RUGBY TEST: Rassie the great tinkerer has created a Bok system where the team is everything

• Johannesburg executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda resigns amid pressure from opposition parties and civil society due to perceived failures in leadership.
• Gwamanda's resignation paves the way for ANC's Dada Morero to potentially become the city's 10th executive mayor since 2016.
• EFF members in the mayoral council likely to be removed as incoming mayor announces cabinet following failed loan vote.
• ActionSA-ANC agreement sees Gwamanda's removal as a precondition, with civil society also calling for leadership change in the city.

Johannesburg executive mayor Kabelo Gwamanda from the Al Jama-ah Party has finally bowed to civil society and political pressure and tendered his resignation to the Speaker of the council, Margaret Arnolds, on Tuesday morning.   

Calls for Gwamanda’s resignation or axing had recently intensified with opposition parties and civil society organisations arguing that his tenure had been marred by unmitigated failure, and that he was simply not qualified to lead the country’s largest metro. 

In a brief statement, Gwamanda said the decision to resign was in line with the political engagements that had taken place in recent weeks following significant changes in the country’s political landscape brought by the outcomes of the 29 May elections.    

The city, with a population of more than six million people, faces myriad challenges including fiscal pressures, crumbling infrastructure, revenue collection problems as well as service delivery challenges, including the provision of electricity and potable water. 

“As the youngest mayor of Johannesburg I am humbled by the opportunity to have led this city and to have stabilised it financially and administratively following the collapse of the multi-party coalition government.

Good governance

“I am pleased that we managed to place good governance on course and that we achieved the best audit outcomes witnessed by the City in years,” Gwamanda said in his resignation letter.  

His departure will pave the way for the ANC’s regional chairperson Dada Morero who has long been tipped for the position. Morero had a stint as mayor in 2022 – but occupied the position for just 25 days.

His candidature is expected to be made official by the party’s regional executive committee on Tuesday afternoon. He is set to become the city’s 10th executive mayor since the 2016 local government elections.  

The nine mayors since 2016 are: Parks Tau (2016), Herman Mashaba (2016/19), Geoff Makhubu (2020/21), Mpho Moerane (2021), Jolidee Matongo (2021), Mpho Phalatse (2021/22), Dada Morero (2022), Thapelo Amad (2023), Kabelo Gwamanda (2023/24). 

 Gwamanda ascended to the powerful position in January 2023 as a compromise by the EFF-ANC coalition, which embarked on a mission to take over the province’s metros. 

The duo’s relationship, however, later faltered and recently almost brought the city of gold to its knees as the council failed to vote in favour of a R2.5-billion loan from Agence Française de Développement, which was meant for capital projects. The loan was rejected by the council at least three times as the EFF refused to vote with the ANC.    

Read more here: Minority government in Gauteng on shaky ground as ANC moves away from EFF 

Following these developments, EFF members of the mayoral council in the City of Johannesburg are likely to be booted out when the incoming mayor announces his cabinet. 

Last month, ActionSA entered into an agreement with the ANC that would see it use its 44 seats to vote with the ANC on an “issue-by-issue” basis.    

The party’s precondition for the agreement was Gwamanda’s removal from the powerful position, as it argued that that his term “has been an unmitigated failure, with the evidence of the downward spiral of Johannesburg evident all around the city”.  

Read more here: ActionSA-ANC deal in Joburg for ‘power’ – ‘not just making opposition noise’ 

Civil society group the Joburg Crisis Alliance has also called for Gwamanda and his members of the mayoral council to be axed from their positions. 

“Our call for change in the leadership of the city is not made in favour of any political party. We hold the view that whoever assumes leadership in the city must be held to account, irrespective of which political party they represent,” the Joburg Crisis Alliance has said. 

Gwamanda said he would continue to serve the people of Johannesburg as a councillor. However, Daily Maverick understands an agreement was reached with Gwamanda and his party on Monday night that he would resign on condition that he gets a member of the mayoral council post. 

This decision, however, has left a bitter taste in the mouth of Gwamanda’s predecessor, Thapelo Amad, who was not afforded the same luxury and is the party’s leader in Gauteng. 

The resignation will be effective from a date to be determined by the Speaker. 

An ANC insider said Gwamanda was meant to vacate the position as far back as three weeks ago, but his party leader, Ganief Hendricks, was reportedly reluctant for him to let go of the position.  

Quizzed about this on Monday, Hendricks said: “Al Jamah-ah is not willing to cooperate in going while this cloud of incompetence hangs over them, the mayor and the party.”  

The ANC reportedly threatened a motion of no-confidence against the mayor had he failed to tender his resignation this week. 

Hendriks, however, was adamant this would not happen. 

“The ANC is not going to dump us and let us down. We have a 15-year relationship as a reliable ally.” 

On Tuesday, he could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.   

The DA has welcomed Gwamanda’s resignation. The party’s caucus leader, Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, said: “During his tenure as mayor, Gwamanda has managed the City of Johannesburg into the ground. The City is on the brink of collapse, and we have a hapless executive to thank for that…”

Of the incoming mayor, she said: “The fact of the matter is that residents of Johannesburg need stability in order to get services, and changing mayors every few months will not provide that stability.” 

ActionSA’s caucus leader in the city, Nobuhle Mthembu, said she was pleased that the party’s intervention had occasioned Gwamanda’s resignation, which it pushed for with urgency.  

“We could not stand by and allow the City to fall further into disrepair.

Residents of the City of Johannesburg have suffered under a mayor whose ineptitude and habitual blame-shifting, never self-included despite his unambiguous executive responsibility, have led to a disastrous state of service delivery across the City,” Mthembu said.  

Build One South Africa’s Ayanda Allie has also welcomed the resignation.   

“Elected through an agreement between the ANC and the EFF, Al-Jamah’s Gwamanda was nothing more than a puppet mayor – a useful figurehead in which very little de facto power resided – given his party won just 0.20% of the votes in the most recent local government elections. While politicians benefited, residents suffered. 

“Build One South Africa remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the City, and calls on all parties in council to apply their minds diligently and ethically as they elect a new mayor to take over the reins,” said Allie. DM

• State argues that Ace Magashule’s former PA, Moroadi Cholota, is a flight risk and should be denied bail in Bloemfontein court.
• Magistrate requests State prosecutor to highlight key points in the 200-page affidavit against granting Cholota bail.
• Cholota’s oral arguments denied by court; bail hearing postponed to allow defence to prepare written response.
• Cholota extradited from US to face charges in R225-million asbestos scandal involving fraud, corruption, and theft.

Ace Magashule’s former PA Moroadi Cholota was a flight risk and thus her request for bail should be denied, the State argued in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.

This formed part of the 200-page affidavit from Hawks investigating officer Benjamin Calitz that was handed in to court by State prosecutor Johannes de Nysschen. The affidavit outlined the reasons against granting Cholota bail. 

Because of time constraints, Magistrate Estelle de Lange requested that De Nysschen briefly address the affidavit and highlight the most important aspects. 

Following the presentation of the State’s case, Cholota’s legal representative, Advocate Loyiso Makapela, requested 35 minutes to present oral arguments as to why the defence objected to the State’s arguments.

Her request was denied by De Lange, who stated that the defence must submit a replying affidavit. The bail hearing was postponed until Thursday, 15 August, to allow the defence to prepare its written response.

