, because today’s government that is still in power, the current government… they led us to load shedding, took us down the drain… 

“There must come another government, there must come other leaders. Because the leaders who are now in power have failed us.”

Children play at Jolene May’s early childhood development centre in Tulbagh. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Forgotten elders

There are a large number of soup kitchens in Tulbagh catering to different areas and groups of people. The one where France Mbam and Ragel Louw work has been running since 2000, providing meals to people over 60. The oldest person they support is in their nineties.

Like many NPOs across the country, the soup kitchen has seen a decline in funding from the Department of Social Development in recent years. Despite this, Mbam says they are constantly looking to expand their service because there are “a lot of elderly people in the community who struggle with food”.

Ragel Louw helps to run a soup kitchen for people over 60 in Tulbagh. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

Older residents of Tulbagh wait to receive meals from a local soup kitchen. (Photo: Joyrene Kramer)

People 65 years and older make up about 5.7% of the population in the Witzenberg Local Municipality, according to census data.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Western Cape NPOs sound alarm on impacts of social development budget cuts on the vulnerable

Both Mbam and Louw say they will vote in the elections, with Mbam stating: “I personally plan to vote… because I feel like if I didn’t vote, I’ve got no say. I can’t complain about anything that is taking place around me, when something is wrong.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections

According to Mbam, the needs of South Africa’s elderly are not being prioritised by the government. He told Daily Maverick: “The focus for government is looking to accommodate the young people, so that the young people don’t struggle, and there’s nothing wrong with that. [But] the government took away the focus from the elderly people,” he said.

“The elderly people are still in need [of support]… We want to show the young people that up until you die, you still have authority. There is no stage where they can say, ‘You have nothing to do now, you are finished’.” DM

Daily Maverick’s Election 2024 coverage is supported, in part, with funding from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and vehicles supplied by Ford.

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It’s a Thursday morning when Daily Maverick visits the coastal holiday town. Several families are scattered on Central Beach, swimming in the sea or lazing on the sand on this humid, cloudy morning. 

A bus offloads tourists and they take pictures of the beach, the sky and the Beacon Island Resort. Lifeguards shy away from discussing politics, instead suggesting that Daily Maverick visit some of the poorer areas to get a sense of the glaring divide between the haves and the have-nots.

The iconic Beacon Island hotel in Plettenberg Bay on Thursday, 25 April. The hotel forms a large part of the hospitality industry in the area. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Plettenberg Bay is in the Bitou Municipality, along with Nature’s Valley and Harkerville. The municipality is split by the N2. Along one side of the highway are a string of golf courses, luxury homes, housing estates and lagoons. The other side is more impoverished and prone to wildfires. 

According to a 2023 socioeconomic profile by the Western Cape treasury department, “pronounced income disparities exist among different racial communities” within Bitou municipality.

The report says coloured communities within Bitou faced the highest levels of inequality, followed by African communities. By contrast, income inequality is the lowest among white communities.

Mandy Corneelse, 32, lives in New Horizons, an area to which coloured people were forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act in 1968.

She was a home-based caregiver, but lost her job seven years ago. Her life soon spiralled out of control. Corneelse began using drugs and was kicked out of her mother’s home where she was living with her three children. The kids stayed behind while she drifted around looking for a place to stay.

For a while, she earned money as a car guard. But now she is unemployed.

Corneelse won’t be able to vote on 29 May as she has no identity document or money to pay for a new ID.

Plettenberg Bay resident Mandy Corneelse. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Describing her home town to Daily Maverick, Corneelse said: “Plett is very calm and that’s what attracts people… You don’t get a place like Plett.”

Corneelse said while there were comparisons with Mossel Bay, a place she has visited often, Plettenberg Bay was cleaner.

Her biggest issue was local unemployment, currently standing at 30%. 

Throughout Daily Maverick’s visit, we saw clean streets and municipal workers picking up litter. Bins are everywhere – in the leafy suburbs like Bowtie and the less affluent New Horizons and Kwanothukula. 

Residents told Daily Maverick the areas need to stay clean or tourists wouldn’t visit. 

Streets of Plettenberg Bay in areas such as Kwanokuthula are kept largely clean. When Daily Maverick visited the area, municipal workers were visibly present clearing litter. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Mayor Claude Terblanche and the local ratepayers’ association echoed the importance of tourism.

“When one looks at the businesses and economic opportunities that exist within Plettenberg Bay, it’s predominantly driven by tourism – the retail outlets, the restaurants, the hospitals, the hotels,” said Steve Pattinson, chairman of the Plett Ratepayers’ Association. 

Signs advertising accommodation in the town have been inundated with posters of political parties soliciting support ahead of the 29 May poll.

While there are plenty of DA posters, the party which scored the largest number of votes in 2019, there are few if any ANC posters, which scored the second-highest number of votes.

Scattered around the town are posters for ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance and others such as the Referendum Party and the African Transformation Movement.

Party posters adorn streetlights in Plettenberg Bay ahead of the 29 May election. Posters from the DA, ActionSA and PA are clearly visible. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

“Of late, more people have been moving to Plettenberg Bay and working remotely… But tourism is a key driver of jobs,” said Pattinson.

Tourism and those employed in the sector help to keep the town alive in many ways.

Pheliswa Hazel Cokova’s vibrant spirit and compassionate heart represent the community’s generosity in the picturesque town.

Cokova, known affectionately as Hazel, has always loved her hometown and its people. She arrived in Eqolweni informal settlement in 1994, joining her mother who has since died.

As a tour guide, she spends her time sharing the beauty and history of Plettenberg Bay with visitors from around the world. Yet, amid the scenic landscapes and bustling tourist attractions, Hazel couldn’t ignore the stark reality of hunger and need within her community.

Determined to make a difference, she opened a soup kitchen and transformed her small kitchen into a bustling hub of love and nourishment.

“I always mention the plight of unemployed people to tourists and they ask what can they do to assist,” Hazel told Daily Maverick.

“My dream has always been to either start a soup kitchen or help senior citizens with daily meals… a year ago, tourists made the soup kitchen dream a reality.”

Word of Hazel’s kindness spread quickly through Plettenberg Bay, and soon, people came together to support her cause. Businesses donated ingredients, families contributed their time and tourists visiting the area were inspired to lend a helping hand.

She said that while Plettenberg Bay was not perfect, the municipality was stable, adding that if more jobs were created, a lot more people would be happy. She said she had high hopes because Bitou was now led by young people.

Pheliswa Hazel Cokova, known as Hazel, speaks to Daily Maverick in Plettenberg Bay about the soup kitchen she operates. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

We found newly installed mayor Claude Terblanche, 37, at the Ebenezer housing project.

Terblanche, from the local Plett Democratic Congress (PDC), was elected mayor in February 2024. As Daily Maverick reported at the time, the PDC ended its coalition with the DA and a second, smaller party following claims of a lack of cooperation, issues around debt write-offs and the creation of another municipal directorate which could lead to an additional R14-million being spent on salaries.

Terblanche was elected with support from the PA, ANC and Ikhwezi Political Movement (IPM). The government of the PDC, ANC and IPM has been dubbed “The People’s Coalition”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: DA ousted by ANC-majority coalition in Plettenberg Bay’s Bitou

The coalition change caused an uproar in the town, with many people questioning Terblanche’s motives.

“It’s really tough… With the changeover and me becoming the new mayor, people didn’t take it too well,” he said. 

Terblanche blamed people who had become “accustomed to protecting their wealth… As much as we might want to say that the only people who can lead are the DA, we also find ourselves saying we are capable of leading.

“If you look at it, the Plettenberg Bay community is separated between rich and poor on both sides of the N2.”

Terblanche said his job entailed trying to reduce and then eradicate the income gap “with resources such as ensuring public funding gets split evenly within the community… I’m capable of leading this town up until 2026,” he said. 

Government-built homes in Bossiesgif, Plettenberg Bay. In the background is a view of the beach and Keurbooms lagoon. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Learners walk home from school in Qolweni, Plettenberg Bay. This area, situated along the N2 highway, is prone to fires due to the congested shacks that are slowly being replaced by brick homes. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Newly built homes in the Ebenezer Housing Project in Plettenberg Bay. The homes were built in a collaboration between the local municipality and the provincial government. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

Despite the gap between the rich and poor, Terblanche said “this town has always shown unity”, whether it was stepping in to help during the devastating Knysna fires in 2017 or “showing support through the underprivileged areas [like] informal settlements”.

Speaking to Daily Maverick about Terblanche’s tenure, Pattinson said he had a good relationship with the mayor: “I think he means well. I think his intentions are positive.”

He said the ratepayers would judge the municipality on its actions. 

“It’s very early days. This is a new shift in coalition power… We are working hard to make sure they fill all of the vacant positions with competent, experienced people with integrity,” said Pattinson.

Newly installed mayor of Bitou municipality Claude Terblanche speaks to Daily Maverick in Plettenberg Bay on Thursday, 25 April. (Photo: Suné Payne / Daily Maverick)

The ANC, DA and PA will contest the general elections in the town. 

Terblanche’s party, the PDC, will participate. However, his party will continue to make door-to-door visits to explain the voting process and ensure people get to their voting stations on the day. 

Terblanche said the election campaign had been marked by mudslinging, but that no serious threats had emerged within the town. 

Neither Terblanche nor the PDC have publicly endorsed any party contesting the elections.

“As much as we have not yet chosen to support a particular political party, we encourage our people to go out there… to know that after 30 years of democracy, their participation in the elections is of utmost importance.” DM

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Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and AI drivers

The healthcare sector, particularly the biopharma sub-sector, has seen budget cuts post-COVID-19 due to the decline in pandemic-related sales. However, we remain confident that the sector is experiencing a resurgence in investor confidence thanks to the digital revolution. 

The sector is being revolutionised by AI, medical imaging, telemedicine, and wearable monitoring devices.

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, with substantial R&D budgets, are expected to be significant drivers of growth in the sector. Investors who strategically position themselves in certain companies are poised for a good year. In addition, healthcare businesses with high barriers to entry and sustainable competitive advantages, such as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, are positioned to thrive, particularly in areas such as diabetes and obesity medication.

We also anticipate some continuation of the stellar performance seen in 2023 by the global technology sectors, including the renowned ‘Magnificent Seven’, with Meta and Alphabet being our preferred choices within this elite group.

The strategic positions held in these sectors by the Old Mutual Global Islamic Equity fund, which takes a Shariah-compliant investment approach, yielded an impressive 31.3% return over the 12 months ending December 2023, sharply contrasting with the MSCI ACWI Index, which returned 22.8%.

An edge amid interest rate uncertainty

Currently, however, market volatility continues to persist due to uncertainty regarding anticipated interest rate cuts. 

Nonetheless, regardless of whether the Fed begins cutting rates before the end of the year or only in 2025, Shariah-compliant investing offers an attractive alternative for all investors due to its overall indifference to interest rates, given that it does not invest in credit-based instruments. This unique feature enhances attractiveness as a compelling investment option, especially in times like these when interest rates significantly influence market dynamics.

Contrary to common belief, Shariah-compliant portfolios are not only limited to faith-conscious investors, adding that approximately one in five investors in the asset manager’s Shariah-compliant retail portfolios are non-Muslim.

This highlights the offering’s broad appeal as a diversified investment option that addresses ethical, faith-based, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations.

The fund’s position has also been reinforced by recent market trends, where risk assets have rebounded following adjustments to US Federal Reserve policy. However, at this volatile time we are cognisant that the market could turn at any time; we therefore ensure that we continue to build a portfolio that can take market shocks should they arise.

For investors seeking ethical and diversified exposure to global equity markets, Old Mutual Investment Group’s global Islamic equity investment option offers investors a compelling opportunity for superior investment returns. With a focus on high-quality, attractively valued companies with favorable long-term growth prospects, the offering is suitable for investors with moderate to high-risk appetites. DM/BM

By Maahir Jakoet, Portfolio Manager, Old Mutual Investment Group

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On 11 February 2023, the nation woke up to the news that hip-hop megastar, Kiernan “AKA” Forbes had been gunned down in cold blood in Durban. His good friend and ex-manager Tibz had been killed in the crossfire. Over the following weeks, this would become the biggest social media story since the Oscar Pistorius trial.

Sensational theories abounded. Was the hit an act of revenge for the death of his girlfriend Anele Tembe? Was it an inside job by one of Kiernan’s inner circle? Was he killed by a fellow rival rapper or gangsters in the club underworld?

This is the tragic story of a successful award-winning hip-hop hero, whose life unravelled when he embarked on an obsessively toxic relationship with Anele Tembe.

Melinda Ferguson is the bestselling author of her addiction trilogy Smacked, Hooked and Crashed. Read the excerpt below.

***

The Snap

When news broke on Valentine’s Day in 2013 that six-time Paralympic gold winner and darling of international athletics Oscar Pistorius had shot and killed his beautiful model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, it was met with collective disbelief.

How could South Africa’s national hero, who had conquered so much in his life, who had achieved the impossible as a disabled athlete and held our country’s flag high, suddenly have transformed into a cold-blooded killer?

As time went by and details of his “darker” side emerged, the denials slowly dissipated. By 2014, when he was found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to prison, only a few die-hard supporters were still insisting on his innocence.

This did not happen when it came to AKA and the suspicious death of his 22-year-old girlfriend Anele Tembe, despite some eerie similarities in these tragedies.

AKA was never arrested or charged with anything. After he’d made a number of statements to the police, Anele’s death was conveniently shelved. At the time, the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute and reserved the right to do so only if the results of the inquest – scheduled for April 2024 – proved otherwise.

The nation moved on and continued to stream AKA’s music. But some, like Anele’s father, Moses Tembe, believed that his daughter hadn’t committed suicide. The inference was that AKA had quite possibly gotten away with murder.

Oscar Pistorius was deemed a villain and locked up. (In late 2023, he was released on parole after serving less than nine years.) And while AKA was accused of all sorts of damning things on social media after Anele’s death, the fickle Twitterati eventually moved on to their next target.

In fact, AKA’s star has shone brighter in death than ever before. After he was assassinated in February 2023, his worth as an artist grew to dizzying heights as the weeks and months rolled by.

Two weeks after his murder, his new album, Mass Country, was released as planned when Kiernan was still alive. Less than eight hours after its release, Mass Country surpassed 10 million streams on Spotify, becoming his most streamed album ever. Within two weeks, it was certified gold. It then went platinum. It appeared to be business as usual for those in the music industry.

In June 2023, Sony hosted a private brunch to celebrate the milestone. Lynn Forbes received gold and platinum plaques on behalf of her son. In awards season, AKA won Best Hip-Hop Artist at the Metro Awards in May 2023. Six months later, he scored a historic seven nominations at the SAMAs and won the much-coveted Male Artist of the Year.

The way in which Kiernan died – shot down like international rapper icons Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. – may have added to his badass reputation in our violence-plagued culture. Perhaps the sight of his murder captured on CCTV erased all memory of his flaws and past transgressions. Within days of his death, he emerged saviour-like, risen from the tomb at a modern-day Golgotha, to become a national hero.

Some might be enraged by the idea of comparing Oscar Pistorius to AKA. Oscar was proven guilty, after all, albeit of “unintentionally” killing Reeva, whereas Kiernan’s version of the events leading up to his fiancée’s death has never been tested in a court of law.

They were also two vastly different people. Oscar was a white amputee athlete, and Kiernan was a mixed-race, able-bodied rapper. However, the comparison does not lie so much in their characters (although there are notable similarities) but rather in the way that the public responded to their celebrity and, in many ways, enabled their toxic behaviour. DM

When Love Kills: The tragic tale of AKA and Anele by Melinda Ferguson is published by Melinda Ferguson Books (R320). Visit The Reading List for South African book news, daily – including excerpts! 

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Having gone without power for two days, it’s unclear when electricity will be restored to businesses and homes affected by the tunnel fire that broke out beneath the double-decker section of the M1 highway in Braamfontein on Tuesday, 30 April.

In a statement on Thursday afternoon, City Power said emergency services had finished inspecting the site but that the power utility still had to measure gas levels in the tunnels before teams could start working on restoring power.

The Johannesburg Roads Agency must also assess the tunnels’ structural integrity before workers can enter.

“As soon as those two safety aspects have been addressed, City Power will start clearing the rubble and assessing the extent of the damage caused by the fire on the electricity infrastructure. The outcome will determine the scope of work and the estimated time of completion of repairs,” said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Parts of Johannesburg CBD in the dark after fire in inner-city tunnels

City Power said it was looking at alternative options to restore power by “back-feeding” through the Fort and Bree substations. Power had been restored to the City of Johannesburg’s Metro Centre, Liberty Life’s offices, Braampark and other office buildings.

Other parts of the CBD, Braamfontein, Parktown and Newtown have had no power since the blaze.

“Unfortunately, City Power will only be in a position to provide the affected residents with an estimated time of restoration after an assessment has been made of the fire damage and this will be done on Friday. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to the affected residents,” said Mangena.

Cable theft

Speaking from the scene of the fire on Thursday, City Power officials said the blaze had ripped through hundreds of metres of the tunnel network. They said attempted cable theft had caused the fire.

City Power said it had not heard anything from law enforcement about who was responsible for the fire.

“Nothing yet. We will communicate should there be developments on this,” said City Power’s Tumi Mashishi. 

“We can confirm from preliminary investigations that the fire occurred due to acts of theft and vandalism of the electricity equipment on Tuesday night. A hacksaw, screwdriver and other tools, alongside a cellphone, were recovered on the scene on Wednesday,” said Mangena.

“Last night, City Power’s security team had to exchange fire with criminals living in [a] makeshift squatter camp under the M1 along Carr Street, after they were found busy attempting to steal the cable that got burnt during the fire.

“A substantial amount of cable had already been cut and put in recycling bags, but the security personnel managed to recover all of it. Fortunately, no one was injured and a criminal complaint has been lodged with the South African Police Service.”

Train lines run beneath the M1 where the fire occurred and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) said it had to move trains to safeguard them from damage.

“Train crew members at home were promptly activated to move the locomotives and coaches to a safe location to prevent exposure to the fire,” said Prasa.

This is not the first fire to have torn through Johannesburg’s underbelly. In March 2022, parts of the CBD were plunged into darkness after a tunnel fire triggered a power outage. That incident left residents without electricity for a week.

Cable and infrastructure theft continue to plague Gauteng, with criminals becoming more brazen and sophisticated. DM

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Leading South African unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) vendor and service provider Telviva has announced that due to widespread demand, it has bundled its popular add-ons, as well as crucial CRM integration, into a single, cost-effective Telviva One Premium subscription. This, the business says, provides a solution for CFOs who are scrambling to keep up with spiralling multi-cloud and software licensing costs.

Telviva, which prides itself on enabling better quality conversations through context-driven cloud UCaas and CCaaS, consolidates multiple communication channels to improve customer acquisition, retention and support. Telviva’s Chief Commercial Officer says that in modern multi-cloud environments, costs can creep up with messy functionality overlaps, and that this cannot be justified. 

He says it was clear the market needed a single, cost-effective solution that could provide full UC&C functionality that included the ability to accept incoming interactions from multiple channels with full context for each engagement. 

“We needed to come up with a total solution that can be managed through a single pane of glass. This needed to be both cost-effective and rand-based in an environment where businesses are forced to deal with the volatility of dollar and euro-based licensing,” he says.

“Various teams often add different licences and before long the CFO discovers a stack of different licenses often with overlapping functionality which is not just messy, it is a waste of money. We designed Telviva One Premium as a solution to the quandaries coming up in multi-cloud service environments,” says Lith.

He explains that the changes were driven by the market. “Everyone has been asking for CRM integrations because it is the heart of where all conversations are happening. Without the CRM integration, you can’t provide context for engagements to business users, such as knowing the name of the incoming caller and the full history of engagements, including resolved and unresolved queries. This needed to be bundled into the solution so that businesses don’t need to engage yet another service provider to do the integration. 

Telviva One integrates with popular CRM systems such as Salesforce, Zendesk and Zoho, bringing the context of interactions from CRMs, along with other digital interaction channels into a single pane of glass. 

“Similarly, for teams to be able to handle incoming interactions from various channels, we have bundled in our highly popular Engage product,” Lith adds. Telviva Engage enables multi-channel engagement for customer-facing teams, by bringing together real-time web chat and instant messengers, such as WhatsApp.

He says businesses now have a single solution to address widely shared frustrations typical in cloud environments. Lith explains that as more and more businesses move towards true omni channel communication functionality, having a one-stop solution sold in rands will likely be a breath of fresh air for the market. 

Telviva One seamlessly synchronises fixed-line and mobile voice, video, and chat, on our all-in-one communications platform. Get cost-effective access to your business communications from anywhere, at any time, on any device. Contact us today. DM/BM

Rob Lith: Chief Commercial Officer at Telviva

About Telviva

Telviva is a market leader in cloud-based communications and strives to enable better quality conversations for businesses through context-driven Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS).

Seamlessly integrating voice calls, PBX, video conferencing, instant messaging, contact centre, and business intelligence into one single service, Telviva simplifies collaboration, boosts productivity, and enhances customer experiences. Delivered as a managed service, the secure solution integrates with CRMs and other cloud tools, providing historical context for informed interactions.

www.telviva.co.za

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If, like me, you are a fan of online shopping, you most likely have seen the flood of online advertising from Boston-based retail platform Temu. 

Temu, which stands for “team up, price down”, has crashed the South African market with a bang, launching in January this year and giving local retailers such as Takealot and its subsidiary, Superbalist, a run for their money. 

I decided to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. Please note this is my experience and is not financial advice that you should buy goods on Temu. 

Temu first popped up on my radar when I was searching for a dress to wear to a wedding next month. The dress that popped up seemed too good to be true – exactly what I had envisaged, at a really great price point. Having heard only good reviews from people who used Shein, I decided to take the leap and clicked on “buy”. 

My order was placed on 4 March. I received a request to pay customs and VAT duty on 9 March, and received the dress on 23 March. I have to be honest, I was prepared for total disappointment – and I was surprised. 

The dress fits perfectly. The material was probably not the highest quality, but you get what you pay for. (The wedding is this weekend, and I’m wearing a locally bought dress.)

I have since made two more purchases on the site. Here’s what I learnt along the way: 

After the very first purchase, I saw an email in my inbox at about 6am requesting a payment to “clear my order for delivery”. Half-groggy and more than a little excited about the dress, I was seconds away from clicking on the link to input my details when I remembered who I was and the constant warnings I issue about online scams. Scrolling up revealed that the email had not come to me directly, but was sent to our editorial group email. Yikes, close call!

Then I downloaded the Temu app, after having read how it tracks everything on your phone. Newsflash: most apps on your phone track what you input, with Google and Facebook at the top of the list. So, if you joined Facebook about 17 years ago, you’re already in the matrix. Now, it’s about picking your poison and navigating with care. 

Note that I shop via the Temu website and I also refuse to pay the customs and VAT duty via the app. Instead, I opt to make an EFT payment outside of the app. It takes about 24 hours to clear, which means an extra day of waiting, but I think my banking security makes it worth the wait – if you know what I mean. What the app does is help me to keep track of my shopping process – from order placement to customs payment to delivery. 

My second purchase was a slightly deeper dip of the toes. Instead of just one item, I bought a motley crew of things – from a magnetic car phone clip to mini clothes hanger clips and a satin pillowcase set. The quality of some of the items was really poor, so my advice would be to expect a bit of hit-and-miss when it comes to the quality of what you buy. 

My final observation will probably freak out the people who are worried about the tentacles of Temu. 

I realised that the special offers popping up in the Temu app were related to my conversations with my partner and my Google searches. I mean, the roll-up hosepipe was one thing, but when I googled “how to attach an ankle strap to a court shoe” and then got a Temu special for “detachable ankle straps” that, quite frankly, looked kinda cute, if a little glitzy, well, hmm!

Always one to give the benefit of the doubt, I’m currently awaiting my third Temu shipment. 

Oh, one other thing I figured out: if you put something in your Temu shopping cart and leave it there for a few days, you generally get offered a lower price. If you decide to give it a go, be sure to use all the precautions. Drop me an email and let me know how it goes. 

Until then, if you happen to see me around, I may or may not be sporting glitzy ankle straps on my shoes…

How to shop safely on Temu

Cybersecurity company Eset offers the following tips to ensure your online shopping is safe:

• Shop on the website rather than the app.
• If you see a Temu special advertised online (on your Google or Facebook feed), search for the special independently on the Temu website.
• Never save your payment details in your account. Also, set up two-factor authentication so that your account is protected by more than a password. If your bank offers the option of digital bank cards, use those.
• Temu does offer special deals and low prices, but you should view huge discounts (such as 90% or more) with more than a bit of caution.
• Always read customer reviews before you buy. In particular, keep an eye out for reviews that include photos of what the item looked like on receipt, as this sometimes may not match what is advertised.
• Be aware and exercise caution when it comes to the permissions you grant to the Temu app.
• Avoid logging into Temu via your social media accounts or linking it to any other online accounts.

Sustainability and competition concerns

According to Statista, Temu sees more than 30 million new downloads every month, making it the number one shopping app in the App Store and Play Store. 

While there may be many who are tempted by the low prices on Temu, the plethora of goods available, the intuitive advertising based on your Google searches, and the gamification appeal, there are thousands who are strongly against the Temu shopping platform. 

The two main reasons for this are sustainability – concerns have been raised globally around workforce conditions – and competition, with local retailers saying they are under immense pressure to compete with below-cost prices. 

Takealot group chief executive Mamongae Mahlare says the widespread advertising dumps by Temu have increased the cost of digital customer engagement by more than 200%. 

“[This] not only affects digital marketing costs, but also affects small businesses and local entrepreneurs trading on our platforms who also need to be participating in the market. For us, it is also more costly,” she says.

With an immense advertising budget [it spent more than $3-billion on advertising last year], Temu has swept markets across the globe. 

Its parent company, Pinduoduo (which means “together, more savings), is the third-largest e-commerce player in China, after Alibaba and JD.com.

Dubbed a “fast fashion” giant, Temu has been slammed in the US for taking advantage of a shipping provision that allows it to circumvent paying tariffs on orders. 

The company is also accused of using low-paid factory workers who typically work long hours without an employment contract. DM

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Fans of horror movies, especially self-referential ones, are probably familiar with directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the filmmaking team behind 2022’s Scream and Scream VI, as well as 2019’s pitch-black comedy horror Ready or Not.

It’s the latter that will give you the best idea of what you’re walking into with the latest effort from production company Radio Silence, because Abigail is just as funny, and as hellishly gory, as the trailer will have you believe. Probably more so.

The titular character of Abigail, played by Matilda the Musical star Alisha Weir, is the 12-year-old, ballet-loving daughter of a powerful underworld figure. After a carefully selected group of criminals with various backgrounds and expertise kidnap her in the hopes of collecting a steep ransom, all they have to do is keep her locked up and safe overnight in an isolated mansion while Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), the man who orchestrated the heist, collects the bounty.

The crew, given code names by Lambert, consist of leader “Frank” (Dan Stevens), black-hat hacker “Sammy” (Freaky’s Kathryn Newton), gunman “Rickles” (William Catlett), hired muscle “Peter” (Kevin Durand), driver “Dean” (Angus Cloud, in his last role) and “Joey” (Melissa Barrera), a medic who uses drugs to subdue their charge.

As the newly formed “rat pack” settles in for the next 24 hours of glorified babysitting, Abigail has other plans. As it turns out, they’re not locked in with an ordinary little girl – Abigail is a centuries-old vampire who is going to kill them off, one by one.

Part of the joy that comes from the film is the sheer absurdity of a team of criminals having kidnapped a vampire, and how the different characters react to this insane, life-or-death situation. Each of them has their own reasons for taking part in the heist, and as they come to find out, there’s very little they can trust about each other when they don’t even know each other’s real names.

As ridiculous as the premise may be, every actor throws themselves wholeheartedly into their roles.

An obvious stand-out is Weir, who did many of her own stunts and is a genuine heavyweight on screen, switching between scared child and terrifying monster with chilling effect; it cannot be easy to maintain an air of sweet innocence while being covered head to toe in blood and gore, but Weir certainly manages.

Melissa Barrera as Joey in ‘Abigail’. (Photo: Universal Pictures / Supplied)

Barrera is another standout, and though the audience is used to seeing her in horror movie roles, Scream’s Sam Carpenter walked so that Joey could run – literally. Joey’s story brings a more cohesive narrative to Abigail, and Barrera’s main character performance is a highlight. For a change, Barrera gets to play an active, layered character who isn’t just around to react to the plot, which suits her immensely, and we much preferred her work here to Scream.  

Also notable is how directors Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin maintain a consistent balance between the realistic and the ridiculous with Abigail, and there are plenty of laughs courtesy of the script from writers Stephen Shields and Guy Busick.

It’s not as fourth wall-shattering as the Scream franchise, but there are a few times the cast gets to have a “what the f–”  moment out loud, which perfectly mirrors the audience reaction. That’s effective humour, both in its nod to what the audience is experiencing, as well as drawing you in and getting you on the same team as the characters.

Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Frank (Dan Stevens) and Peter (Kevin Durand) in ‘Abigail’. (Photo: Universal Pictures / Supplied)

And the audience wants to see more of them.

Even before the horror show kicks off, one is surprisingly invested in this group of thugs and gangsters, even if you’re just trying to guess how each of them will die. The script might be predictable in some areas but there are still some twists you won’t see coming, and genuine laugh-out-loud moments that the trailers haven’t spoiled yet.

Of course, also included in the mix are buckets and buckets of gore, and numerous exploding bodies, as only Radio Silent Productions can deliver. This adds another layer of hilarious absurdity to the entire scenario.

To their credit, Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin also keep the film tight, and the run-time in the Goldilocks zone, where anything less would be lacking but anything more than what we get would have worn out its welcome. The balance is impeccable, as is the balance between the horror and the comedy, and the balance of comedic timing and believability from the cast.

Turns out, they got everything Just Right. DM

Abigail is in South African cinemas from Friday, 19 February 2024. This story was first published on PFangirl.

(Photo: Universal Pictures / Supplied)

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In 1980, I embarked on my journalistic journey at the tender age of 18. I vividly recall the bustling energy of the newspaper editorial office, where seasoned journalists puffed cigars and tapped away on typewriters. It was a sanctuary, a bastion of freedom in Sweden, where I found my footing as the new kid on the block. During the day I was an aspiring journalist. In the evenings I organised fundraisers to support the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. 

Fast forward 44 years, and I serve as the Swedish ambassador to South Africa. As a veteran journalist, I can proudly state that Sweden and South Africa are two countries that understand the importance of, and therefore the need to defend, principles of free media and independent investigative journalism. On World Press Freedom Day (3 May) we can celebrate our shared commitment to protecting this fundamental pillar of democracy while acknowledging the stark realities faced by journalists worldwide. 

In the age of misinformation and authoritarian crackdown on media and civil society, the freedom of the press is under siege like never before. Authoritarian regimes brazenly target journalists and independent media outlets, seeking to silence dissent and control the narrative. Countries like Russia, China and Iran consistently rank among the worst offenders. The proliferation of social media, with its algorithmic echo chambers, further exacerbates the spread of falsehoods, drowning out reasoned discourse in a sea of sensationalism. Reasoned debate and political accountability – vital for all democracies – are shut out of the discourse. 

The fruits of this siege are becoming more and more apparent to us. Freedom House estimates that just 13% of the world’s population has access to a free press. Elsewhere, in the news deserts beyond, people are forced to navigate a murky world of rumours, lies, conspiracy and pseudoscience. Likewise, other surveys, such as the latest Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, reveal a concerning trend of declining media freedom in several countries. Journalists and their families risk imprisonment, violence, and even being murdered for daring to report on sensitive issues or criticising governments. With authoritarian governments tightly controlling the media, censoring content and silencing dissenting voices through surveillance and censorship mechanisms, the bravery displayed by journalists is a reminder of the dangers in the pursuit of speaking truth to power.