The State’s response follows Cholota’s affidavit, which was read into the record on Monday, in which she maintains her innocence, claims she is not guilty of any charges against her, and believes that the State will be unable to present any objective facts or evidence to prove that she engaged in corruption or money laundering.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘I’m innocent of all charges,’ says Ace Magashule’s ex-PA on her first day in Bloem court

Cholota’s bail application started on Monday after she was arrested on Thursday, 8 August, when she arrived at Oliver Tambo International Airport. On Thursday, 8 August 2024, the South African Police Service confirmed that Cholota was escorted by Interpol and South African police officers while she was being extradited to South Africa.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Ace Magashule’s former PA extradited and inbound from the US in asbestos saga”

Cholota has been in detention since being arrested in the US on 12 April 2024 and brought to court. A US court heard that South African authorities had charged her with four counts of fraud and five counts of corruption, in violation of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

Following the delay, the asbestos case that includes Cholota’s former boss Ace Magashule was heard again in June 2024. At this point, the court ruled that the trial date would be April to June 2025, even if Cholota had not been extradited by that date.

Read more: Magashule and Co will have their day in court – next year

Cholota’s extradition was approved on 7 June by Judge Erin Aslan of the Maryland District Court in the US.

Cholota is a co-accused alongside Magashule and others in a R225-million asbestos scandal that included charges of fraud, corruption, theft and racketeering.

According to Hawks officer Calitz’s affidavit, Cholota is accused of four counts of fraud resulting in a loss to the state of more than R36.5-million, as well as five counts of corruption – ranging between amounts from R30,000 and up to  R470,000.

In the asbestos case, the State claimed that Cholota acted in common purpose by participating in a conspiracy to commit the aforementioned crimes with some of her co-accused.

In response to Cholota’s affidavit, which stated that granting her bail was in the interests of justice, the prosecution argued: “Miss Cholota has omitted to bring to the court numerous material facts, which militate against the granting of bail and serve to establish a past pattern of conduct, which is consistent with someone likely to evade trial.

“She has misled the court in her affidavit in presenting her personal facts and has the likelihood of being a flight risk.”

Furthermore, Calitz’s affidavit stated that the factors presented by Cholota demonstrate that she has no intention of standing trial in South Africa.

“On 22/23 September 2021 I also had access to Cholota’s computer and email accounts. I had questions based on those documents as well as what has been canvassed at the State Capture Commission of Inquiry.

Cholota ‘was taken off guard’

“The questions asked to Cholota were solemnly answered fully and completely. All her answers were measured and it was evident that she was taken off guard by the interview. Cholota was uncooperative and expressed intense frustration in the questions, particularly when pressed for more information,” according to his affidavit. 

Calitz’s affidavit further stated that Cholota’s emails and records contain much of the evidence the State has against her, and his investigation has produced enough evidence to support the charges.

The State believes that Cholota’s request for R2,500 for bail release is far too low and inconsistent with the nature and scope of the charges against her. The other accused were granted bail of between R50,000 and R100,000 each.

Extradition proceedings

Cholota’s legal representative, advocate Makapela, reminded the court that the entire State’s opposition to bail is based on extradition proceedings that have already taken place and concluded in the US.

“The State has tried to paint a picture of this accused as going above and beyond to evade trial, evade arrest. While we did not anticipate that the State would go to such desperate lengths to paint her in this way, we have to respond first to the extradition, then the Constitutional Court issue and to bring it back to why we are here. We are here for a bail application.”

Makapela claims that the State’s affidavit is a repetition of the documents filed in her extradition application, as well as Cholota’s application for access to the Constitutional Court. Makapela contended that the State’s arguments contain nothing new.

Makapela requested 35 minutes to present oral arguments in response to the State’s case, which she said would be fleshed out in writing.

However, De Lange stated: “Unfortunately, I will not allow that. I’ll ask you to respond in writing so that I don’t miss out on anything. It’s critical that I have everything with me because this will be a lengthy process, so let us stick to the paperwork.

The other co-accused along with Magashule and Cholota are businessman Edwin Sodi, former director-general of the national Department of Housing Thabane Zulu, as well as Nthimotse Mokhesi, Mahlomola Matlakala, Sello Radebe, Adel Kgotso Manyeki, Nozipho Molikoe, Albertus Venter, Margaret-Ann Diedericks and former MEC and Mangaung mayor Olly Mlamleli.

In addition, companies charged include Blackhead Consulting, 602 Consulting Solutions, Mastertrade 232 and Ori Group.

Cholota’s testimony before the State Capture Commission in late 2019 is key to this trial, which revealed much about the intermediary role she played in requesting financial favours from people like the slain Igo Mpambani, on behalf of her boss.

The bail hearing will resume on Thursday, 15 August. DM

• Eskom's efforts to keep the lights on from April to June did not prevent a rise in unemployment rates, with Stats SA reporting a climb to 33.5%.
• Under the expanded definition, including discouraged job seekers, the unemployment rate increased to 42.6%, with job losses seen in the trade and agriculture sectors.
• The latest data highlights South Africa's ongoing unemployment crisis, exacerbated by minimal economic growth in Q2 and challenges posed by Eskom's performance.
• Despite hopes for improvement in the second half of 2024, concerns remain over the impact of rising unemployment rates on the economy's recovery.

Eskom kept the lights on from April to June, but that was not enough of an economic jolt to arrest the swelling ranks of the unemployed. 

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday that the unemployment rate climbed to 33.5% during the period from 32.9% in Q1, when the economy shrank 0.1%. This brings the rate to within two percentage points of the record high of 35.3% recorded in the last quarter of 2021. 

Under the expanded definition, which includes discouraged job seekers, the rate increased 0.7 of a percentage point to 42.6%.

During the period, 111,000 jobs were shed in the trade sector and 45,000 in agriculture. Measured by provinces, the Western Cape still has the lowest unemployment rate at 22.2%, while North West topped the charts at 41.3%. 

Based on the expanded definition, the unemployment rate in North West is a staggering 54.2%. 

The latest read once again underscores the depressing scale of South Africa’s unemployment problem, which exacerbates the challenges of poverty and inequality. 

A major concern is that the unemployment rate maintained its rise while other data suggests the economy barely grew in Q2 despite the fact that there were no nationwide rotating blackouts during the period, which admittedly was also marred by local power cuts. 

Eskom’s woes have long been sighted as the biggest constraint to economic growth and job creation in South Africa, but clearly it needs to keep the lights on over a much longer timeframe to spark meaningful investment and activity. 

Political uncertainty around the election and its outcome no doubt detracted from Eskom’s performance, and most of the other economic data from the period suggests the economy avoided a recession but only grew by the slimmest of margins. It also means that South Africans cast their ballots in May against this lacklustre economic backdrop.  

Another data set published on Tuesday showed that mining production fell 3.5% year-on-year in June and on a seasonally adjusted basis by 0.9% in Q2 compared to Q1. This means the sector will be a drag on the gross domestic product (GDP) number for Q2. 

Technical recession

“The latest (mining) data suggests that the sector will dampen real GDP growth in Q2 2024, but probably not enough to drag the economy into a technical recession,” Gerrit van Rooyen, an economist at Oxford Economics Africa, said in a note on the data. 

“… we forecast that the slight improvement in manufacturing output steered the South African economy to a small expansion of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in Q2, following the 0.1% quarter-on-quarter contraction in Q1. However, if tomorrow’s retail sales report (for June) disappoints, it could tip the scales toward a recession.”

The sluggish economy and the contraction in the power-intensive mining sector probably helped to keep the lights on.

“While load shedding was suspended in Q2, the contraction in mining production aided this outcome,” said Investec Chief Economist Annabel Bishop. 

Economists are generally more positive about the second half of 2024 with the Government of National Unity in place, Eskom still performing well, and hopes for an interest cut as early as September. 

There is some data already out that suggests the economy may have started turning the corner in July. 

Read more: Absa PMI bounces back to positive levels in July, signalling solid manufacturing start to Q3

But whether or not this will put the brakes on the rising unemployment rate remains to be seen. The record high is not that steep a climb. DM

• Outrage in White City, Soweto, after assault and shooting of 21-year-old Lusanda Ngcobo at a spaza store.
• SAPS confirms shooting, victim in stable condition; no arrests made.
• Victim shot twice in stomach after confrontation with storekeeper; community seeks justice.
• History of tension with foreign-owned spaza shops in Soweto; some looted and closed down.

The community of White City in Soweto is outraged following the assault and shooting of a local man. 

The victim, 21-year-old Lusanda Ngcobo, had gone to the spaza store to buy a cold drink after knocking off work. 

The Gauteng South African Police Services (SAPS) confirmed the shooting happened over the past weekend. 

“There was a person shot and injured at the weekend, and the person is in a stable condition in hospital,” said spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza. 

“Moroka police together with Johannesburg Metro Police Department members today (on Monday, 12 August) monitored the situation in White city following allegations of shops being closed. At this stage no shops were closed and there were no injuries. No arrests either. Police are currently talking to the community leaders and monitoring the situation.”

Portia Nkwana, a family friend, told Daily Maverick on Monday afternoon that “the child was shot just after 7pm on Saturday outside the store”.

Sudden attack

“We are still shocked at this sudden attack on an innocent child,” Nkwana said. “He went to the store to buy a Stoney (ginger beer) soft drink together with his friend. They then went outside, but while outside the store owner accused them of idling around and ordered them to leave,” said Nkwana.

The pair are said to have told the storekeeper and his accomplices that they were not loitering about, and that even if that were they did not see any problem as they were outside the store.

The storekeeper and his companions allegedly then beat them with a stick, something which the pair vehemently protested against. This is when the storekeeper allegedly pulled out a firearm and shot the victim twice in the stomach, and fled. 

“He is in a critical condition at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Today he underwent a second surgery to try to retrieve the second bullet lodged in his stomach after the first one was removed,” Nkwana told Daily Maverick.

“He is unconscious, and we are still fighting for justice as the store owner disappeared. We were here at the Moroka police station to seek justice and for the store owner to be apprehended and charged,” Nkwana said.

Devastation

Phumzile Mnisi, the victim’s mother, expressed her devastation at what befell her son. She said she was too distraught and in no state to be in direct contact with the police looking into the case, and that the police were in contact with her brother.

“I am devastated, it’s painful. I can’t even talk. My son was undergoing a second operation to remove the bullet today. He is still unconscious in ICU,” Mnisi said. 

She said her son was a lovely and warm person. 

This is not the first incident in Soweto in which a foreign-owned spaza shop owner has been accused of shooting at locals. 

In 2015, 14-year-old Siphiwe Mahori from Snake Park was shot in the neck at Raso Supermarket. His killing culminated in a wave of looting of foreign-owned spaza shops across Soweto. 

Read in Daily Maverick: A killing in Snake Park: Unravelling the threads of a South African tragedy 

The spaza shop where Ngcobo was shot and other foreign-owned shops in the area were closed on Monday with the owner and his companions nowhere to be found. 

For some years now there has been a hostile tolerance of foreign spaza shops in Soweto following such actions allegedly by foreign spaza shop owners, with one of the pressing issues being the foreign spaza shops’ unregulated trade.

Read in Daily Maverick: Soweto family seeking answers after toxicology report clears spaza shop of link to boys’ deaths 

When asked about the community’s relationship with the foreign spaza shop owners, Ward 37 Councillor Papi Chetsang said: “In relation to the shop owners and the residents, I feel that there’s division between the landlords accommodating the foreign owners and local shop owners as they feel that they are being cheated of business in their homeland, so it’s a question of survival in that case.

“The shooting was unfortunate and there’s been a few incidents of such nature, and we continue to condemn such occurrences. We should be building each other and not trying to take each other’s lives.”

Angry community member Kefilwe Maraisane told Daily Maverick on Monday that as the community they were fed up and wanted the foreign-owned spaza shops to close down for good. 

“We support them with our hard-earned cash, but they thank us with body bags,” said another resident, Lwazi Mkhize.

Residents claim that foreign shop owners have adopted a tendency of aligning themselves with rogue elements in the community for their and their stores’ protection.

“This has emboldened the foreign spaza shop owners to harass locals. They are encouraged by other locals to harass locals. Previously, when they clashed with community members for whatever reason, and the community members insulted them, they would keep quiet, but now they return the same insults. They have even learned swearing in Zulu,” said Maraisane.

No arrests were reported for the looting of some shops in the area on Monday. DM

Unpacking South Africa’s insurance gap

If the average South African earner wants to ensure that their family can maintain their standard of living in the event of their death, provision needs to be made for R1.8 million. However, the average South African earner has life cover of less than R800 000 – leaving an insurance gap of R1 million. This increases to a gap of R1.4 million in the event of disability. 

The insurance gap is reported for different segments of the population in terms of income, education, age, province, and gender. 

The gap represents a significant risk to households – particularly those reliant on a sole breadwinner. Without appropriate cover, a family’s entire asset base can be decimated leaving them open to serious financial consequences. 

As part of Precium’s women-focused audio series, Reclaiming Ambition, Berniece Hieckmann, COO of Abacus Insurance, a division of PEPKOR, shares how she thinks innovation and purpose-led ambition can contribute to a solution. 

“Embed yourself in the reality of the consumer”

In a society as diverse and unequal as South Africa’s, insights development is an ongoing journey that must go beyond seeing consumers as demographics.  “It’s not a project task, it’s a persistent task,” says Hieckmann, “because people aren’t frozen in time.” 

To stop building antiquated products, organisations need to ensure that their consumer research isn’t done with a confirmation bias. This starts with understanding what problem the business is trying to solve. The innovation is then led by nature and size of the problem, rather than by trend or technology. 

Hieckmann believes in a multidisciplinary approach to both insights and product development particularly as problems become more complex and systemic. 

“You have to take people from very different disciplines into a co-creative environment where they can see [the problem] from different angles,” she says. 

“Real, tangible, valuable” 

With her background in traditional insurance, Hieckmann believes that the next step for the category will be transforming products into value for consumers. “I’m excited to see insurance becoming real, tangible, simple, and valuable for an ordinary person.” This will go a long way to facing a significant contributing factor to the insurance gap: a widely held mistrust of the industry by consumers and a lack of education. 

Even at the top end of the income ladder (those earning >R713 000 per annum), there is an insurance gap of R3.2 million per earner*. “There was always this myth in the industry that insurance is sold and not bought, we need to be able to build products that are truly buyable,” she says. 