Read more in Daily Maverick: State of the Media

The assault on press freedom affects not only journalists but also our fragile and vulnerable democracies. As we commemorate World Press Freedom Day, it is our collective responsibility to defend and promote press freedom worldwide. Governments, civil society organisations and individuals must unite to safeguard journalists’ safety, uphold the principles of free expression, and ensure access to information for all. Only by protecting and promoting press freedom can we build inclusive and prosperous democracies where truth, transparency and accountability prevail. For my country, Sweden, this is not just a national interest but a global imperative.

This year, World Press Freedom Day is dedicated to the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the current global environmental crisis. Misinformation and disinformation about ecological issues lead to a lack of public and political support for much-needed climate action and more effective policies. A robust media landscape can encourage civic engagement and informed public discourse, empowering citizens to actively define and contribute to a just and green transition. To achieve sustainable development, journalists must be supported to report accurately, timely and comprehensively on climate and environmental issues, their consequences and possible solutions.

After 14 years as a professional journalist, I was elected to Sweden’s parliament in 1994 – a landmark year for South Africa’s democracy. My life story has proven that democracy, human rights and free media go hand in hand. You can’t win one without the other. New challenges persist, but today, I feel grateful for all the journalists who fought and continue to fight for our rights. We have a responsibility to follow in their footsteps. DM

Håkan Juholt is the ambassador of Sweden to South Africa.

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The central part of the Eastern Cape was brought to a standstill on Thursday morning, with one of the province’s metros, Buffalo City, bearing the brunt of a strike as taxi operators blocked roads after the provincial government failed to pay their scholar transport fees on time.

However, the Eastern Cape transport department said some scholar transport service providers had not signed their contracts yet because of problems with the South African Revenue Service. 

Taxi operators, who asked to remain anonymous, said they faced repossession of their vehicles owing to unpaid scholar transport fees.

On Wednesday night, the transport department called on scholar transport operators to revisit their plans for a total shutdown in the province, emphasising that it was illegal.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Through thick bush, up hills and across rivers – Eastern Cape learners’ long trek to school

“The department has also cautioned that such a shutdown will not only infringe on people’s right of movement, but will also negatively impact scores of taxi operators, the overwhelming majority of whom depend on the taxi rank, have private contracts with parents to ferry learners, or have contracts with companies to ferry their workers,” a department statement reads.

“The Eastern Cape Department of Transport wishes to assure the scholar transport operators and the public at large that the challenge is not with unavailability of funds, but rather some technical challenges that it continues to tackle. The department says it is also worth noting that while it takes a degree of responsibility for the delay, some of it is down to the boycott of the signing of contracts by some operators when the department asked them to do so back in January and in February, while part of it is down to challenges relating to SARS among some operators.”

Department spokesperson Unathi Binqose said they promised to settle outstanding fees by 15 May. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Pupils describe the long walk to school, amid fight for scholar transport in rural Eastern Cape

“The department promised to pay R5.9-million in outstanding fees on Friday and also to pay further outstanding invoices on 15 May,” the statement said. 

“The Eastern Cape Provincial Government and the provincial Department of Transport have stressed that any planned acts of a shutdown, denying people their right of movement at a time when many elderly and frail citizens are supposed to be getting their social grants, will not only be an immoral act but will also be an illegal action that will be acted against by the law enforcement.”

Binqose said the department did not wish to downplay the plight and concerns of those who planned the protest and would take a degree of responsibility for the non-payment of scholar transport operators. 

However, the department “is pleading with those who advocate for a shutdown to revisit their decision and to remember that their actions will have far-reaching consequences not only affecting the work of many companies but also the government, the elderly and the frail”.

Many elderly people were out on Thursday to collect their pension. Alexa Lane from the Black Sash in the Eastern Cape said that by mid-morning they had not received any reports of significant disruptions.

Bishop Yolelo, the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) chairperson in the Eastern Cape, distanced his organisation from the shutdown on Thursday morning. 

Public order police started removing vehicles and opening roads by mid-morning on Thursday. (Photo: Supplied)

“While we acknowledge the existing challenges surrounding overall government regulation and support of our industry, we believe there should be more cordial avenues pursued to ensure that harm isn’t caused as concerns are being registered,” Yolelo said.

He added that they supported taxi owners’ concerns about not being paid for scholar transport. 

“We confirm our concerns over the non-payment of Scholar Transport Service Providers and that the matter is being attended to. We are committed to ensuring the safety of all commuters wishing to utilise our services with the help of law enforcement,” he added.

Buffalo City Metro spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya said they were monitoring developments in the “province-wide taxi shutdown”. 

“The Metro is part of the safety and security cluster led by the South African Police Service, which ensures that the safety of citizens and the state is paramount. 

“A multistakeholder joint operations centre has been activated by SAPS in the Metro. Our law enforcement agencies are part of the operations, responding swiftly and rooting out criminal elements. 

“Metro management reconvened this morning to assess the impact of the taxi strike and has decided that all staff must be released and work remotely or from home for their safety. 

“Our essential services will continue to provide basic services, and to this effect our Protection Services has been informed to provide the necessary safety to our staff.

“The Metro is ensuring the safekeeping of all municipal assets to ensure that all vehicles are parked safely and securely and all other assets are safely locked away. No damages to municipal properties or vehicles have been reported thus far.”

The Nelson Mandela Bay metro and the western part of the province were not affected by roadblocks by mid-morning. 

However, several parts of the N2 in the central part of the province were blocked early morning, and at about 10am the public order police moved in to remove vehicles.

Affected roads also include the R72 near Port Alfred, several roads in East London, the N2 at Peddie, the N2 through Dutywa towards Mthatha and the N2 at Tsomo. 

Eyewitnesses who asked to remain anonymous said taxi protesters stopped vehicles carrying workers or children at their “checkpoints”.

Several schools in East London remained closed on Thursday in anticipation of the protest.

Eastern Cape health department spokesperson MK Ndamase said they had not received any reports of ambulances being affected by the strike. 

Premier ‘lied’

The DA’s Marshall von Buchenroder, who has been the most vocal advocate for improving scholar transport services in the province, said he believed the shutdown could have been avoided if premier Oscar Mabuyane had kept his promises.

“Earlier this year, the premier promised that an additional R90-million would be made available to cover outstanding payments to operators that had not been paid since November last year. This followed after the premier was forced to publicly admit that the scholar transport programme had left in excess of 40,000 learners on the side of the road with no way of getting to school. 

“In his State of the Province Address he promised that his government was aware of the problems within the programme and was working to address them. 

“It is clear from today’s actions by operators that the premier lied and that the rot within the Scholar Transport Programme is nowhere near to being resolved. His failure to keep his word has resulted in a provincial-wide shutdown of routes, schools being shut down, and hundreds of thousands of learners [affected],” Von Buchenroder said.

The strike began on the day the Legal Resources Centre and the South African Human Rights Commission were due in court to fight for an order to increase scholar transport to some schools and for the Education Department to provide a catch-up plan for pupils affected by the problems in the system.

The lead attorney for the centre’s legal team, Cameron McConnachie, said they would soon get a court order by agreement for the schools who brought the application, and the rest of the matter would be decided at a later stage. The matter would be heard again in September. DM

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As a systematic investment company committed to science and evidence-based investing, we understand the importance of empirically grounded investment strategies that take advantage of all the global investment opportunities available. 

With South Africa’s stock market representing less than 1% of global stock market capitalisation, diversification into global markets is not just advisable but necessary to avoid the risks of a pronounced home bias. The JSE also offers limited exposure compared to global markets and the myriad of innovative and fast-growing industries, such as technology and pharmaceuticals, that are not well-represented on the JSE. 

The South African economy, while rich in potential, bears its share of volatility and political uncertainty. This reality can pose risks that are mitigated through global diversification. Offshore investments in more stable economies offer a hedge against local economic fluctuations and provide a broader security net against domestic unpredictabilities.

While the above makes the case to diversify globally when it comes to the equity building block, South African investors should not look past the more conservative opportunities presenting themselves. Currently, the opportunities presented by global interest rates, especially US dollar-denominated assets, are compelling. 

With US interest rates offering yields of 5% to 6%—often viewed as nearly risk-free compared to emerging market economies—the incentive for South Africans to invest in offshore assets that reflect these higher interest rates is robust. The high yields present an attractive opportunity for investors seeking stable, high-return potential in a globally more stable currency. 

Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act allows investors to allocate up to 45% of their portfolio offshore. This provision paves the way for diversification. It’s important to differentiate investments from local liabilities; even though liabilities may be rand-denominated, investing offshore and managing currency risk through hedging strategies can effectively align the investment returns generated by a globally diversified portfolio with local financial needs.

Modern portfolio theory supports diversification as the most significant risk-reducing strategy, without compromising expected returns. For South African investors, diversification is crucial not only across asset classes but also geographically. By investing in global markets, investors reduce the risk of local market fluctuations impacting their entire portfolio.

In the context of current global financial trends, global income funds are particularly appealing. These funds offer asset class diversification, certainty of returns, and a reduced risk profile. The Prescient Global Income Provider Fund, for instance, invests globally across more than 10 000 instruments. It is designed around a risk-aware philosophy that seeks to optimise returns through high-quality, high-yield income assets. A strategy like this is especially attractive now, as it is positioned to benefit from the transition from a high-interest-rate environment to potentially lower rates in the future.

For South African investors, the current global economic landscape offers a unique opportunity to enhance portfolio returns through offshore investing. By embracing a scientifically grounded, systematic investment approach, investors can capitalise on high-yielding, conservative income assets abroad. This strategy not only promises higher returns but also ensures a more stable and diversified investment portfolio in the face of both local and global economic uncertainties. DM/BM

Disclaimer:

Prescient Investment Management (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider (FSP 612). Collective Investment Schemes in Securities (CIS) should be considered as medium to long-term investments. The value may go up as well as down and past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. CISs are traded at the ruling price and can engage in scrip lending and borrowing. A schedule of fees, charges and maximum commissions is available on request from the Manager. A CIS may be closed to new investors in order for it to be managed more efficiently in accordance with its mandate. Performance has been calculated using net NAV to NAV numbers with income reinvested. There is no guarantee in respect of capital or returns in a portfolio. Where a current yield has been included for Funds that derive its income primarily from interest bearing income, the yield is a weighted average yield of all underlying interest-bearing instruments as at the last day of the month. This yield is subject to change as market rates and underlying investments change. Prescient Management Company (RF) (Pty) Ltd is registered and approved under the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act (No.45 of 2002). For any additional information such as fund prices, fees, brochures, minimum disclosure documents and application forms please go to www.prescient.co.za. The Prescient Global Income Provider Fund is registered under section 65 of CISCA.

Please note that there are risks involved in buying or selling any financial product, and past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. The value of financial products can increase as well as decrease over time, depending on the value of the underlying securities and market conditions.  No action should be taken on the basis of this information without first seeking independent professional advice. We shall not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever arising as a result of your use of or reliance on the information contained herein. 

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There is a certain inevitability about the increase in minority politics based on race in post-apartheid South Africa. Most of the people who held political and economic control and privilege, a minority who fought tooth and nail over decades to shore up all of that, were never going to be pleased about giving up power and privilege.

One minority group, people classified as coloured by the apartheid regime, a classification retained by the post-apartheid regime, feels especially aggrieved. Whatever we may think about race, it means very little when people identified as a particular race feel aggrieved or “left behind”. This is where the coloured people find themselves.

In general, coloured people, people of Indian descent and a minority within the minority of white people were active in various permutations of “collaboration and democracy” during the apartheid era. To the extent that they constituted a bloc, most sit, today, within the ANC and Democratic Alliance.

Some have held on to their religious or cultural traditions, with more conservative elements finding a home in the Minority Front, the Freedom Front Plus or the Patriotic Front. There was always a strong Indian presence across the broad liberation movement represented by the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Organisation and the United Democratic Front. These are simplified observations, but they are no less accurate. 

Return to race-based minority politics

All of this notwithstanding, the coloured people have almost always found themselves in a liminal space. (Here is a good introduction to pre-democracy coloured politics.) Of course, some joined the ANC after 1912, but they always held on to the hope of a better life after apartheid to the extent that they idealised and romanticised hope and anticipation. It has all come crashing down, it seems, and marks a turn to race-based minority politics.

Today, not without justification (the evidence certainly shows a decline in the overall prosperity of coloured people), the community feels excluded. As they navigate the wild waters of democracy they feel threatened and stuck between the rocks of African nationalism, represented by the ANC, and the dragons of the ethnonationalism embodied by the Economic Freedom Fighters.

These competing nationalisms have made it clear that “Africa is for Africans” and that coloured people are not African. These issues have been brewing (see here, here, here and here) and have given birth to a race-based minority politics, the highest tentpole being the inscrutable Gayton McKenzie and the relatively unknown Fadiel Adams of the National Coloured Congress (NCC). 

Adams sets himself apart from McKenzie (for now) and insists that the coloured community today has no way out, as it were, and seems locked in a cycle of poverty, unemployment and crime which is part of purposeful marginalisation by the nationalists. (The liberals would probably blame it all on “the market”.)

The ANC and EFF share a belief with the DA, notionally representative of the white community, that “pigment” does not matter. The former two speak about the primacy of Africanness (having already excluded those they describe as non-Africans) and the latter believes that race does not matter. In other words, you can join or support the ANC and EFF (just don’t mention non-Africans), or the DA (just don’t mention pigment). 

Race, pigment and Africanness are nought for the comfort of coloureds 

It would be funny if it were not so tragic: the statement of the liberal politician Natasha Mazzone of the DA, who conveniently claimed that her father, who was of a darker pigment, did not enjoy white privilege when he arrived in South Africa from Europe (Italy). It would appear that in some cases, “pigment” matters.

The old racists are simply using new ways to conceal what they mean; this includes statements about avoiding the politics of pigment and not seeing race in a country wracked by centuries of racial hierarchies, and then a switch was flicked (on 27 April 1994) and there was, suddenly, no racism — only “cultures” under threat. These are not tangential matters.

There is a clear global pattern that influences national politics, unless, of course, you suffer from change blindness, with notions of uniqueness or exceptionalism, or imagine that South Africans are isolated from the world. Nonetheless, at the global level, from whence we inherit so many trends and traditions, there are increased concerns and discussions about “civilisations” in confrontation or conflict. It all received great impetus when the old Soviet Union collapsed and “the West” sought new demons to fight…

Racial bigotry and hierarchies are, again, cast in the language of “culture”; again, because it sits deep in the imagination of European liberal thought. This is evident in the earliest of European thinking. The Scottish philosopher and historian beloved by liberals, David Hume, believed “the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites”, not because of race, mind you, but because of culture (habits, customs, etc).

John Stuart Mill, also a darling of liberals (he was, of course, one of Britain’s pre-eminent liberal philosophers, and a colonial administrator), was described as a “cultural chauvinist”, and he proclaimed that his views were not racist, but that colonised people in Asia and Africa were simply inferior because of their (indigenous) cultures, characters and laws. (See Anthony Bogues, John Stuart Mill and ‘The Negro Question’, published in Andrew Valls’ collection Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy; Martin Barker, The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe, and Jennifer Pitts, A Turn To Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France.) 

Anyway, today, racism is now masked behind talk of “civilisational clashes and conflicts” strengthened by Washington’s “war on terror”, and where non-Western or non-European cultures or civilisations are considered as lesser entities and a danger to the complacent hegemony of “the West”.

South Africa’s coloured people don’t readily fit into easily identifiable cultures and, according to Adams of the NCC, are simply ignored or irrelevant and not worthy of consideration. It remains to be seen how long Adams will keep his place and avoid the seduction of the Patriotic Alliance, which, for now, seems to have “the numbers”.

Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real 

Again, some context and definitional matters are important. The coloured people discussed here are those people to whom the government gave the identity of “coloured” because they are not pure Africans and “mixed”.

There are strong beliefs that race is a “social construct” and a “biological lie”. Even those of us who prefer class analysis, and don’t particularly care for race-based politics, should probably not dismiss the way racism and notions of racial or religious exclusivity and exceptionalism have inspired some of the worst violence over centuries, notably the past 100 years, when at least 120 million were killed for having the “wrong” beliefs and value systems.

The coloured people in South Africa do not have the privilege of claiming new settlements abroad, based on myths, lies or biblical injunctions that are untested and unproven, of claiming ethnicity exception to get access to privilege or even indigeneity.

I am sure that there is a scientific basis that supports claims that coloured people are, for the most part, indigenous. I personally am rather pleased at being “mixed” and it’s a great pity that I will not be around 500 years from now (if we have not destroyed the planet) to shove a finger in the eye of racial or ethnic purists — and when we’re all, well, coloured.

Anyway, a search for purity based on genealogy can be a terrible waste of time, and retrogressive. Unless it is driven by intellectual curiosity or simply as family record-keeping, and to the extent that it includes a search for purity, it can be destabilising and dangerous.

The point is that the nationalists and ethnonationalists who dominate democratic South Africa have the power and influence to state who is and who is not indigenous and place them on a sliding scale of justice. 

The coloured people, as a group, have nowhere to go. They are diverse in most senses. While the majority may speak Afrikaans, they share only a tenuous relationship with the Afrikaner mainstream. If we believe Adams, through a combination of wilful exclusion marginalisation, the coloured people are being led to believe they’re unimportant, “unfit” for work or higher education, and remain mired in increasing poverty, unemployment, violence, hunger and need.

The NCC believes it can make a difference and, at least, raise the levels of prosperity of the coloured people. A hard task for a political organisation that is so narrowly based on an amorphous group like “the coloureds” — who should, if one were allowed to say it, take pride in being “impure” and made up of racial and ethnic influences. The problem, of course, is that it is not up to the coloureds to determine where they “belong”. It is up to the African nationalists and the ethnonationalists. DM

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For years, political analyst and writer Richard Calland has watched the unruly mess of South African politics flow before him from his perch at Parliament (before the building burnt down, of course). 

Few people in the country have had more experience observing the inner workings of government; few people have spent more time considering how the various elements converge — or, more often, don’t. And as bad as things may have been on a normal day, they only got worse during the period of State Capture, when Jacob Zuma’s fetid mafia regime tried everything it could to subvert the mechanics of governance in the service of a narrow syndicate, led in spirit by the notorious Gupta brothers.

During the pandemic, Calland had an idea: Why not do something with all this raw material. That something has become a play, currently in production at The Market Theatre. It’s called The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special. It’s about, well, everything. 

Daily Maverick recently spoke with Calland about how, of all things, he hoped to capture State Capture for the stage, and what he hoped the work would achieve. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special. David Dennis as Uncle and Astrid Braaf as Journalist.
(Photo: Suzy Bernstein)

DM: What inspired you to write this project? What was the driving impetus?

Calland: It was a mixture of personal, professional and political reasons. The personal reason was, frankly, to experiment with another writing genre to see if I could succeed with a creative writing project, having written prose and nonfiction all my life.

The professional reason was, I think, based around the idea that this country tends to move on very fast from things. State Capture was something that was really significant. And yet there was a real danger, it seemed to me, that we moved on too fast from it, the lessons not learned, not digested. And then all the work that was done to defend democracy was kind of wasted. It was a huge effort to protect the institutions and the rule of law. And I think, although full accountability hasn’t happened yet, that it was a significant effort to defend public democracy from private state capture. 

I suppose the political reason was about trying to make art that will memorialise that historical moment in a creative way, and which will capture people’s attention, stimulate them, and communicate these important messages through a different channel. Because I think part of the fatigue, not specific to State Capture, but more generally, is that people are struggling at the moment to deal with big stories, like climate change, or State Capture. 

So the challenge, and it’s a shared challenge for journalists, commentators, analysts and even academics, is how to communicate this complexity in a way that doesn’t kind of drive people away. And art at its best can cut through that because it can entertain and stimulate in a way that perhaps other forms of communication can’t.

DM: One thing I’ve long been fascinated by is the fact that outside of liberation, we tend not to mythologise these massive historical milestones in our democratic journey. There’s this tendency to move from event to event almost like a goldfish, and our memories get wiped with each new incident. Was this in part why you wanted to stop and contemplate?

Calland: Yeah, I noticed that. The rich material available to us is fantastic for columnists and for satirical writers and cartoonists. But there’s an endless supply of rich material that the world of art and theatre wasn’t keeping pace with. So you’ve got some work that is kind of satirical about politics. But my work isn’t satire. It’s funny in places. It does make people laugh. But it’s got a serious purpose, serious intent. Which is, I don’t know about mythologising but certainly to memorialise what we’ve been through. 

David Dennis in the production of The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special. (Photo: Suzy Bernstein)

DM: I suppose people like you and I are weird, if not perverted in a certain sense, where we will sit down and read three massive doorstop Zondo Commission reports. And I remember that it felt like reading a novel. There’s this massive, sweeping historical insight into who we are, into how the gangster state functions. It felt like a Mario Puzo novel, it felt like The Godfather. So, I’m wondering what your sense was when reading the reports, and how it inspired you?

Calland: When I read the volume on [the railway parastatals] Transnet and Prasa, it begins with the notion of racketeering. And the word “racketeering” takes one back to the 1920s in Chicago, to Al Capone. That was the image in my mind. And you’re right, it felt like The Godfather. And it’s gripping, if you like that sort of stuff. Not all of it, but in the end much of the Zondo Report was quite clearly written. And that was a hell of a mission and a hell of a mess. 

And, of course, for your average citizen, it’s too much, it’s overwhelming. They needed to produce a really snappy executive summary, but they haven’t. It’s almost like you need a bite-sized 3,000 word kind of thing that just pulls it all together. But maybe that wouldn’t do justice to it. How many people have read Zondo? I sometimes doubt if anyone has read all of it, other than [Daily Maverick superstar] Ferial Haffajee. People like you and I have read large chunks of it. Maybe not even Chief Justice Zondo himself has read the whole thing? 

I think there’s a contrast here with, for example, the Argentinian Truth and Reconciliation Report [detailing the decades-long military junta], which was titled Never Again [Nunça Mas in Spanish, with a stunning prologue by Ernesto Sabato]. And it was a bestseller. People bought it, it was part of the political culture of Argentina. 

DM: I’m also thinking of the Warren Commission [the investigation into the John F Kennedy assassination]. I’m also thinking of the 9/11 Commission Report, where these were packaged into paperbacks that you could buy at an airport. And they were consumed. To me, that seems what democratic engagement is about. It’s taking these exegeses of us at our worst moments and working through it, reading it, examining it. 

Calland: In the end, that’s my hope with the play. And that others will take this up. So, the more people that can get exposed to this stuff, especially from outside the “Beltway”, you know, outside our political bubble, the better for democracy. Now, how many people will go to the Market Theatre to see the play? Well, I know already that there are people going there who aren’t necessarily always into politics, and hopefully they will find it entertaining, as well as kind of informative and analytically useful.

The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special. Michael Richard as Tim and Melissa Haiden as Virginia. (Photo: Suzy Bernstein)

DM: South Africans have a tendency to learn from success and not from failure. But as the cliché goes, you can’t learn from success. There’s nothing to take from it. And so I think that, again, is why I get so concerned that we were almost willfully ahistorical in our approach to our past. We’ve reached the 30th anniversary of democracy. There’s no fly-bys. There’s no concerts, there’s no theatre, there’s no movie, there’s no novel … there’s nothing. It’s like we’re going to pass this milestone as if it’s just another thing we’re kind of just walking by. Because there is a kind of willful myopia in our culture. 

Calland: I’m a bit surprised, to be honest, that the government has not invested more public money in that kind of ceremonial aspect to the 30th anniversary, because I would have thought it would have benefited the ANC. I thought they were going to actually use a lot of public resources to kind of hammer home that message and use public money for it, but it hasn’t happened. And I’m wondering why that is. I’m not sure. Is it wilful myopia? Is it a deliberate decision to avoid that? Or is it simply the government has run out of the will to live and/or money? 

You know, I do think we’re seeing the, you know, the fin de siècle. It’s not just the end in the intellectual and electoral sense of three decades of ANC dominance. It’s kind of the end in an emotional sense, a physiological sense. This is a body politic, which seems to me, is just running out of steam. They almost want to die because they’re just exhausted. Because it’s difficult and because they’ve made a lot of mistakes.

Zane Meas as The Lawyer in The Brothers, Number One and a Weekend Special. (Photo: Suzy Bernstein)

DM: I’m thinking you’ve spoken a lot about this, the sense that populism denies complexity; art — good art — invites complexity. Inviting complexity into storytelling is a dark mistress. How did you deal with that? Were there points where you felt completely overwhelmed or just terrified or sad? 

Calland: I would have to find a way of converting the idea of empathy, into dialogue. And that was extremely difficult. That was so challenging. And often I’ve learned in the last year, it just takes a little tweak, it may be a phrase, or one sentence that changes the relationship with the character. And that was really fascinating. 

The other thing that I had to learn to do, is that you have to avoid being expositional. You’ve got to tell the story through the drama. And you can’t spoon feed the facts. You’ve got to either assume that the audience knows enough, or you’ve got to keep them hungry. I probably repeatedly fell into the trap of the expositional. The play when it was initially finished was 30,000 words, it’s now 15,000 words. And it’s 85 minutes. By cutting out the fat and sharpening it up, the story will tell itself if you get the characters and the dialogue right.

DM: So, can we expect more from you? Are we going to see your name on Netflix next?

Calland: Obviously, if it gets panned, I may retreat bruised. But if it does okay, it may encourage me to do more. I certainly loved it. I loved the process. I feel I have more plays in me. I’ve got some other ideas. I’ve got a day job at the moment, which will have to take priority for the next few years. But certainly, as I get even older, deeper into my sixties, I will start to do more of this sort of writing. DM

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Serbia’s Parliament approved a new Cabinet that includes two ministers under US sanctions, underscoring President Aleksandar Vučić’s increasingly fraught balancing act between seeking to join the European Union and maintaining ties with Russia.

US President Joe Biden included ally Japan, along with rivals China and Russia, in a list of countries he called “xenophobic” in a speech at a campaign fundraising event in Washington. 

Switzerland invites more than 160 states to Ukraine conference

Switzerland has invited more than 160 countries to a planned conference on Ukraine’s peace blueprint but didn’t include Russia on the guest list. 

Heads of state and government from the Group of Seven, the Group of 20, the European Union and the BRICS bloc were invited to the gathering set to take place on 15 and 16 June near Lucerne, the ministry said on its website on Thursday. Russia stated “publicly that it has no interest in participating in this first summit” and wasn’t offered a place, according to the statement.

Invitations were also extended to the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the Vatican and the patriarch of Constantinople. A full list of invitations wasn’t disclosed.

“The summit will serve as a platform for dialogue on ways to achieve a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace for Ukraine in accordance with the UN Charter and the norms of international law,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on his website. “All the invited parties have confirmed their respect for these principles.”

It remains unclear whether national leaders will indeed participate in the conference or whether countries will send lower-level officials. Another open question remains whether, and at what level, China will attend. Swiss officials have said that Beijing has reacted positively to the initiative on diplomatic channels.

Russia was not invited although “Switzerland has always shown openness to extending an invitation”, the Swiss foreign ministry said. “A peace process without Russia is unthinkable.”  

According to Switzerland, the conference aims to provide a “platform for open dialogue” towards peace in Ukraine. The goal is to define a “roadmap” on how to involve both Ukraine and Russia in a “future peace process”.

Serbia approves new government featuring US-sanctioned ministers

Serbia’s Parliament approved a new Cabinet that includes two ministers under US sanctions, underscoring President Aleksandar Vučić’s increasingly fraught balancing act between seeking to join the European Union and maintaining ties with Russia.

Aleksandar Vulin, sanctioned by the US for alleged drug trafficking and abuse of public office to help Russia’s “malign activities” in the Balkans, will serve as a deputy to Prime Minister Miloš Vučević. He had served as defence minister and intelligence chief in the previous administration until he resigned in November, when the sanctions were levelled. 

Nenad Popović, who is also under US sanctions for alleged corruption and ties to Russia, will be a minister without portfolio. Legislators in Belgrade voted 152-61 to approve the government on Thursday, following an election in December that was dominated by Vučić’s Progressive Party. 

In what’s seen as a nod to the West, Serbia’s former ambassador to the US, Marko Đurić, will take over as foreign minister while Tanja Miščević will stay on as minister for EU integration. Former Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić will become the new interior minister as well as deputy premier, while Siniša Mali will remain in his post as finance minister.

“Full membership in the European Union remains a strategic goal of Serbia, and the government will continue to fulfil the remaining criteria through our reform process,” Vučević told parliament when presenting his Cabinet lineup and programme. 

Vučević has made clear his Cabinet won’t adopt US and EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and would continue to oppose full international recognition of Kosovo. 

Serbia’s refusal to recognize Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008, has proved a major stumbling block in the country’s bid to join the EU. Belgrade has relied on the support of China and Russia for its position over Kosovo.

Biden calls ally Japan, China and Russia ‘xenophobic’

US President Joe Biden included ally Japan, along with rivals China and Russia, in a list of countries he called “xenophobic” in a speech at a campaign fundraising event in Washington.

Biden reiterated remarks he made last month linking China’s economic woes to its unwillingness to accept immigration. This time he added Russia, but also longstanding ally Japan, whose Prime Minister Fumio Kishida he welcomed for a summit and state dinner in Washington three weeks ago.  

“You know, one of the reasons our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden told Asian American and Pacific Islander donors on Wednesday. “The reason — think about it — why is China stalling so bad economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia, why is anyone? Because they’re xenophobic, they don’t want immigrants.” 

His criticisms and the fact that Japan was mentioned alongside two major US rivals could raise hackles in Tokyo. The US and Japan announced a “significant upgrade” to their defence ties last month, citing the need to counter China’s “dangerous” actions in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Allies know “very well how much the president respects them, their friendship, values, their contributions”, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday when asked about the president’s comment.

“The broader point that the president was making — and I think people all around the world recognise this — is that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and it’s in our DNA,” Kirby said. “We’re better for it, we’re stronger for it. We’re not going to walk away from it.” 

US spies see China, Russia militaries working closer on Taiwan

US intelligence officials assess that Russia and China are working more closely together on military issues, including a potential invasion of Taiwan, prompting new planning across the government to counter a potential scenario in which the countries fight in coordination.

“We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognising that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Thursday in testimony to Congress. 

Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota asked Haines about such a potential scenario during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also asked the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency about the Pentagon’s planning for such a possibility.

The Defense Department has “become even more concerned about our joint force requirements in an environment where” Russia and China “would certainly be cooperative, and we need to take that into account”, Lieutenant-General Jeffrey Kruse responded.

Rounds said that “the bottom line is that, basically, if we were to have a conflict with one, chances are that we would have a second front”, affecting planning, equipment and manpower needs.

“Certainly it’s a possibility,” Haines said. “The question of just how likely it is, I think differs depending on the scenario.”

Haines added that intelligence assessments indicate there is “increasing cooperation in the ‘no-limits’ partnership” between Russia and China “across really every sector of society: political, economic, military, technological and so on”. 

Russia’s Gazprom group reports first net loss in 24 years

Russia’s state-controlled gas giant reported its first annual net loss since 1999 on falling shipments to Europe and lower prices for the fuel. 

Gazprom Group, which also includes oil and power businesses, posted a 629 billion rouble ($6.84-billion) loss last year compared with net income of 1.23 trillion rubles in 2022, according to an earnings report published Thursday. 

The energy company’s shares fell by as much as 4.4%, the steepest decline in more than a year, amid market concerns over its dividend prospects. Gazprom’s biggest shareholder is the Russian government, whose budget is under pressure amid rising military spending and Western sanctions. 