“Ambition starts with purpose” 

Having sat in every seat around the boardroom, Hieckmann’s ambitions are deeply rooted in purpose: she wants to do her part in creating better financial inclusion. Her purpose is echoed in her opinion on the operationalisation of artificial intelligence. “How do we make sure that the advent of artificial intelligence is beneficial to all market segments? […] I’m passionate about making sure that we don’t make the invisible economy bigger by excluding them through algorithmic and AI-driven decision making.”  

Amidst the trend towards digital-first models disrupting South Africa’s traditionally intermediated insurance sector, this is a vital perspective. 

Numbers from the ID4D Global Dataset (an initiative titled ‘Identification for Development’ by the World Bank) indicate that:

• at least 1.1 billion people do not have a digital record of their identity
• at least 1.25 billion people do not have a digitally verifiable identity, and 
• at least 3.3 billion people do not have access to a government-recognized digital identity to securely transact online.

This prevents access to financial and other basic services, as people are unable to verify even the most basic of personal data – including their full name. Where unbanked consumers do have formal identification, they often lack the documentation and credit records required by financial service providers to assess creditworthiness and perform consumer due diligence (often referred to as ‘thin-file’ customers). 

With artificial intelligence, organisations have the potential to further exclude “invisible” people or harness the power of alternative data, like mobile phone usage, monthly payments (e.g. school fees or electricity bills), social media activity and biometric identities to overcome barriers to financial inclusion. 

“Wicked problems are those problems that are so big that it doesn’t look like anybody can contribute to a solution. So, global warming, poverty, access to medical care… The genesis of these problems is a power imbalance. Somebody needs to give. It’s sacrificial. I think that’s the biggest problem that humanity faces: everybody wants a solution, but nobody wants to give,” concludes Hieckmann. 

Insurance, at its core, is about protection. To ensure that those most vulnerable to economic shocks can be protected, the industry must embrace purpose-led innovation that combines technological advancements with deep customer-centricity. This multidisciplinary problem solving starts with an ambitious proposition to executives and their employees: what is the change we need and how do you contribute to a solution? DM

Reclaiming Ambition is a women-focused audio series developed by Precium, the series delves into ambition and innovation seen through the lens of women in executive roles across categories. Precium is the first African payment platform purpose-built for enterprise. The company helps businesses optimise payment performance, automate financial operations, and craft extraordinary customer experiences through its modular payment platform.

• Rassie Erasmus shakes up the Springbok squad with 10 changes for the clash against the Wallabies in Perth, showcasing his innovative coaching style.
• Despite the changes, the squad remains strong with 14 Rugby World Cup winners, highlighting Erasmus's ability to challenge norms and push boundaries.
• Erasmus redefines the concept of a "best" team, aiming to build depth and prepare for future challenges, including the 2027 Rugby World Cup.
• The Springboks embrace a culture of honesty and team-first mentality under Erasmus, with players understanding and accepting their roles for the greater good of the team.

The words “Rassie Erasmus” have become synonymous with rugby innovation and excellence and the Springbok coach was at it again this week with some bold new selections for the clash against the Wallabies in Perth.

There are 10 changes to the team that thumped Australia last weekend but the squad for Perth is still bolstered by 14 Rugby World Cup winners. It’s not a weak squad by any measure.

Erasmus has become widely regarded as the most innovative coach in the world because of his ability to always push boundaries and challenge the norms.

From flashing lights on top of a grandstand, to six/two and then seven/one splits on the bench; from choosing to see transformation as an opportunity and not a burden and also broadening the concept to include a change of attitudes and outlooks as well as a racial make-up of a team, he has driven a new mindset.

From picking four scrumhalves in one match to replacing an injured hooker with a flyhalf; from being a water carrier, to plotting a midfield maul, Erasmus has always pushed the limits of the law and of thinking about the game.

Vital job

But perhaps his most revolutionary idea – the most dazzling example of his genius – is not in those and other examples, but in the most obvious, prosaic, and yet most vital duty of a coach – team selection.

Erasmus has changed the notion of what a “best” team looks like. He’s challenged the concept of there being one way to win a game with one set of ideal players.

He has been courageous in the face of criticism for constantly tinkering with team selection. He’s been accused of “disrespecting the opposition” and cheapening the Bok jersey. As ever though, those condemnations are wide of the mark because with Erasmus everything is calculated.

His stated goal is to continue to build the team for a tilt at winning a third consecutive Rugby World Cup title in Australia in 2027. To do that he knows change is needed, depth has to constantly be renewed so that when inevitable injuries hit, when form dips and when a surprise is needed, he has covered all possible outcomes.

This is why he has made a raft of changes to a side that thrashed Australia 33-7 last Saturday, to face the Wallabies in Perth this weekend. Change and evolution are constants in the Bok environment and players have to accept it.

Changing vision

Erasmus’s greatest managerial feat has not been part of two successful RWC campaigns. No, his real success is making around 50 highly combative and competitive athletes, used to scrapping for recognition through every level of the game they’ve played, accept that by not playing, by not being selected, they are advancing the Springboks’ cause.

To ask athletes, whose every fibre is honed to winning and by extension fighting for a place to compete at the highest level, to put their egos and personal goals to one side in service of the team and South Africa, is massive. They also forfeit match fees if not selected, but even a hit in the pocket is secondary to the Boks’ cause.

That the Boks have successfully done it, has been Erasmus’s greatest achievement.

How has he done it? The simple answer is honesty – brutal honesty at times. Individuals who don’t buy into the system are quickly dispensed with.

Players that last, understand the plan, the mission and the purpose of the Springboks. No one is in the dark about what’s required and demanded. Weeding out those who refuse to accept the situation has happened and will continue.  

“Honesty is the way we do it,” Erasmus said about selection. “If you’re honest and say to the players, ‘look, this weekend this is what we’re trying to do, and we have 33 of you who have bought in,’ it helps.

“We have a saying in the squad that ‘we all have to eat at the end’. If Tony Brown comes up with a great attacking play, or Jerry Flannery with the best defensive system, or Daan Human with the best scrumming system, it’s irrelevant.

“If you get the right people on the bus and the plane who understand the way we do things, then it works.

“When it comes to crunch matches and deciders (such as RWC knockouts) we will probably pick the best, in-form 23 players.

“We know the characters of the players by now too. Some players, who don’t fall into the system, you give them a chance to accept it. They have a chance to understand that we don’t do anything for individuals and individual milestones and match fees, but we do for South Africa. From there, the right guys on the bus makes a big difference.

“Let’s hope we win on Saturday and that the right guys have been chosen because I think we have a squad that is adaptable and understands what we’re trying to do.”

Exciting selections

To that end, Erasmus has picked a team that looks weaker than last week’s unit, but at the same time sets the pulse racing.

Scrumhalf Morné van den Berg makes his first Test start where he will combine with flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu. That has the makings of an exciting little double act.

What about Lukhanyo Am at inside centre with the in-form Jesse Kriel retaining his place at outside centre? It’s a rugby romantics’ dream pairing.

Right wing Cheslin Kolbe, the most complete rugby player in the Bok backline, starts again while there are returns for try-glutton Makazole Mapimpi and the wonderfully gifted Aphelele Fassi at fullback. It’s like an endless river of possibility.

The pack, despite a raft of changes, still has a hard edge. The no-nonsense Elrigh Louw starts at No 8 with the indefatigable Pieter-Steph du Toit for company in the back row.

Hard-working Marco van Staden is selected at openside while Salmaan Moerat comes in at lock. He will also lead the team for the second time. Ruan Nortjé is alongside him in the second row.

In the front row, tighthead Thomas du Toit is the next cab off the rank to dish out pain to the Wallabies’ scrum where he will be supported by hooker Johan Grobbelaar and loosehead Jan-Hendrik Wessels.

And for insurance, the bench is stacked with more firepower than a US naval base. Malcolm Marx, Ox Nché and Vincent Koch will be ominously waiting to up the ante after halftime.

Eben Etzebeth and Kwagga Smith are also there, while the effervescent Grant Williams is scrumhalf cover. Manie Libbok and Handré Pollard complete the bench, to add to the Wallabies’ problems.

“We made it clear from the outset this season that one of our main goals is to build squad depth with an eye on the next Rugby World Cup here in Australia,” Erasmus said.

“We feel there is no better way to test some of the younger players and assess where we are as a group against a top-tier nation, especially away from home, in this match.

“We have a group of about 45 players that are part of our wider squad this season and we’ve seen what most of these players can do. We have full faith in the younger generation of players coming through, and we feel this is the right time to test them against an Australian outfit that will be desperate to bounce back strongly from last weekend.” DM

Springbok team:

15 Aphelele Fassi, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Lukhanyo Am, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 9 Morné van den Berg, 8 Elrigh Louw, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Ruan Nortjé, 4 Salmaan Moerat (captain), 3 Thomas du Toit, 2 Johan Grobbelaar, 1 Jan-Hendrik Wessels

Reserves: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Ox Nché, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Eben Etzebeth, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Grant Williams, 22 Manie Libbok, 23 Handré Pollard.

• Business plays a crucial role in wealth creation and job development, requiring an enabling government environment.
• Under Cyril Ramaphosa's presidency, business has taken on a more active role in society, collaborating with the government to address key issues.
• Private sector partnerships with the government have shown success in areas such as infrastructure upgrades and combating corruption.
• Business leaders are looking to address additional challenges such as water shortages and education standards, while cautioning against over-involvement in public sector functions.

I’ve always considered business to be at the heart of wealth creation, innovation and the delivery of products and services.

Business attracts investments into the economy, which in turn, creates jobs and develops a country’s economic wellbeing and competitiveness — assuming the government plays its role by creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment in which businesses can thrive and be sustainable.

Since the official start of Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency in 2018, the role of business in SA has changed and it has become more involved in society. In some instances, business has led in the government’s functions.

When Ramaphosa ascended to the Union Buildings, business was relieved. Ramaphosa was seen as being business and market-friendly; a man who understood how capital worked and appreciated that it depended on a stable political environment.

During one of his State of the Nation Addresses, Rampahosa said the task of creating jobs fell on the private sector and not the government. This was a step change from the Jacob Zuma presidency, which was often hostile towards business. There were deep divisions and a large trust deficit between the government and business during the Zuma years.

Over the past five years, Ramaphosa has brought business and some of his private sector pals closer to government functions to fix the country’s problems. This is set to continue in the next five years under the Government of National Unity (GNU), which Rampahosa leads.

A year ago, organised business (comprising about 150 CEOs) pledged its support to the government, offering expertise and money (mobilising R180-million) to fix the country’s problems in three key areas: electricity, transport and logistics, and crime and corruption.

Since 2020, the National Treasury has worked on a similar initiative with the private sector to implement pro-growth and investment reforms. The government’s partnership with the private sector has worked.

At Transnet, processes are under way to partner with the private sector to run trains and ports independently for a set period, while pouring in money to upgrade the flailing logistics infrastructure.

At Eskom, there is a renewed focus on monitoring the performance of power stations, which has resulted in no blackouts for almost four months. The private sector is working to deliver about 22GW (22,000MW) of renewable energy in the coming years, which would end the electricity crisis.

To tackle pervasive crime and corruption, business has offered expertise (even forensic) and raised more than R50-million to help law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute complex corruption-related crimes at an “arm’s length basis”. The 10111 police line was capacitated with more resources to be able to respond to crime-related incidents.

After 18 years of inaction, digital spectrum was auctioned, which brought the promise of faster internet speeds and lower mobile data costs.

On Tuesday, CEOs met with Ramaphosa to brief him on their progress, which they do every six to eight weeks. At the meeting, the CEOs pledged their support for the GNU and committed to continuing their reform agenda and investing in the economy.

They also reflected on their work to support the government and identified the next set of crises that can be tackled beyond electricity, transport and logistics.

Business leaders are considering addressing the water crisis, with many parts of SA facing water shortages that threaten the quality of life, potential investment inflows and the sustainability of businesses. Ageing water infrastructure that is susceptible to breakdowns, as well as corruption and incompetence in managing water systems have worsened the situation.

Another priority that business has mooted is improving basic education standards in the public sector and increasing support for early childhood development programmes. Working with the National Treasury, business is also trying to find ways to support municipalities, most of which are dysfunctional.

Business has argued that it cannot stand by idly and watch the country regress further — it has to roll up its sleeves and help where it can because the alternative scenario is dire. If state failure worsens, there would be capital destruction, a halt to investments, economic growth slowing further and unemployment levels remaining high. It is a commendable initiative by business.

That said, business must not get over-involved in public sector functions to the point that the government is absolved of responsibility and accountability regarding service delivery.

Business must also be careful to not be used by the government to spin a positive narrative about SA and long-standing problems being suddenly fixed. After all, the country’s failures are the government’s fault.

SA is in deep trouble today because of a failure of leadership, bad policies and priorities, and a flawed obsession by Cabinet members to place the ANC over national interests. DM

• Filmmaker Craig Foster's new book, Amphibious Soul, urges us to embrace our wild side while living in harmony with nature.
• Foster's decision to stay in South Africa is driven by the country's rich biodiversity, contrasting with environmental devastation in other parts of the world.
• South Africa holds a special place in Foster's heart as the birthplace of humanity, art, and science, with a deep connection to the wild.
• Foster advocates for combining indigenous knowledge, scientific expertise, and storytelling to navigate the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, as explored in Amphibious Soul.

“We are born wild, but then we enter a tame world. We must keep the wild side close to our hearts.” This message from acclaimed filmmaker Craig Foster’s new book, Amphibious Soul, resonates with my own journey to maintain a strong connection to nature. Living in Simon’s Town, Craig and I dive into the kelp forests daily, sharing a fascination for the underwater world right on our doorstep. Through this amphibious lifestyle, we try to balance the tame and wild aspects of life – a challenge we accept. 

Join us as we explore the secrets to living a life intertwined with the natural world, as beautifully captured in Amphibious Soul. In our conversation, we discuss why Craig, creator of My Octopus Teacher, never wants to move away from South Africa, his vision for living in harmony with nature, and how being in nature will reveal the wildness within us, just waiting to emerge.

Craig, as an accomplished filmmaker, why have you chosen to remain in South Africa despite opportunities abroad?