The net loss follows restricted gas flows to Europe — historically Gazprom’s biggest market — amid the Kremlin’s retaliation for Western support of Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022. Meanwhile, plunging gas prices amid mild weather, sluggish demand and brimming inventories contributed to Gazprom’s loss.

Revenue from gas fell by 40% to 4.88 trillion roubles, according to the report. While Gazprom continues to ship pipeline gas to several European countries, last year its flows to Europe fell to the lowest since the early 1970s, according to International Energy Agency estimates.  

Russians who fled abroad return in boost for Putin’s war economy

As many as a million Russians fled abroad in the first year of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now thousands are returning home, delivering a propaganda victory to President Vladimir Putin and a boost to his war economy.

With the war still raging, and the man who started it about to assume another six-year term in power, many Russians are confronting a difficult choice. Facing rejections when renewing residence permits, difficulties with transferring work and money abroad, and limited destinations that still welcome them, they’re opting to end their self-exile.

“The business didn’t work out, no one is really waiting for us” abroad, said Alexey, a 50-year-old former political consultant from Moscow, who moved to Georgia to work as an entrepreneur after being detained at an anti-war rally in the Russian capital. He returned when his business’s finances ran out, Alexey said. He and others interviewed by Bloomberg asked not to disclose their last names for security reasons. 

The February 2022 invasion provoked a mass exodus from Russia on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many left to register dissent against the war, and also out of fear of mobilisation. When Putin ordered a call-up of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, it triggered a new wave of departures by hundreds of thousands of people.

The outflow has slowed, if not reversed. In June, the Kremlin boasted that half of all who fled in those early days had already returned, and that seems to reflect available statistics from the most popular destination countries as well as data from relocation companies. Based on client data at one relocation firm, Finion in Moscow, an estimated 40%-45% of those who left in 2022 have returned to Russia, said the company’s head, Vyacheslav Kartamyshev.

Putin praised the return of business people, entrepreneurs and highly qualified specialists as a “good trend”. He holds up the influx as a sign of support for his policies, regardless of the actual reasons for their homecoming, and evidence Russians have “a sense of belonging, an understanding of what is happening”.  

Thousands of returning expatriates are also helping Russia weather wartime sanctions and deliver a solid economic performance. According to Bloomberg Economics estimates, reverse migration has likely added between one-fifth and one-third to Russia’s 3.6% annual economic growth in 2023.  

US warns Georgia risks ties to West over ‘Kremlin-inspired’ law

The US warned Georgia that it was risking relations with Nato and the European Union by pressing ahead with a “foreign agent” law that has sparked massive protests.

The ruling Georgian Dream party’s “Kremlin-inspired” legislation and “anti-Western rhetoric put Georgia on a precarious trajectory”, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “The statements and actions of the Georgian government are incompatible with the democratic values that underpin membership in the EU and Nato and thus jeopardise Georgia’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration.” 

The draft law was intended to silence critics and destroy Georgia’s civil society, Miller said in a statement on Wednesday.

The warning came after riot police again used tear gas, pepper spray and water cannon against tens of thousands of protesters rallying outside the parliament in the capital, Tbilisi, as Georgian Dream lawmakers approved the draft law on the “transparency of foreign influence” in its second reading.

The party founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man, is pressing on with the legislation that targets foreign funding of non-governmental organisations, despite US and EU appeals to abandon it. They’ve criticised the measure as similar to one used by Putin to crush domestic opposition in Russia.

On Monday, Ivanishvili lashed out at the West, saying a “global war party” was attempting to use NGOs to oust his government and push Georgia into a conflict with Russia.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who called those claims a “blatant lie,” has sided with the protesters and criticised the “unprovoked” use of force by police. She has vowed to veto the legislation she calls a “Russian law” if it’s passed by parliament.

The EU on Wednesday “strongly” condemned the crackdown on protesters, who have rallied in huge numbers against the law since Georgian Dream announced the measure on April 3.  

The Bill threatens fines and imprisonment for as long as five years for organisations or individuals that receive at least 20% of their income from abroad and fail to register with the government as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”. DM

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US President Joe Biden defended the right to protest peacefully, but demanded that “order must prevail” as demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have wreaked havoc on US college campuses.

Hamas was studying a proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in a “positive spirit”, as international pressure mounts on the two sides to reach a deal and end a conflict that has shaken the Middle East. 

Turkey halts all trade with Israel over war in Gaza

Turkey stopped all trade with Israel as of Thursday, according to two Turkish officials familiar with the matter, adding to already high-running tensions between the once-close allies over the war in Gaza. 

The move expands last month’s restriction on some Turkish exports to Israel, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan steps up criticism of the Jewish state and tries to consolidate support among conservative voters at home.

Ankara hasn’t formally announced the suspension and it wasn’t clear under what conditions trade would resume. 

Trade between the countries was worth $6.8-billion in 2023, of which 76% was Turkish exports, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.

“This is the behaviour of a dictator who tramples the interests of the Turkish people and business community, while ignoring international trade agreements.” Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said in a post on X.

The Israeli government would work to create immediate alternatives for trade with Turkey by increasing local manufacturing and finding other suppliers, he said. Turkey’s biggest export to Israel in 2023 was iron and steel. Its biggest import was refined oil products, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute. 

The move came a day after Turkey announced plans to join South Africa’s case at the United Nations’ highest court as a plaintiff accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Palestinian territory.

Israel and Turkey restored diplomatic ties last August after a decade of tensions and were exploring ways to increase cooperation until Hamas launched its 7 October attack on the Jewish state, sparking the war. The conflict has triggered a popular backlash across the Arab world and even in the US.

Erdoğan called Hamas militants “freedom fighters” and repeatedly criticised Israel’s conduct in the war, which health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say has killed 34,000 Palestinians. Unlike the US and European Union, Turkey doesn’t consider the group a terrorist organisation.

Biden warns against violence in student protests over Gaza

US President Joe Biden defended the right to protest peacefully but demanded that “order must prevail”, as demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have wreaked havoc on US college campuses.

“There’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden said at the White House on Thursday, his first extended comments on the pro-Palestinian unrest at schools across the country. “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest,” he added.

The demonstrations have posed a threat to Biden’s re-election bid, and the president faced mounting pressure to personally address them before his unscheduled remarks on Thursday. The president said the protests had not caused him to rethink his approach to the war.

The clashes have highlighted the growing discontent among progressives, young people and Muslim and Arab Americans over the war — and the deep rift within Biden’s Democratic party over his handling of the issue. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has increasingly become a drag on Biden’s political standing, opening him to attacks from both sides and with polls showing voters are losing confidence in his approach.

Pro-Palestinian encampments spread to at least 100 colleges in 30 states and Washington, DC, since protesters first erected tents on Columbia’s quad on 17 April.

Earlier: Students pitched tents for Gaza on at least 100 US college campuses

Biden on Thursday sought to strike a balance between what he said were “two fundamental American principles”, the right to free speech and “the rule of law”.

“Both must be upheld. We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” he said. “But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society and order must prevail.”

Asked if the National Guard should intervene as some Republicans have suggested, Biden said, “No.” He also warned against anti-Semitic intimidation against Jewish students or threats against Muslims. 

“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for anti-Semitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” Biden said. “There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.”

University administrators have struggled to address the protests, facing criticism from donors and politicians on both sides of the debate. Some have lambasted what they say is a heavy-handed response to young activists and others accuse the schools of turning a blind eye to Jewish students they say are being threatened by anti-Semitic intimidation. 

Protests at campuses across the US have escalated in recent weeks in solidarity with students at Columbia University who were arrested after building an encampment that administrators say broke multiple school policies and intimidated Jewish students. The protestors at Columbia dug in following the arrests, eventually risking expulsion to barricade themselves in a building — a move that ended in a police raid on Tuesday night and the arrest of 119 people. 

The protests have been a personal challenge for Biden who will need to mobilise young voters and progressives dismayed by his support for Israel to bolster his chances in November’s general election rematch with Republican Donald Trump.  

Hamas says truce deal being studied in ‘positive spirit’

Hamas was studying a proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in a “positive spirit”, as international pressure mounts on the two sides to reach a deal and end a conflict that has shaken the Middle East.

The Iran-backed militant group plans to send a delegation to Egypt “as soon as possible” to continue negotiations, according to comments by Hamas senior leader Ismail Haniyeh posted on Telegram on Thursday.

Haniyeh was speaking to Abbas Kamal, the head of Egypt’s general intelligence directorate. The Hamas leader also discussed the situation with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and the two agreed to continue talks with the aim of reaching an agreement.

Israel said it would only consider joining ceasefire talks if Hamas responds to the latest internationally mediated proposal for a temporary truce and the release of hostages taken by the group’s militants during their 7 October invasion. The conflict has been raging in Gaza for the almost seven months since, and much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble.

 Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Hamas to quickly reach a decision on terms for a pause in hostilities, describing the offer as “extraordinarily generous”.

The US is seeking the release of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, alongside a pause that could pave the way to an end to the war.

Haniyeh stressed “the positive spirit” in which Hamas is approaching the latest proposal, and aims to reach an agreement “in a way that achieves the demands of our people and stops the aggression against them”. 

Saudi Arabia steps up arrests of those attacking Israel online

Saudi Arabia has stepped up the arrest of citizens for social media posts related to the Israel-Hamas war as the kingdom signals a readiness to agree to diplomatic relations with the Jewish state — if it commits to Palestinian statehood.

Detaining people for online comments — even those more than 10 years old — and restrictions on free speech and political expression are the norm in Saudi Arabia. Yet the recent spate of arrests is motivated by security concerns specifically linked to the deadly 7 October invasion of Israel by Hamas and its aftermath, according to Riyadh-based diplomats and human rights groups.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and left many more in urgent need of food and health care. That’s triggered a popular anti-Israel backlash across the Arab world and in Western countries including the US, where violent clashes have taken place on university campuses.

Saudi Arabia and regional allies like Egypt and Jordan have been alarmed by the trend, fearing that Iran and Islamist groups could exploit the conflict to incite a wave of uprisings, said some of the people, who asked not to be identified due to the delicate nature of the matter. Memories of the Arab Spring more than a decade ago remain fresh among regional rulers, who are desperate to avoid a repeat.

Recent Saudi detentions have included an executive with a company involved in the kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan — a cornerstone of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s agenda — according to people inside and outside Saudi Arabia with knowledge of the matter. The detainee expressed views on the Gaza conflict deemed by authorities to be incendiary, they said. 

A media figure who said Israel should never be forgiven has also been arrested, the people said, as has an individual calling for the boycott of US fast-food restaurants in the kingdom. The people shared information on condition that neither they nor those arrested be identified.   

The Saudi arrests for Gaza-related posts indicate Prince Mohammed’s regime will take a hard line against citizens not toeing the line when it comes to normalising ties with Israel — a topic the kingdom was working on with the US before the events of 7 October muddied the waters. Riyadh and Washington resumed their talks on a defence pact and US cooperation in launching a civilian nuclear programme earlier this year, and, with an agreement close, Israel will be invited to join a three-way pact or risk being left behind.  

Since 7 October, Saudi Arabia has harshly criticised Israel for its war in Gaza and demanded an immediate ceasefire, while indicating it remains open to warmer relations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdraws troops and commits to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The latter outcome remains a distant prospect, however, especially while Netanyahu’s far-right coalition remains in power. 

A clampdown on pro-Palestinian sentiment on social media may be a sign Riyadh is serious about normalisation with Israel, said Jane Kinninmont, a Gulf expert who is policy and impact director at the European Leadership Network.

“If they want to change their policy and go and visit Israel and have Israelis come to Riyadh, when the war looks different, then they do not want there to be a kind of established pro-Palestinian movement that would be protesting at that sort of thing,” she said. DM

Read more in Daily Maverick: Middle East crisis news hub

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“The Department of Defence and Military Veterans (DMV) as a department, is one of the worst departments in South Africa. Reports are being handed over on how bad the DMV is as a department to the parliamentary committee which just accepts these reports and still doesn’t intervene or correct it,” Godfrey Giles, who served in the South African Infantry Corps from 1968 to 2014 told Daily Maverick.

Giles is also the Vice-Chairman of the South African Military Veterans Organisation (Samvo), an ex-servicemen organisation comprised of military and police veterans who served in the South African Defence Force, South African National Defence Force, South African Police, South African Police Service, or the South African Prison Services.

Giles is one of many military veterans who have expressed frustration with the DMV regarding registering to the database and a slow rollout of pension benefit payout outs.

In February 2024, Giles sent a letter outlining his concerns to Vusumuzi Xaba, the chairperson of the portfolio committee on defence and military veterans, but received no response.

“For over a decade now we’ve been saying there are issues with the database, veterans have marched on DMV, they’ve even held the minister and others hostage in a hotel to try and get something done, and political parties have been approached to help us as far as the Parliament is concerned, but very little has happened,” he said.

Understanding the database 

The initial database was established using the Central Personnel Register (CPR) consisting of some 57,000 members of the combined forces at integration in 1994, said Giles. The seven armies that were integrated were Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the military wings of the ANC and PAC respectively; the former Bantustan Armies of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei; and the South African Defence Force (SADF).

“Since DMV was established (in 2009), they’ve managed to put on less than 30,000 names […] I handed well over 40,000 files that have been filled in by veterans to the DMV for data capture,” said Giles.

A project was launched to invite all military veterans to apply to be registered on the DMV database. But the DMV soon realised that this was a mammoth task and did not have sufficient personnel to handle it.

“They then found that there was a lot of fraudulent stuff happening, especially about non-veterans who thought that they were part of the non-statutory forces, and it was because they didn’t have a central administration,” he said.

Statutory forces have a personnel records system where everybody who was in the military has a force number and a military record. However, non-statutory forces which are Umkhonto weSizwe and Azanian Peoples’ Liberation Army amongst others, did not have such a system or such records, said Giles.

With a large number of applications and many applicants not having the correct credentials, all applications had to be vetted. However, the DMV was not allowed to link into the SANDF Persol system that could verify the majority of applicants. Each individual now has to apply directly with the DMV to be placed on the database — a fraught process, according to Giles.

Numerous documents must be included in the application, and applicants receive no acknowledgement of receipt with a reference number.

“So you are left in the dark, and if you try to follow up, the phones are not answered, and emails are not responded to. When they don’t get a response they back through this whole process again, and get the documents certified once again, and it is a problem, especially when they [veterans] are way out in the sticks,” he said.

The DMV also requires original stamped printouts from the Persol System, which can be obtained from the SANDF.

“Now you’ve got two totally different divisions if you’d like. One is soldiers who are trying to do it, who are under budget, who are understaffed, who are pressurised to do things. Now, an old buddy comes along as a veteran and says, ‘I need these printouts from you,’ and there are about 10 printouts that they have to do, so they have to now find somebody on an army base who’s willing to help them to print out all of these documents as well,” said Giles.

There are also issues with identity document (ID) numbers. During apartheid, identification documents included a number denoting an individual’s race. This has been eliminated, and old ID numbers were reissued to remove this.

“They (DMV) are saying that they now need to have a letter from the Department of Home Affairs stating this is the old one (ID number) and this is the new one, it costs R70, and it takes months for the Department of Home Affairs to actually hand that over,” said Giles.

A South African ID number is a 13-digit number, with the first six digits based on birth date, four digits to define gender, one digit to indicate if you are a South African or a permanent resident, and the last two digits are a checksum digit used to check that the number sequence is accurate using the Luhn algorithm.

Lack of communication a major problem

Military veterans are not recognised as such until they are on the DMV database, and they cannot receive benefits unless they are registered on the database, said Giles.

According to the Military Veterans Act of 2011, a military veteran means any South African citizen who rendered military service to any of the military organisations, statutory and non-statutory forces involved in all sides of South Africa’s liberation War from 1960 to 1994, who became members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) after 1994.