I could live in Europe or America, but these places are empty of biodiversity and bereft of life. I have just spoken to my friends in America, and on both sides of the continent, they have lost 95% of the kelp forest in California and Maine. It is terrifying. Here in South Africa, we still have biodiversity. Our kelp forest is still intact — if not growing- in comparison of course – we have our own challenges with over fishing, pollution and poaching but the habitat is healthy and that allows for regeneration and rewilding.

Why would you give that up for a place that is apocalyptic in comparison? People think money, gold, and diamonds are worth a lot, but they are worth nothing compared to biodiversity. Biodiversity is the essence of everything, and we are very fortunate to have such incredible biodiversity in South Africa. 

What makes South Africa such a pivotal place for you and your work?

South Africa is the heart of the world. It is one of the most exciting and powerful places to live on the planet because everything started here. For 75% of our time as humans on this planet, our species incubated in Africa, and then a small group started to migrate to the rest of the world. We are all African by nature. This is the mother continent. 

In terms of human origins, we find the beginning of art and science in South Africa. Here, we can see the world’s oldest drawing on Earth, engravings, and chemistry kit. These early Africans invented symbol-making and created the first proto-books and proto-computers. So much of what we know and hold dear was invented up the coast of Cape Town by a small group of Africans. We have this 200,000-year-old relationship with the ocean, the land and the coastline — this almost unbroken relationship with the wild.

How can we use our ancient relationship with the wild to navigate the future in the face of uncertainty?

We have this 200,000-year-old relationship with the wild. That knowledge is still in us. Every person has that wild being inside. We can draw on that and let it guide us. Because we try to control Mother Nature, the more we want to control her, the more problems we create and the more we lose control.



The people who understand this better than I do are the indigenous people of the world. Indigenous people protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity, yet they only make up 5% of the world’s population. These incredible elders around the world possess invaluable knowledge about communicating with Mother Nature.

Our best scientists have an incredibly good idea of the terrifying things happening with biodiversity loss and climate change. So I think if we put the best scientists, the best indigenous knowledge, and the best storytellers together, you have this two-eyed-seeing — or you could even call it three-eyed-seeing — because you need the scientist and the indigenous elder. Still, you also need to be able to communicate that. That is where the storyteller comes in.
I have just thought of that right now, and I think it needs to be three-eyed seeing because elevating the concept of two-eyed seeing requires a much bigger platform. We might not have heard of it, but it is so important. 

What inspired you to write Amphibious Soul, and what message do you hope it conveys?

Most of the world has forgotten that this incredible biodiversity has kept us alive. Only in the last fraction of time, since the Industrial Revolution, have we lost this wild dialogue. In all of my work and Sea Change’s work, our driving motivation and purpose is to begin this dialogue again, get to know our Mother, and ensure that our actions are in accordance with that relationship.
Through storytelling and public awareness, we all work to try to reconnect people to nature. 

Recently, I was in Barcelona and went down to the shore. It was like a death zone. For someone who is a tracker, looking around for the wild family and seeing that they were gone was terrifying. To understand that the family is not there. That is deeply disturbing. I can lose my home in a fire and get past that. But if the biodiversity is gone, it is like losing my mother, my lighthouse, my guiding light. I would give up everything and just have that. It is the most precious thing we will ever encounter. I always want to be close to that. It is the life force that animates us, our mind, body, and spirit. It is the life support system of every human. If it collapses, we are finished; there is nothing left. 

Where do you think humanity has fallen short in maintaining a healthy relationship with nature?

Before the Agricultural and later the Industrial Revolution, every human had a deep relationship with hundreds, if not thousands, of plants and animals. Only a part of those relationships were human relationships. It is this beautiful feeling of understanding the wild and living in reciprocity with it. It made up the entire psyche of the early human. 

Now, imagine a massive pair of scissors and just cutting those threads. Cut 95% off those relationships. You are left with these tiny little strands, going to the few humans, a dog and a cat, a cell phone and a computer. What will happen to the psyche now that 95% of all those threads are dangling and bleeding?  What is going to happen? That is what we had from the beginning. Every single person had it. 

Many young people feel disconnected from humanity. How do you respond to this perspective?

You can understand why that is the case. We see this mass destruction caused by humans in the so-called Anthropocene. When we get thrown into an alien world, we fall under unbelievable pressure, which causes a lot of violence and destruction. But it is not our fundamental nature. The massive existential dilemma many people face is a sense of not belonging in the world. It is like you are an alien in your world. And that is because those threads are cut. When we start mending those threads, the psyche feels more and more at home. And suddenly, you can feel like you belong.

We have lived for 290,000 years in incredible balance and entwined with nature. In some cases, we see areas where hunting and gathering went on, and biodiversity increased. We are, at heart, highly empathic. You do not leave someone to die. You care for them. If someone falls in the street, people will immediately go and help. You do not find that necessarily among other species. If you look at Neanderthal skeletons, they look like modern-day rodeo riders with many broken bones. They have broken their bones from getting into close combat with massive animals, yet they are healing because they have been taken care of by each other. 

Seeing us as essentially a bad species is very unfortunate, and even destructive. Around the world, there are incredible groups of people dedicating their whole lives; in many cases, they are sacrificing their lives for nature. We have the capacity for unbelievable empathy. It is worrying me that a lot of young people see us in a negative light. One can understand that, but much evidence suggests we are a beautiful species — just naive.

Is it still possible for modern humans to mend the broken threads of our relationship with nature?

You must remember that every child could speak the wild language fluently from the beginning. Because if you cannot talk that wild language as a child, you are dead. When I went out with children in the Kalahari, they walked in silence. There was no screaming or playing; the children listened to particular bird calls because they were worried about a leopard or lion. It was part of their makeup. 

Picking up the wild language is easier for children than for adults. It is closer to the surface. Every child, even today, is born wild and expects a fully wild existence. The shock of this must be extreme. It is traumatic, but we have forgotten that. It is traumatic to be thrown into this world and not experience the same hundreds of thousands of years of wildness with all the right smells and cues. So, I believe it is in us. It is just under the skin, waiting to come out. 



How did growing up near the ocean shape your relationship with nature?

My mother was diving four or five times a week when I was still in the womb. Before I was born, I heard the cracker shrimp, the movement of the waves, and the seagulls crying. I was already introduced to that. Then, in the first days after my birth, I was taken straight into the water. We did the same with my son Tom. 

Growing up, the intertidal environment was by far my most important place. I went into the rock pools and started diving at three years old. It was my magical childhood kingdom. My dad taught me to catch crabs, swim, and body surf. He built up the foundation, but I needed the scientific approach. I always needed a nature mentor. It would have been ideal to have a tracking mentor as a child. That would have been incredible. 

Was it challenging to let your son Tom explore nature independently, and what did you learn from that experience?

It was very difficult. I was not able to release him as freely as my parents released me. Because the psyche has changed. Our whole psyche is terrified of letting a child get out there. It was safer back then, but the media also makes us feel paranoid. 

I let him get out more than others, but he also ran into trouble. One time, one of his friends got pulled under a rock. It was by that giant boulder near A-frame. There is a vortex that can suck you under. So Tom dived down and got his friend out, but they had lost all their gear. 

Strangely enough, it was hard for me to let go, but you have to allow a child to have these experiences, even the negative ones, by themselves. 