Ernest Lintnaar who served in the SADF between 1982 and 1989 as well as with SANDF from 1994 to 1998, has been making applications to join the military veterans database since 2010.

“Between 2010 and 2015, I hand-delivered my documents to a guy called Mike Masala in Cape Town at DMV. I moved out of Cape Town, but I still kept sending my emails, and I’ve got quite a few copies of these emails,” he said.

Lintnaar said it was common to receive no communication at all from the department.

“They just don’t come back to you. We as a collective have gone to the extent that we are emailing everybody every week and we are still not getting anywhere,” he said.

Lintnaar said he knew of veterans who qualified for benefits but were unable to receive them.

“There is a guy that’s on life support. He qualifies for medical, but he is also still battling to get onto the database. He’s got to pay his medical expenses, the life support units you can imagine — 24/7 live support on oxygen — and he’s at home, he’s gonna pay for it himself,” Lintnaar said.

The lack of communication and acknowledgement when the veterans send in forms is a “major problem”.

“We have reached the point where we are so desperate that we now get people to witness the person handing it in, and we take a photograph of the person handing it in because we just told them, ‘No, the forms didn’t arrive, nobody took them in, what are you talking about?’ and there’s no acknowledgement,” said Giles.

Veterans have received SMSes on occasions stating they were on the database. However, these messages do not include their name or any other identification, making it difficult to verify this information at the DMV.  Reference numbers are also not provided for future correspondence and seemingly no method is in place for veterans to track the progress of their application.

“I just feel there’s no public awareness of the progress. So there’s nothing put out by the DMV on their website that says ‘these are the numbers that we’ve added for the week of the month, these are the numbers we’ve rejected, this is the progress we’ve made’. So nobody is trusting what is actually happening with DMV at all because they’ve got nothing to gauge it by, which then builds up the perceptions that there’s discrimination between the non-statutory force and the statutory force,” said Giles.

Giles does not believe there is discrimination between the non-statutory force and the statutory force or racial prejudice.

“For instance, in the initial database of the 57,000 well over 70% were statutory force people and I also know some of the white people who have been paid out and are on the database, so that isn’t true. However, we don’t know how much has been accepted and has not been dealt with which is frustrating,” he said.

At the time of publication, DMV and GPAA had not responded to questions sent by Daily Maverick on 25 April and again on 30 April. DM

Read Part 2 of the article here.

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This is the second of a two-part series. Read part 1 here.

The Military Veterans Act was enacted in 2011 and included pension as a benefit, however, this was only recently budgeted for, and regulations were also only drawn up recently. The draft policy signed by the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Thandi Modise, in 2022 provided pension benefits to non-statutory forces and completely excluded statutory forces. This drew criticism and led to petitions and appeals to Modise and in 2023, it was amended to cover all Military Veterans as per the Act.

The Pension Regulations were signed by Modise on 31 July 2023. In  September 2023,  Modise said that the benefits would be backdated to 1 April 2023 and that the amended regulations would be published in the Government Gazette.

Modise promulgated the Military Veterans Regulations on 6 October 2023 through the Government Gazette. Following the publication of the Regulations, the Government Pension Administration Agency (GPAA) started the admission and processing of prospective pension beneficiaries.

In April 2023 Deputy Minister Thabang Makwetla said the rollout of pension payment was commencing and that as of freedom day that year (27 April 2023), the military veterans could start the application processes for the pension payout.

“So people started applying, but then there was a problem as there was confusion as to when the payment would be made because nowhere in the regulations did it say the payment date,” said Godfrey Giles, Vice-Chairman of the South African Military Veterans Organisation (Samvo).

The department tried to backdate the payments to 1 April 2023, which was the beginning of the financial year, and R331-million which was set aside for pension payouts was allocated for the 2023/2024 financial year.

“There was a backwards and forwards for months on this one, and eventually it came out in the October 2023 regulations, that it would be backdated to the date of approval of the application. So it was not going to be backdated to April 2023, it was only when the person’s approval of the application was done,” he said.

Giles said, “there has been a total mess up”.

“Although the budget from DMV for GPAA was R331-million, the target was 4,000 (veterans) to be paid out this financial year […]  it was impossible for [GPAA] to actually do that because they had to start from scratch, and if you’d look at the amount that the person could be paid, etc, they couldn’t get to it,” he said.

The GPAA could only start processing applications once the regulations were published in October 2023, by which time they had received over 18,000 applications. As GPAA could only start after six months, the target was changed to 2,000 payouts. After the first three months, only 266 were actually paid out, from 827 finalised applications, according to Giles.

Frustration mounting and court action pending 

In February 2024, the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans received a status update on the rollout of pension benefits.

In February, 268 qualifying military veterans received their pension benefits, and the committee noted that the department would have to surrender any unspent funds to the National Treasury due to the inability of the department and the GPAA to move with the necessary speed to process the payments.

“It is estimated that over R250-million will be returned to National Treasury as DMV could not fulfil its mandate. To think of how many military veterans could have been assisted that are dying and suffering,” said Giles.

Ernest Lintnaar who served in the SADF between 1982 and 1989 as well as with SANDF from 1994 to 1998 told Daily Maverick that it felt like officials were stalling and treating the veterans like fools.

“Heads must roll. You can’t keep going on and saying, ‘oh, sorry, we missed this one let’s try again’, or ‘we didn’t do too well here but we’ll just keep trying and people will understand’, no. We as veterans do not understand anymore. They want us to go away, but me, I’m not going away,” he said.

Giles said that he had over a thousand other veterans forming part of Samvo who had voiced their concerns about how the pension payouts are being handled, directly with the DMV and GPAA, but there appears to be no immediate reaction or correction of the process.

“I’ve had enough, and that’s why we are now going to launch a court action. We believe that the only way of getting government to do anything is if you get the courts to actually push that,” he said.

“With thousands of veterans that are really starving, dying, or ill, it is not fair that they cannot get assistance because there’s a lack of political will.  There’s funding, there are regulations, there’s legislation, yet it’s just not been done. And it’s not just for one year, this goes back for a decade”.

At the time of publication, the DMV and GPAA had not responded to questions sent by Daily Maverick on 25 April and again on 30 April. DM

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As SA’s struggling steel industry is locked in pay rise negotiations with trade unions and races against time to stabilise labour relations, the country’s largest steel maker has fired a two-fold warning to workers. 

ArcelorMittal has urged SA’s nearly 400,000 steel workers to either moderate their pay rise expectations and sympathise with the industry’s difficult financial situation or continue to push for high pay rates and risk job losses. 

ArcelorMittal SA CEO Kobus Verster is emphatic that the steel industry’s heydays — when steel companies were profitable and could easily pay above-inflation wages — are long gone.  

But workers and their representative trade unions are not adjusting to the new, hard reality, Verster said. 

“Labour never supports anything [a pay rise offer] that is inflation-linked or inflation plus 1%. We have engaged with them. We have a three-year [wage] agreement with them… 

“We have asked them to moderate the current agreement… by negotiating a lesser increase to prevent job losses. But we have gotten absolutely nowhere,” he said. 

And now, ArcelorMittal, which employs over 9,000 workers and contractors (paying them at least R5-billion annually), is at risk of shutting down its loss-making long-steel operations in Vereeniging (Gauteng) and Newcastle (KwaZulu-Natal).

The closure of these operations would result in the loss of 3,500 direct and contractor jobs in the two provinces.

ArcelorMittal rail and structural operations in Mpumalanga, which rely on intermediate steel products currently produced at Newcastle, are also at risk of closure.

A decision on the future of the long-steel operations has been deferred for six months to buy ArcelorMittal some time to determine if they could be saved through short-term interventions.

A final decision has to be made by August, said Verster.

“We are still progressing with the short-term initiatives. I can’t give any more guidance. We are reasonably positive that we are making progress,” he told journalists on 30 April at a tour of ArcelorMittal’s steel operations in Vanderbijlpark (Gauteng). 

Needed reforms

At a generic level, ArcelorMittal wants to see state-owned transport group Transnet move fast with implementing reforms to its port and rail operations. The dysfunction and unreliability of Transnet’s rail network have meant that ArcelorMittal is transporting raw materials to its factories by road, which is more expensive.

ArcelorMittal relies heavily on Transnet Freight Rail to transport 91% of the iron ore and 100% of the coking coal consumed at its Newcastle and Vanderbijlpark factories to produce steel. 

Then there are Eskom’s blackouts, which delay ArcelorMittal’s steel production process. Higher stages of load shedding mean that its factory in Vanderbijlpark is, at times, asked by the power utility to engage in load curtailment for eight hours a day. This effectively reduces its use of electricity.

Fixing Transnet and Eskom, entities that have been dysfunctional for more than a decade, will not happen overnight. 

ArcelorMittal has been criticised for being naive in believing that logistic and energy reforms could be delivered by the government within the six months that it has deferred its shutdown decision. 

Asked about this, Verster would only say that he remains positive about the ongoing discussions with Transnet, Eskom and government officials, saying that talks are “very proactive and solutions-driven”. He said ArcelorMittal would not keep its long-steel business open “based on promises”.

On Transnet, Verster wants to see the transport group deploying more trains/locomotives on its network. He did not quantify the level of increased rail capacity needed to lessen pressure on ArcelorMittal since details of the discussions with Transnet remain commercially sensitive. 

“But what we know is that if they [Transnet] don’t supply us with sufficient trains, we have to substitute that by road and trucks. If we don’t get trains, we will have to stop the furnaces [which produce liquid hot metal by melting iron, which is later transformed into different versions of steel].”

In the medium-to-long term, ArcelorMittal also wants the economy to grow by at least 1.8% every year and the government to embark on large-scale infrastructure projects — both events which could spur steel demand.

But this isn’t happening at the moment.

ArcelorMittal has been battling with a 20% decline in demand for long-steel products (which includes wire, rods, railway tracks and bars) over the past seven years.

Underscoring the decline is that SA has a crude steel manufacturing capacity of between eight million and nine million tonnes. However, steel demand stood at only five million tonnes. Of this demand, ArcelorMittal supplied about 2.8 million tonnes in 2023.

Industry-wide labour challenges 

On the upside, ArcelorMittal is not contending with labour stability problems.

Last year, the company entered into a three-year pay rise agreement with workers. For the first and second years (2023 and 2024), the agreement affords workers a 6.5% increase, while year three will see an increase in line with inflation. 

ArcelorMittal forged ahead with implementing a 5.6% increase in April  — a compromise that the company asked workers to embrace.

ArcelorMittal’s peers in the steel and engineering industries are facing even higher pay rise demands at the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council, where employers, workers and their trade unions negotiate the terms of employment. 

At this council, trade unions have pitched their demands at between 7% and 12% for 2024. The final round of negotiations at the council is set to be held on 8 May 2024, when trade unions and employers will have to sign a new pay rise agreement that replaces the existing one, which expires on 30 June 2024.

ArcelorMittal is not part of these negotiations because it signed the three-year pay deal, which still has another two years to run. 

The National Union of Metalworkers of SA, the biggest trade union in the steel industry, is unwilling to embrace a compromise, saying above-inflation pay rise demands were justified considering the financial pressures that workers faced as a result of a high inflation environment. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: High noon for tense pay rise talks in SA’s struggling steel industry

If ArcelorMittal decides to keep its long-steel operations open, big investment plans are in the offing. These include ArcelorMittal reducing its reliance on Eskom by making investments in renewable energy sources, as part of its 2030 decarbonisation plan. This entails the company building a 200MW renewable energy facility at its Vanderbijlpark plant, making use of the land available. 

Werner Venter, the chief technology officer at ArcelorMittal, said the renewable energy facility will power its factories and reduce Eskom-related electricity costs and ArcelorMittal’s emissions. 

“We are hoping to break ground on the project in 2024. There are already permit, environmental and local authority approvals. We are just waiting for a grid connection from Eskom,” said Venter. DM

The writer visited ArcelorMittal SA’s steel operations in Vanderbijlpark. The trip was arranged and sponsored by ArcelorMittal.

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Former SA Tourism executives have been implicated in dodgy payments worth millions of rands that were slipped through via invoices generated by the tourism marketing agency’s offices in the US and South Africa, days before the end of the financial year.

The tourism agency has since recovered the misappropriated funds and reported the matter to the Auditor-General.

The invoices, amounting to R35-million, were signed off by the outgoing acting CEO, the chief operations officer and the acting chief financial officer. All three no longer work for the agency.

In a statement issued by the Department of Tourism, Minister Patricia de Lille said she had recently become aware of irregular payments made through SA Tourism’s US and South Africa offices for services not rendered. 

The implicated individuals were not named.

SA Tourism falls under the tourism department. As part of its mandate, the agency has hub offices in key source market countries around the world where they promote and market the country. 

‘Irregular invoices’

De Lille said several irregular invoices were created about three days before the end of the previous financial year (31 March 2023) and processed “piecemeal in order to override banking controls”.

The discovery of the misappropriated funds was triggered after a review by SA Tourism confirmed that a significant portion of the payments received by a media agency in March 2023, and signed off by the three executives, were for services that had not been rendered. 

The unnamed media agency was informed about the irregularities and conceded that a “significant portion” received by them and signed off were for services not rendered. 

De Lille called the irregular payments “completely shocking”, saying that an internal audit report was being finalised. 

An audit of the SA Tourism office in New York will also be conducted. 

Nombulelo Guliwe, a chartered accountant, will lead SA Tourism for the next five years. She was appointed in February this year after the position became vacant in May 2021.

Turmoil

The agency has been in turmoil for years, with five officials acting as CEO since 2021. 

In January 2023, Daily Maverick reported that the South African government was on the verge of approving a three-year deal worth just over R910-million for SA Tourism to sponsor the English Premier League football team, Tottenham Hotspur. The deal was to have been announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address on 10 February.

However, the controversial proposal “and other matters” led to the mass resignation of previous board members, the tourism department said.

At the time, then tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu flatly denied having tried to force SA Tourism to push through the deal before she left the portfolio.

De Lille was appointed tourism minister on 6 March last year. Her first public action that day was to write to the then chair of the SA Tourism Board, Dr Thozamile Botha, asking for reasons why she should not dissolve the board.

She outlined several concerns, including the conduct of the board regarding the Tottenham Hotspur sponsorship deal, the composition of the board, and whether the members had the required experience or qualifications for the job. Other concerns were raised by the then-acting CEO Themba Khumalo. 

After taking legal advice, De Lille dissolved the board on Friday, 21 April 2023.

Praise

In response to the recovery of funds for SA Tourism, the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa), Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa) and Association of Southern African Travel Agents (Asata) issued a joint statement, praising Guliwe and De Lille for “proactively identifying and recovering the full misappropriated funds, processed in March 2023; rapidly engaging the Auditor-General for a comprehensive audit; and demonstrating an unwavering commitment to transparency and good governance”.

The associations represent major stakeholders in the country’s tourism industry. 

Fedhasa national chairperson Rosemary Anderson said the matter was handled in an “exemplary” manner, demonstrating an “unwavering commitment to upholding the highest standards of accountability, transparency and good governance within SA Tourism and the Department of Tourism”.

Asata’s CEO Otto de Vries said the “swift identification and recovery of misappropriated funds, coupled with the proactive engagement of the Auditor-General of South Africa for a comprehensive audit, demonstrates a rigorous adherence to public finance laws and regulations. 

“Such actions are essential to maintaining trust and confidence in our vital tourism sector.”

David Frost, Satsa’s CEO, said they were “encouraged by the resolute leadership displayed by Minister de Lille and Ms Guliwe in addressing these challenges directly and decisively.

“Their actions secure the financial integrity of SA Tourism while reinforcing South Africa’s reputation as a premier global travel destination committed to ethical conduct.”

Frost said that as key stakeholders and representative bodies within the travel and tourism industry, they affirmed their steadfast support and collaboration with the department and its agency.

“We look forward to further strengthening our partnership in advancing South Africa’s tourism industry through principled leadership, sound governance and a shared commitment to excellence.” DM

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‘We will never get tired to fight for our basic rights. It is our right to have access to tarred roads, it is our basic needs. This is a start, we won’t stop, fighting [for] our rights now is wafa-wafa,” said angry resident Justice Rikhotso. 