How can families, corporations, and governments foster a more conscious connection to nature?

We must understand that the more we try to control nature, the more we lose control. The more we work in reciprocity, the easier it is for us to survive. 

We developed a new idea at Sea Change. Let us say we have a meeting because we run a big company. We are sitting on the board around a big table. Now, can we imagine that one chair is reserved for Mother Nature? There should be a place for her because she is the main shareholder in every household, company, government and military operation. I would like to take this concept to the government level. But it is already happening. There are amazing people in the South African government who understand this. And worldwide, some movements give me a lot of hope. 

The wild person is in us. We just have to awaken it. DM

To dive deeper into these stories, check out Craig Foster’s new book, Amphibious Soul, released by HarperCollins in June 2024, now available in bookstores and online.

• Activists urge SADC to address Eswatini crisis ahead of 44th Summit in Harare
• Multi-Stakeholder Forum demands inclusive dialogue and civil rights monitoring in Eswatini
• Calls for national dialogue in Eswatini to reform political system persist
• SADC Summit expected to discuss progress on Eswatini engagements, with concerns over lack of action

Activists calling for political reforms in Eswatini have urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to take decisive action to deal with the deteriorating situation in the kingdom, ahead of the 44th SADC Summit in Harare, Zimbabwe, this week. 

Read more: Condemnation and calls for action as Zimbabwean activists detained and allegedly tortured

In a 1 August letter addressed to the SADC Secretariat and its member states, the Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) – a coalition of political parties and civil society pro-democracy organisations – called on the regional bloc to “intensify its engagement with the Eswatini government” and apply “pressure to ensure that the recommendations previously made by SADC are fully implemented”.

“As the 44th SADC Summit approaches, we implore you, the Heads of State and Government, to take decisive action to address the deteriorating situation in Eswatini. The time for collegial approaches has passed; SADC must now assert its position firmly and revive the stalled and prolonged efforts to resolve the situation in Eswatini,” the letter read. 

“Despite numerous recommendations from SADC and the international community, the Eswatini government continues to violate the fundamental civil rights of its citizens, contravening several SADC protocols and charters.”

  Eswatin SADC Letter – August by victoria on Scribd

The group listed its demands, which include a “genuine, inclusive dialogue” with the Eswatini government, civil society, unions, political opposition and the regional community “to chart a path forward”; the SADC monitoring the government’s implementation of its recommendations and the status of civil rights in the country by requesting detailed reports from the Eswatini government; and the SADC ensuring these reports are made public.

Speaking to Daily Maverick, MSF spokesperson Sivumelwano Nyembe said the forum viewed the implementation of a “national dialogue to be of urgency”. The MSF has, for years, called for an “internationally mediated dialogue” with the primary aim of reforming the current political system in the country and ushering in a new constitution that guarantees multiparty democracy.

After Eswatini was convulsed by unprecedented violent protests in June 2021, then chair of SADC’s security organ, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, had met King Mswati III and persuaded him to institute a national dialogue on democratic reform. However, efforts to institute a genuine, inclusive national dialogue have so far come to nothing. 

Read more: Eswatini democratic reform process hangs by thread as absolute monarchy reigns

The Eswatini government has been stalling, partly by insisting that the national dialogue should take place in the form of a Sibaya, the traditional engagement of the king and his people, Daily Maverick has reported. The MSF has previously rejected a Sibaya as a means for inclusive dialogue. The forum had pressed for a national dialogue to take place before the September 2023 parliamentary elections, but was unsuccessful. 

In its preliminary report after the 29 September polls – which are essentially meaningless since parliament has no power in Africa’s last absolute monarchy – the SADC electoral observer mission again recommended that Eswatini hold an all-inclusive national dialogue “to give the people of Eswatini an opportunity to explore options for their political system”.  

Ramaphosa passed on the chair of the security organ to the late Namibian president Hage Geingob, who in his valedictory address to the 43rd SADC Summit last August, said SADC should “endeavour to complete… the initiation of national dialogue in the Kingdom of Eswatini”.

Read more in Daily Maverick here: Pretoria rebuffs DA’s call for SADC summit to be moved from Zimbabwe 

In a media briefing on Monday, South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) spokesperson Clayson Monyela said that the upcoming SADC Summit in Harare is expected to receive a report from the organ about how far the engagements with roleplayers in Eswatini have gone, and what progress has been made. 

“The summit will then reflect on that report and pronounce on what becomes the way forward,” said Monyela. 

He added that South Africa would participate in those discussions, but maintained that the organ “must be given the space to engage with the internal roleplayers” in Eswatini.

The current chair of the security organ is Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, and a SADC Organ Troika Summit is scheduled to take place on 16 August. When Daily Maverick sent questions to the Zambian Department of Foreign Affairs about the upcoming summit it was referred to the SADC Secretariat for comment.

To date no response from the SADC has been received to the MSF’s letter. The SADC did not respond to Daily Maverick’s questions last week.

Crackdown on dissent

Secretary-general of the MSF Sikelela Dlamini said the group was concerned about the lack of action from the SADC on the ongoing crisis in Eswatini. The MSF was appealing “to the conscience of the leaders of SADC, to say that if they have been democratically elected in their own countries, they must be fair and courageous enough to also push for other nations, within the region, to also democratise”.

“We can safely say that people from afar, they think the situation has reached some normalcy because they are no longer hearing people on the streets or demonstrations,” Dlamini told Daily Maverick. 

“The truth of the matter is there is no peace, but there is quietness. Quietness that has been forced by the regime, down the throats of the people.

“The civic space, the political space, the civil rights and liberties of the people are infringed upon by the regime,” he said. 

Last month, an Eswatini court sentenced former members of parliament, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, to a combined 43 years behind bars after convicting them on bogus terrorism and murder charges. Both men were initially arrested in 2021 for supporting the pro-democracy protests. 

Read more: A call for African solidarity as human rights in Eswatini continue to worsen

In a statement, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for east and southern Africa, Vongai Chikwanda, called for Eswatini authorities to “immediately quash the unjust and baseless convictions and sentences” of Mabuza and Dube. Trade union federation Cosatu – an alliance partner of the ANC – called for sanctions against Eswatini, adding that it was “alarmed by the shameful silence, tacit condonation and total paralysis of SADC and the international community in the face of Mswati’s unapologetic war against his own people”.

The MSF, in its letter, described Mabuza and Dube’s sentencing as a “travesty of justice”.

“Their brutal treatment in prison and the daily victimisation of activists are clear violations of human rights. Yet, SADC’s response has been alarmingly silent and lacking in transparency,” it said.

However, not one southern African government voiced concern over Mabuza and Dube’s sentences, Daily Maverick reported. 

Dirco’s Monyela, on Monday, fudged the question about why the South African government has not issued a statement on the recent reports of human rights violations in Eswatini, saying: “South Africa is concerned about developments that will infringe on human rights of anybody, in any country, including in Eswatini. And the examples you are referring to, we have taken note of that.”

Read more: Who killed Thulani Maseko? The deafening silence from Eswatini and SADC about a serious investigation

The MSF, in its letter, added that calls for an independent investigation into the brutal killing of political activist and human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, were “falling on deaf ears”. Maseko, who then chaired the MSF, was shot dead in his home in the Manzini region, in January 2023. 