In April, residents of Khakhala, Gawula, Mahlathi, Ndindani and Hlomela villages in Limpopo’s Greater Giyani Municipality were up in arms, saying “enough is enough”. The root of their outrage is the D3810 gravel road, which they had blocked in protest. 

Their action followed Mopani mayor Pule Shayi’s planned visit to Ndindani to engage locals on the heated road matter. 

They said this proposed engagement was of little value to them – what they wanted was a tarred road, and to drive the point home, vowed that until this was realised there would be no-go areas in their communities for politicians and government officials. 

D3810 gravel road were closed by residents of Khakhala, Gawula, Mahlathi, Ndindani and Hlomela. (Photo: Supplied)

It didn’t take long for residents of the five villages to organise themselves through the Limpopo Concern team, a residents’ organisation, saying “it is the time they were waiting [for]”, in a message on their “No Road No Vote” WhatsApp group.

Residents said they were eagerly anticipating the resolution of the municipal management issues and the realisation of their goal – a well-maintained, tarred road that would enhance their quality of life and connectivity within the community.

Some residents were divided over the road blockade, and eagerly awaited Shayi’s arrival in Ndindani, while others were undecided. They complained that they should go to school and work. However, ultimately they all understood the slogan and joined the strike, agreeing that “the struggle continues”. They were resolute that they wanted action, not words.

The blockaded D3810 gravel road in the Greater Giyani Municipality. (Photo: Supplied)

Rumours circulated that the mayor would also address the critical water reticulation problem in the area, but residents weren’t convinced. Over the grapevine it was suggested that the mayor would engage with residents, following an announcement on the Mopani District Municipality’s Facebook page that he would visit Ndindani. 

Read in Daily Maverick: ‘No road no vote’ say angry Limpopo residents in face of chronic service delivery failings’ 

However, the visit was cancelled, reportedly owing to security concerns. Instead, he rushed to Polokwane for an emergency meeting about road-related issues, according to a member of the residents’ WhatsApp group. 

The situation remains tense as residents await meaningful action.

The Limpopo Concern team leaders then took action of their own by writing to the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and other relevant leaders, requesting a meeting to discuss the state of the D3810 road. Sanral’s general manager of marketing and communications, Vusi Mona, responded:

“Please note that the D3810 is not a Sanral road, it belongs to the Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL).” 

However, Sanral has been instructed by the Presidency and the National Department of Transport to produce a design for an upgrade of D3810, converting it from gravel to a surfaced road, and to undertake its construction. The construction tender was issued in December 2023 and this process is at an advanced stage. 

Sanral expects the tender to be awarded in early May 2024, after which a new contractor will be introduced to local stakeholders to begin the three-month mobilisation period.

Limpopo Concern did not stop there, however.

They also reached out to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, emphasising the urgency of their cause. Their message was clear: If these crucial discussions do not take place, the ANC might not win 50% support in the elections. 

Residents block the D3810 gravel road. (Photo: Supplied)

Locals are demanding that the D3810 road be tarred. (Photo: Supplied)

Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti)

The stakes are high, and the wheels of political engagement are turning, but neither the minister nor the President responded.

Asked for comment, the Limpopo transport department’s director of communication services, Tidimalo Chuene, said: “Please note that the Department of Transport and Community Safety has no mandate on provision of road infrastructure… The Limpopo Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure should be able to assist in your urgent inquiry.”

A response to a request for comment from the Limpopo public works department had not been received by the time of publishing.

In the aftermath of the mayor’s decision to cancel his visit to Ndindani, residents remain steadfast, vowing that, should he ever try to make the visit, they will not hesitate to act by closing the road. DM

Israel Nkuna is a ward committee representative at Ward 19 Giyani, Mahlathi village in Limpopo, a community activist, human rights activist, social grants activist and writer. 

Israel will be writing a monthly article in the run-up to the 29 May elections, painting pictures of his village and Limpopo. 

You can email him at [email protected] or call 082 433 8538 /073 036 3220.

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In the past few months, at least three South African political groups have declared that they would prefer to be in a territory with some kind of border between them and South Africa.

The leader of the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), Philani Mavundla, wants the “Zulu Kingdom” to be independent of South Africa and has campaigned under the slogan, “Vote for Abantu Batho Congress to bring back the land of the Zulus!”  

The Referendum Party, a group describing itself as a “single-issue” party dedicated to forcing a referendum on the independence of the Western Cape, has campaigned  under the slogan: “If you want Cape Independence and a First-World future, you are going to have to vote for it in 2024!”

And, in a “Joint Afrikaner Declaration”, a group of organisations released a document in which they stated, “The Constitution recognises the pursuit of territory.” 

If you consider our difficult history, it is no surprise that groups like this have emerged. South Africa has only been a single state since the imposition of it on all the people living here by the British Empire in 1910. That unit was defined by the end of the colonial era and then apartheid.

Our country does not have a long history as a single distinct polity. Some people are bound to have cultural memories of what they regard as a happier time when they were able to enjoy “self-determination”. 

Of course, it is unlikely that any of these groups will win significant shares of the vote in the near future. But, that does not mean their — fundamentally dangerous — ideas won’t have an influence over the long term.

Their real power might well lie in their relationships with other political groups.

For example, Mavundla is not just the leader of the ABC. He is also an adviser to King Misuzulu kaZwelithini. He is the mayor of the Umvoti Local Municipality, having previously been the deputy mayor of eThekwini. He has only been able to win these council positions through his relationships with the ANC and the IFP.

He is not speaking in a political vacuum — the IFP also campaigns on largely ethnic lines; it appeals primarily to people who speak Zulu in KwaZulu-Natal.

It is entirely possible that Mavundla can pull parts of the IFP in the direction in which he is heading. By campaigning for an independent Zulu kingdom, he may force the IFP to take a position on the matter.  

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

Current unhappiness

Turning to the Referendum Party (RP), its website is proof that it is well-resourced and that the people behind it have an understanding of the current unhappiness among diverse groups. When its site proclaims, “If you want Cape Independence and a First-World future, you are going to have to vote for it in 2024!”, it knows exactly who it is appealing to.

It claims to be working with other parties and to have a relationship with the Freedom Front Plus.

But, more importantly, it also appears to be trying to influence the DA. It claims, “Our goal is to convince 100,000 DA voters to vote RP in 2024. Vote RP to keep a DA Government and secure a Referendum!”

It is not speaking in a vacuum. 

The DA has been campaigning for more powers for provinces, particularly the Western Cape. The party regularly demands more powers over policing, claiming that it will be able to reduce crime while the national government cannot. 

This could well see the demands being made by the Referendum Party pulling the DA in its direction.

At the same time, the signatories of the Joint Afrikaner Declaration have said they included the phrase “The Constitution recognises the pursuit of territory” to ensure the people who run the Orania settlement join them.

This means the organisers of this declaration are giving important influence to a group that gives every impression of wanting to exclude black people and prioritise white Afrikaans people.

Again, it is an example of a larger political group being pulled in the direction of separatism by a smaller group.

Unfortunately, there are many examples of the separatist ideas of small groups influencing the politics of bigger groups.

One of the most recent examples is that of the UK Independence Party, which agitated to leave the European Union (EU). It had only two MPs in the British House of Commons, both of whom belonged to other parties before they defected. (However, it was the biggest party representing British voters in the European Parliament.)

Despite that, this party’s ideas gripped British politics. It pushed some in the Conservative Party to campaign to leave the EU. It seized the political zeitgeist. Because of weak leadership in the two major parties, eventually a small majority prevailed in the vote to leave the EU.

This had huge repercussions and the majority of people in the UK now regret the decision. 

It is very likely that the political dynamics in South Africa will create a space for separatist groups to exploit.

There is a real risk that by the time of our next elections in 2029, these groups will hold sway over some of the parties desperate for power.

This could radically alter our politics — instead of discussing how to improve the lives of everyone, there will be populist motivations to secede from South Africa.

This will be destructive and open up yet another fault line in our already difficult political reality. DM

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Government’s recent spate of launches and ribbon-cutting events is part of a deliberate election strategy that emerged in the leaked audio of April’s ANC national executive committee elections meeting.

“We need government and departments to submit … what projects they are going to launch or unveil between now and the elections,” ANC elections boss Mdumiseni Ntuli was heard telling the meeting in April, after having emphasised government had to “aggressively communicate” its successes.

Highlighting the need for a “seamlessly integrated” approach between what the ANC was doing and government interventions to complement this election work, Ntuli added, “Together we must plan: how is the ANC going to take advantage of this?”

Mid-April was given as the deadline for ministers, their provincial counterparts and departments to submit plans for projects, launches and the like, according to the leaked audio Daily Maverick has heard. And it seems the launches, handovers and cutting of ribbons have accelerated since April.

Leaders criss-cross country

On Tuesday in Gauteng, where cancer treatment often is beyond patients’ access – patients and civil society protested that day for the prioritisation of cancer treatment – the provincial health department launched 17 new mortuary vans, now known as forensic pathology vehicles.

“Aesthetically inside and out, the vehicles are designed to look more professional than the traditional bakkie-based mortuary vehicles, thus promoting and preserving the dignity of the deceased,” said a departmental statement ahead of Tuesday’s launch.

The labour activation programmes rolled out across provinces by Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi must be welcomed. But it’s late in his five-year term for what official statements describe as the “national roll-out plan to create more than 700,000 employment opportunities across the country”. 

Such an initiative could have perhaps been more effectively timed after the Covid lockdown devastated the jobs market.

But Nxesi and Communications Minister Mondli Gungubele got the thumbs up from labour union Cosatu, also an ANC alliance partner, for persuading the SA Post Office’s business rescue practitioners to stop 6,000 retrenchments.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande also left it late in his five-year term to establish a fund to support the so-called missing middle students – those from families too well off to qualify for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and too poor to pay tertiary education fees. 

The R3.8-billion support was finally announced in January 2024.

But Nzimande was not lagging behind in the handover stakes. On 29 April at a North West primary school, he handed over technology for a media laboratory for “modern-day teaching and learning services on computers powered by a solar photovoltaic energy system, which includes an inverter”, according to the official statement.

The agriculture, land affairs and rural development touted its new HQ as cause to celebrate “the significant milestone in the delivery of a world class building, within time and budget, through the public-private partnership agreement as part of the national government’s precinct development initiative”, according to a statement ahead of this unveiling.

While the 2024 State of the Nation Address was an earlier hook to showcase government delivery, the more recent rush of launches and handovers of anything from books to Limpopo’s Mmahlee public library to “a new cannabis investor” in the Eastern Cape’s Coega special economic zone has ministers and their officials bounding all around the country.

Sometimes they also try their hand at manual labour like fixing potholes – with a camera at hand. In early March, Transport Minister Sindiswe Chikunga did just that in Kwaggafontein in Mpumalanga. 

Coincidentally, Chikunga is lauded in the leaked ANC election meeting audio for her radio advert which, among others, highlights new roads being built as an example of how South Africa today is better than it was under apartheid rule prior to 1994.

Such radio and television government adverts were touted as central to outlining the governing ANC’s work done over the past 30 years in government.

Low public trust

No one can say nothing was achieved over the past 30 years, given, for example, increased access to housing, water and sanitation, education and a significant social security net. But voters frequently call out the politicians.

Criticism that politicians only show up to canvass for votes as an election nears is a sentiment often expressed on the sidelines of government launches and handovers.

This signals continuing low public trust and distance from government. 

Long-term studies like those done by the Human Sciences Research Council and Afrobarometer have highlighted persistently declining trust levels over the past 15 years – and put the governing party at trust levels around the 27% mark and opposition parties somewhat lower. 

Cyril Ramaphosa as President scored a 38% trust level in the Afrobarometer 2021 survey, a rating that helps explain why the ANC has him as the face of its 2024 election campaign.

Low public trust and scepticism extend to the month-long absence of power cuts, with some questioning whether this was simply a ploy to win votes.

Government, from the President down to Cabinet ministers and others, has been at pains to dismiss these perceptions.

Eskom maintains that the pause in scheduled electricity outages was due to better maintenance leading to improved plant performance. Of course, demand is also reduced as residents switch to solar, gas, paraffin and candles, depending on spending power.

The proof is in the pudding – and the return of the rolling blackouts will be closely watched for proximity to the 29 May election day.

Promises, PR launches and handovers on the election campaign trail are one thing. But what matters in South Africa’s constitutional democracy is consistently participatory, deliberative and quality governance. DM

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International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor will travel to Equatorial Guinea this weekend to try to persuade that country’s government to release the two South African oil engineers who have been detained there for nearly 15 months on apparently trumped-up charges.

Clayson Monyela, the spokesperson for Pandor’s department, confirmed to Daily Maverick that securing the release of Frederik (Frik) Potgieter and Peter Huxham would be the purpose of Pandor’s visit to the Central African state.

“The families are desperate for news on Frik and Peter and for their urgent release,” Francois Nigrini, a spokesperson for their families said on Wednesday night.

“It’s been over 14 months since they were illegally arrested and incarcerated in Equatorial Guinea. They are innocent and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. We hope that Minister Pandor’s visit can secure their release and we are deeply grateful for all efforts to bring them home.”

The two men were arrested on 9 February 2023 and charged with drug trafficking. However, their families suspect the real reason was that two days before their arrest, South Africa had seized two luxury houses and a superyacht in Cape Town belonging to Equatorial Guinea’s extremely wealthy vice-president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Anguished families believe ICJ case shows SA has power to get two engineers released from Equatorial Guinea

The seizure related to another case and had nothing to do with Potgieter and Huxham, which is why their families say they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Frik and Peter are both highly experienced and professional engineers who were working for the Dutch company SBM Offshore in Equatorial Guinea at the time of their arrests,” Shaun Murphy, a spokesperson for the Potgieter family, said in February this year.

“Frik and Peter are hostages being held by a foreign power. These two men are in the situation that they are in because of an international dispute between South Africa and Equatorial Guinea.”

The two men were arrested at their hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, the night before they were due to fly back to South Africa following a five-week work rotation.

At their trial in June 2023 they each received a 12-year sentence, a main fine of $5-million and additional fines to be shared between them, “for trumped-up drug offences”, Murphy said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Families of SA engineers ‘wrongfully’ jailed in Equatorial Guinea urge Pretoria to get them home for Christmas

“The sentence and fines are much higher than what the current Equatorial Guinea law allows. Their trial, marked by numerous irregularities, took place in June 2023.

“The sentence and fines were based on outdated penalties for the alleged crimes, indicating an unsettling departure from the country’s new Criminal Code. 

“No witnesses or expert opinions were presented to the court by the prosecutor, nor was any proof presented that the alleged drugs were found on the two men, and further, the nature of the alleged drugs was not tested, or conclusively proven.” DM

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We’ve all heard boxer Mike Tyson’s famous phrase, “Everybody has a game plan until you get punched in the face.” Tyson’s quotable quote is a testament to the concept of unfolding, because although things look inevitable, when you look back, often they are not. And on that topic, Tyson himself has a follow-up to his quote: “When you do get punched in the face, it’s time to start thinking about plan B.” And so it could go on.

With that in mind, how is the BHP offer for Anglo American unfolding? Well, it’s still early days, but things have been happening behind the scenes that bear some thinking about.

The first is the statement from the Competition Commission that the distribution of Anglo’s shareholdings in Kumba and Amplats to the group’s shareholders, which is a pre-condition of the deal, would “very likely” require the institution’s approval. In addition, the subsequent takeover would in any event also need approval because BHP would be effectively buying some manganese and diamond mines.

This is typical of our beloved Competition Commission because God forbid that anyone should do any business in SA without the commission sticking its oar in. It would be fine if there was some actual ore to stick the oar into. But sadly, there is not.

First, BHP does not mine any manganese to which it would be adding Anglo’s stake, so I don’t know where the commission gets the idea that there could be anti-competitive effects. Unless of course, they did a Google search and came up with the fact that BHP did mine manganese before the unbundling of South32 in 2015. But the commission wouldn’t make that kind of simple error, would it? (Yes it would).

In diamonds, of course, the commission would have a look-in because in buying Anglo, BHP would effectively be buying De Beers’ Venetia mine. But the problem for the commission is that BHP sold its very small diamond interests a few years ago, so there would again be no conceivable market concentration reason why the South African competition authorities would have a legal basis to intervene. The same, of course, applies to the Australian and European authorities.

What, you may ask, about the change in the Competition Act last year, effectively giving the competition authorities the right to dictate terms in inward investment (something business loves)?  Well, sadly for the ever-vigilant commission, as dedicated as it is to undermining the free flow of business, the amended version of the legislation doesn’t apply to this deal for the very simple reason that it is structured so that the legislation doesn’t apply.

The new competition laws allow for the trade and industry minister to dictate terms in the case of a local takeover but in this case, of course, there is no takeover of South African assets, there is only the distribution of shares to existing Anglo shareholders. And, on my reading, that does not require competition authority sign-off because there is no concentration or change of ownership.

Not only is there no takeover of SA assets (outside of the diamond interests), but you could argue that detaching Anglo’s dominance over Kumba and Amplats would be good for SA’s business environment! As it is now, any expansion or growth either company might have wanted to do has had to be approved by Anglo’s British-dominated board.

It’s surely significant that Anglo’s recent expansion was to start a complicated mine in the UK, which will cost around $9-billion to produce a fertiliser mineral for which there is currently little demand. The fertiliser, Poly4, does have potential, but it will require farmers to be convinced to change their existing farming practices. And knowing farmers a little, I don’t think this is a given.

This brings me to the second bit of unfolding news, which is that BHP has deployed a team of senior executives to SA to try to win over government officials, regulators and local shareholders to the idea of the deal. BHP CEO Mike Henry reportedly arrived in Cape Town on Thursday.

This is not an easy sell — BHP’s recent history has been to disinvest, not invest, in SA and, for that matter, the African continent as a whole. It’s extraordinary that the world’s largest miner has assets on almost every other continent, but not this one. That might change in future, of course, and BHP has been looking at assets in Tanzania and the DRC, but nothing has come of that yet.

The question is: What could the BHP execs possibly offer SA government officials that might smooth some ruffled feathers? The one thing they could put on the table is diamond producer De Beers, which they have already said they would sell if the deal goes through. Could they undertake to sell De Beers to an African company? Or relist De Beers on the JSE? Or perhaps just sell De Beers’ mines separately and sell Venetia to a South African group?

All of these things are conceivable, but they would be tricky. Should the $39-billion deal go through, then De Beers would be owned by BHP and BHP shareholders are not going to be thrilled at the idea of the company being sold below value just for the sake of some feather unruffling.

BHP on Thursday did “clarify” that “the proposed structure [of the bid] does not reflect a view of South Africa as an investment destination and is based on portfolio and commodity considerations”. Ja, right. So why then are you conceptually keeping Anglo’s Brazilian iron ore operations but not its South African iron ore operations? BHP did say that it was keeping its JSE listing but then it also said it was keeping its dual listing in London and Sydney until it didn’t. And it said it was committed to Africa, until it wasn’t.

These guys make this stuff up as they go along. And that’s not a terrible thing. As Mike Tyson says, everyone has a game plan until someone hits you in the face. DM

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The Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose almost five points in April to 54 from 49.2 in March, bringing it back into positive territory as the range is zero to 100. In the lingo used by economists, this means it is in “expansionary terrain”, signalling that the manufacturing sector is growing. 

It’s also the highest reading so far in 2024 and one of only two months – February being the other – when it has been above the neutral 50 mark this year. 

“In all, the survey results reflect a good start to the second quarter of 2024,” Absa said. “The rebound comes from improved business activity, while better domestic demand filtered through to higher new sales orders.”

“A full month of no load shedding was likely positive for sustained business activity.”

That is an understatement of note. The power crunch has been the biggest constraint on the manufacturing sector and economic growth more widely. A month without rolling blackouts was like an early Christmas present. 

Eskom has pointed to improvements in its ageing power station fleet under the Energy Action Plan and the generation recovery plan as the key reasons for its current good run. But the private sector’s embrace of renewables and a decline in demand are also seen as key factors behind the much-improved performance. 

The state-run power utility has cautioned that power cuts are likely to return in winter. 

Opposition parties and other observers remain suspicious of the timing ahead of the 29 May elections, seeing an April fool’s political prank. 

So, it is an open question whether the relative optimism reflected in the April PMI reading can be sustained. It’s also worth noting that at 54, it’s hardly shooting the lights out, even as it has been lifted by the lights staying on. 

It is encouraging that the business activity sub-index shot up to 57.2 in April – its highest level in more than two years – from a lowly 44.5 in March. 

But the signals are also mixed, with the employment index falling back below 50. This suggests that the growing optimism has not led to any significant job creation in the manufacturing sector. 

“We do not foresee any meaningful improvement for the South African economy in the near term as structural constraints together with a high-cost environment weigh on growth prospects. Consequently, businesses are not expected to expand their operations and hire more people rapidly,” Jee-A van der Linde, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa, said in a note on the data. 

The power supply needs to be reliable for more than one month to spur job creation and get the economy growing at a faster rate. But at least it’s a step in the right direction. DM

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An organised crime investigation has resulted in the arrest of a brother of suspected 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield — and the confiscation of R4.6-million cash that police found inside a concealed storeroom in a Cape Town house.

On Monday, 29 April 2024, police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa said a 34-year-old suspect was arrested at the weekend for defeating the ends of justice.

She did not name him.

Daily Maverick understands, though, that the suspect is Stanfield’s brother Kyle Stanfield.

He appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Monday and the case was reportedly postponed for a week.

Hidden cash and high-end watches

“With the investigation unfolding, the suspect was also charged with possession of presumably stolen property,” Potelwa said.

“The possibility of further charges added cannot be ruled out as the investigation gains momentum.”

During the weekend operation, police had searched a home in the Cape Town suburb of Claremont. Potelwa said, “The cash seized was found in a concealed storeroom safely stashed in travel cases with 16 prestigious high-end watches and empty 9mm pistol cases.”

The origin of the money and other seized items was under investigation.

Potelwa added that the Claremont home that was searched was “linked to a suspect currently in custody for other serious offences emanating from ongoing major investigations”.

Detained

Daily Maverick understands this to be a reference to Stanfield, who together with his wife Nicole Johnson, is in custody.

Johnson and Stanfield have been behind bars (despite attempts to be released on bail) since they were arrested in their home in the upmarket suburb of Constantia in September last year.

They faced charges relating to a vehicle theft, and in Stanfield’s case, of attempted murder.

That matter, which involves three other accused, is expected to resume in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court next month.

The couple, meanwhile, faces other problems.

Blacklisted

Daily Maverick reported in early April that National Treasury had restricted Johnson’s company Glomix House Brokers for 10 years, meaning it may not do business with government for a decade.

Glomix previously had intermittently for years been involved in housing projects in Cape Town worth millions of rands.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Glomix ban — Treasury blacklists 28s gang case accused Nicole Johnson’s company for 10 years

But in December the City of Cape Town confirmed it had blacklisted seven companies linked to Johnson “based on the risk they pose to the city’s reputation”.

It did not name the seven companies.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Risky business — City of Cape Town blacklists companies linked to 28s gang case accused Nicole Johnson

That same month that the blacklistings were confirmed, the Special Investigating Unit named Stanfield and Johnson in a statement about construction mafia crimes.

It had said their arrests were “notable”.

“Several Cape Town construction contractors had to abandon government housing construction sites following alleged acts of intimidation and violence,” that statement said.

“Thereafter, the Western Cape Government’s human settlements department awarded Johnson’s company, Glomix House Brokers, the contracts for completing these abandoned projects.”

Guns case

Aside from the criminal accusations Stanfield and Johnson face in connection with their arrests in September last year, they are also accused in another case.

It links to 2014 when they were arrested in connection with allegations that officers at the South African Police Service’s Central Firearm Registry had created fraudulent firearm licences for them and others.

Among those charged in the case were three (now former) police members — Priscilla Mangyani, Billy April and Mary Cartwright.

Kyle Stanfield, based on a charge sheet in the case, is also an accused in that matter. DM

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Transnet said it had increased the number of trains serving the rail link to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) from 21 to 28 a week, “supported by an injection of locomotives”.

This “injection” remains in its test phase, but it seems the patient is responding.

“As of 31 March 2024, the test train initiative had seen Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) moving 106,000 tons from road to rail, while removing approximately 3,100 truckloads from the roads (6,200 truck movements, including the empty leg),” Theo Johnson, Acting Managing Executive on the North Corridor, said in a statement on Thursday.

The “empty leg” refers to the return trip up the N2 to the coal collieries. 

Transnet did not provide the precise timeframe for this reduction of 6,200 trucks offloading coal and heading back to load more, nor did the statement say where the “injection” of locomotives had come from. The SOE had not responded to our queries on this before publication. 

Still, it’s clearly a positive development as the logistics crisis is one of many constraints on economic growth, including its impact on coal exports. 

South African coal exports via RBCT fell in 2023 to 47.21 million tons, the lowest volume in more than three decades, as TFR’s woes mounted. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: SA coal exports at 30-year low but mining sector appreciates Transnet’s new top brass

The rise of trucking as an alternative – provided by the private sector in the face of state failure – has increased costs for South African coal producers, while making the N2 corridor through northern KwaZulu-Natal to Richards Bay a pain in the ass at best and a lethal hazard for other road users at worst. 

This in turn has almost certainly had a detrimental – if unquantified – impact on the region’s once flourishing and labour-intensive eco-tourism sector. The wheels of state failure leave many potholes in their wake.  

“To date, seven customers, a majority of whom were 100% on-road before, have been tested.

“The process to test the remaining customers is ongoing, subject to available capacity on a week-by-week basis,” Johnson was quoted as saying in the statement. 

Transnet noted that the test remains just that, and will hinge on long-term capital commitments. 

“The test train initiative was offered with a clear proviso that it does not constitute a commitment for rail capacity in the long term, as there are structured ongoing processes for capacity allocation,” it said. 

This effectively means that talks are ongoing with bankers and other sources of finance at a time when the coal sector overall is slowly being starved of capital because of its links to climate change. 

Still, it’s a positive if tentative development on the logistics front. 

The Minerals Council South Africa has estimated that, between 2021 and 2023, South Africa lost out on close to R100-billion from coal and iron ore exports alone, which equates to roughly 1.4 percentage points of GDP over three years.

Read more in Daily Maverick: South Africa’s economic meltdown in three charts

“There are increasingly positive developments in the logistics sector, which indicate the work the Minerals Council and its members are doing with and through Business for South Africa and the Presidency-led NLCC is gaining traction,” the Minerals Council said in response to Daily Maverick’s queries on the issue. 

“For bulk commodity producers, which have lost an estimated R98-billion in export revenue since 2021, an efficient,  functional and cost-competitive railway is essential for all stakeholders and customers.”

New Transnet group CEO Michelle Phillips said last week that data showed positive developments, indicating the SOE was starting to recover, albeit at a glacial pace. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Transnet turnaround looks promising, but set to be a long-haul 

This later data set highlights the point that this improvement is tentatively on track. DM

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South Africa’s medicines regulator is developing a new set of initiatives to stem the misuse of codeine, an opioid drug found in certain pain relief medicines and cough mixtures, but which people also frequently use in large doses to get high – a practice that is particularly rife among young people, according to the regulator – the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra).

Nthabi Moloi, Sahpra’s communications officer, told Spotlight that abuse of codeine-containing products in the country is of “grave concern”, and that in response the regulatory body is drafting new guidelines on the drug, which will be available for public comment in June 2024.

Dr Sham Moodley, who chairs a multistakeholder forum on codeine misuse, explained that Sahpra was considering an initiative that would require all pharmacies and health providers in the country to digitally record the ID numbers of patients who buy or collect codeine. This information would feed into a centralised computer system used by health workers nationally, which would flag patients who were requesting too much of the drug across different dispensers. Sales of codeine by manufacturers and wholesalers would also be tracked to ensure companies weren’t supplying the opioid to unregistered outlets.

The programme – the Codeine Care Initiative – had a previous iteration which applied only to pharmacies, but this was voluntary and most pharmacies chose not to take part. The new phase of the initiative would be mandatory, and would incorporate all role players in the codeine supply chain, Moodley said.

Asked about the programme, Moloi didn’t explicitly confirm these details, but noted that Sahpra was engaging with various stakeholders to review “the current data reporting requirements” in order to “facilitate reporting” on codeine supply. She said the upcoming draft guidelines will stipulate the information that companies and health authorities will have to provide to Sahpra when dispensing the drug. These reporting requirements would first apply to manufacturers, while dispensing points would be “targeted in later phases”.

One in four pupils is abusing codeine in some schools

At large doses, codeine can induce a range of warm, fuzzy and euphoric feelings, but it can also come with health complications, particularly with prolonged use. These include confusion, breathing problems, liver damage and gastrointestinal issues such as constipation, bleeding and peptic ulcers (sores that line the stomach or small intestine). People can also die from overdosing, which Moloi highlighted as a concern for Sahpra.

It’s for this reason that health professionals have long been looking for ways to stem the abuse of codeine, which is found in both prescription and over-the-counter medicines in South Africa. Codeine-containing cough syrups, which can be bought without a script, are a particular target of misuse, especially among young people. The syrups are frequently mixed with fizzy drinks so that large amounts of the often unpleasant-tasting formula can be downed (the combination is sometimes referred to as “lean”).

Research conducted in four township schools in Mpumalanga and the Free State found that about a quarter of Grade 10 to 12 pupils surveyed said they had used codeine-based cough mixtures to get high. This had typically started when they were between 15 and 17, and were largely unaware of the side-effects.

Professor Nadine Harker, deputy director of the Substance Use Programme at the South African Medical Research Council, explained that kids often use lean “as part of codeine parties” and that the drug provides “entertainment and escapism”.

Because codeine has genuine medical applications, some people can also become dependent on it accidentally. In one study, patients at rehabilitation centres in South Africa told researchers that they began taking codeine-based pills to manage pain following surgery or simply in response to severe headaches and migraines. However, over time they had come to rely on the drug as an emotional crutch to deal with depression and stress, without realising they were getting hooked. Common pills reportedly included Stilpane, Syndol, Myprodol and Adcodol.

A codeine molecule ball. (Photo: Jynto (CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org)

New Codeine Care Initiative to help without violating privacy

The new stage of the Codeine Care Initiative is one way of empowering health workers to monitor these patients and prevent them from falling through the cracks. Information about the programme was provided to Spotlight by the secretariat of the Codeine Care Forum, which developed the new leg of the project. The forum includes a range of stakeholders, from manufacturers and private pharmacy groups, to universities and professional associations.

The idea for the initiative came about in the early 2010s, when a representative body for pharmacists, the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, developed the first stage of the initiative, the secretariat said. Moodley, who chairs the forum, added that as part of this phase, a computer program was developed, which could capture the ID numbers of patients buying codeine, and generate a warning message on pharmacists’ screens when they were asking for problematic amounts across different pharmacies.

When this happens, depending on the specific case, health workers could “refuse [to provide more of the medicine], educate [the person], or suggest alternatives”, according to the secretariat. The programme remained limited to a small number of outlets however, and a 2017 paper found that people who work with drug users doubted its efficacy. Mariet Eksteen, a member of the secretariat, explained part of the problem: “As associations or interest groups, we cannot mandate participation. Only a regulator, in this case Sahpra, can mandate participation or compliance as they oversee medication in South Africa.”

Indeed, according to Anthony Engelbrecht, the IT systems and solutions architect behind the initiative, the software was only deployed at about 400 to 450 pharmacies. He noted that many companies were reluctant to get on board because they didn’t want “all their customer information getting shared to the potential opposition”.