His murder, which remains unsolved more than 18 months later, ignited an avalanche of condemnation and calls for the SADC to launch an independent investigation. DM

Whilst there has been a steady increase in the number of female legal practitioners and improvements have been made to ensure female representation in the profession, more is needed.  To address this need, there should be an emphasis on the development of women to attract complex work and to service large institutional clients. The views of female legal practitioners should be taken into consideration in all matters, but more specifically, those with which they can relate.  

The transformation of the legal profession has been a contentious issue in South Africa.  Judge Motha raised the issue, in respect of the briefing of counsel, in the judgment of Peri Formwork Scaffolding Engineering (Pty) Ltd v Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commissioner and Others. Motha J requested the parties to deliver submissions wherein they addressed the question of why there was not a single African counsel representing any of the seven litigants in a matter concerning an alleged fronting practice and conducts that purportedly undermine the objectives of the B-BBEE Act.

In expressing his concerns, Motha J asserted that he chose not to shut his eyes to ‘this patent and palpable iniquity to the great expense of the court”. When explaining his concerns, Motha J recorded that:

• This conduct is inconsistent with the objectives of the B-BBEE Act which are, amongst others to advance economic transformation and enhance the economic participation of black people in the South African economy.  Further, the parties’ conduct impairs the spirit, purport and objects of the Bill of Rights, and makes a mockery of the preamble of the Constitution.
• It is in the interest of justice for a presiding judge in a B-BBEE matter involving the State or organs of the State to insist on the involvement of at least one African counsel. This would assist a court in arriving at a just decision.  The perspective of an African counsel would address the nuances involved in cases of black people’s struggle for empowerment, as opposed to the monochromatic submissions that he was provided with in this case.
• The same is true for an all-male team making submissions on a gender equity matter in the absence of a female counsel’s submissions, where the State or an organ of the State is involved.

Motha J held that the position he adopted in this matter was in line with section 173 of the Constitution which grants superior courts the powers to regulate their process, taking into account the interests of justice. This power enables the courts to lay down processes to be followed in a particular case, even if that process deviates from what its rules prescribe. The Judge further recorded that he was not dictating who the State must have on brief. However, in pursuit of justice, our courts do sometimes insist on the presence of specific legal representatives.

Motha J expressed his displeasure with the parties’ conduct by not awarding costs in favour of either party and instead, the parties were ordered to pay their own costs.  

The Judiciary Annual Report for 2022/2023 records that the judiciary consists of 113 females which equates to 46% of judges.  Whilst this is encouraging, a concern remains that 45% of female law students in Africa elect not to pursue legal practice.  

There also appears to be a significant dominance of male legal practitioners in complex commercial matters. This suggests that we are not at the place yet where we can confidently assert that there are equal opportunities for female and male legal practitioners. 

For this to be remedied, meaningful change must be effected. In addressing the issue of meaningful change in the profession, Dr Tamlynne Meyer, in her PhD thesis, said: 

“We will have to engage with subjective experiences of female lawyers, gender, racial and class regimes, how they interact with professional cultures and practices, and the societal perceptions and expectations placed on different groups. We also need to engage innovatively and address the perceptions and attitudes of legal practitioners, management, clients and women themselves, as they are central in fostering the transformation project of the profession.”

Engagements of this nature will address the reasons why female legal practitioners do not feel welcomed and do not remain in the legal profession.  The legal profession should be implored to have ongoing discussions addressing these issues. Doing so will result in a culture shift, which is necessary for the true transformation that the profession, and female legal practitioners, desperately require. DM

• Paris Olympics saw gender parity achieved, but controversy over gender eligibility rules dominated headlines, with African women mostly affected.
• African women shined in Paris, with athletes like Algerian Kaylia Nemour and South African Tatjana Smith winning gold. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif made waves with her victory.
• Gender eligibility debates in sports have targeted African women, including prior medallists like Namibian Christine Mboma and South African Caster Semenya.
• Long history of racism and misogyny in sports, with European imperialism using pseudo-science to justify discrimination against black women.

The Paris Olympics were the first to achieve gender parity, but it was gender eligibility that took centre stage. All known cases of female athletes being ruled ineligible involved women from the Global South, most of them from Africa. Competitors have repeatedly called the regulations racist and denigrating. Experts have called them unfair, unscientific, harmful, medically unethical and racially biased. 

Many African women achieved glory in Paris. Algerian Kaylia Nemour became the first African gymnast to win gold, and South African Tatjana Smith swam to gold and silver in the breaststroke. On the track, Ugandan Peruth Chemutai won the 3,000m steeplechase, and Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet the 5,000m and 10,000m, with Faith Kipyegon becoming the first contestant to win three consecutive golds in the 1,500m.

But none dominated headlines as much as Algerian Imane Khelif, who won gold in the 66kg boxing. Her first-round opponent, Italian Angela Carini, withdrew after 46 seconds, saying: “I have never been hit so hard in my life.” 

Read more: Gender row embroils olympic boxing after italian woman abandons fight over safety concerns 

The bout sparked a torrent of misinformation and hate speech against Khelif, who became the centre of a culture war playing out mostly in Europe and North America. It focused mainly on transgender participation, even though Khelif was born, raised and had always competed as female.

Other prior African medallists were banned from competing. Namibian Christine Mboma won silver in the 200m in Tokyo before World Athletics (previously the International Association of Athletics Federations, IAAF) ruled her naturally occurring testosterone too high. She stood down for 20 months to medicate her levels but failed to qualify for Paris. The entire 2016 Games 800m all-African podium – South African Caster Semenya, Burundian Francine Niyonsaba and Kenyan Margaret Wambui – were ruled ineligible before Tokyo because of naturally high testosterone. 

Hysteria over gender eligibility isn’t new to sports. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) – comprising only men until 1981 – has always had a fixation founded on three fears: men posing as women to win; that sports could masculinise women and even turn them into men; and that competitive and athletic women were not real women to start with. 

The current era has disproportionately focused on African women rising in athletics events that were historically dominated by Europeans. This is compounded by unrelated but often conflated debates over transgender participation. 

In 2009, 18-year-old Semenya became World Champion and sparked global speculation about her body. The IAAF conducted an undisclosed gender verification test. Semenya learnt that she had “differences of sex development”. The term describes various congenital or genetic conditions where there’s a chromosomal, anatomical or gonadal anomaly that can cause elevated testosterone levels. As many as one out of every 50 people is born with the condition – many never know. 

Runners Beatrice Masilingi (Namibia), Aminatou Seyni (Niger), Annet Negesa (Uganda) and Maximila Imali (Nigeria) have also been banned and spoken publicly about how testosterone limits for women have crushed their careers and livelihoods.

In 2011, the IAAF introduced hyperandrogenism regulations that set a testosterone limit, which has since been lowered even further. World Athletics has relentlessly campaigned against Semenya and others who have spent years arguing against altering their bodies in European courts. In 2023, Semenya won her discrimination case against Switzerland at the European Court of Human Rights, but she and many other women remain banned. 

Semenya won at two Olympics, in 2012 and 2016; the former on testosterone suppressants she later described as “hell”. She initially won silver in London in 2012 until Russian Mariya Savinova was stripped of her medal for doping.

World Athletics says its rules prioritise fairness and the integrity of female competition over inclusion.

European imperialism has a long history of using the veneer of scientific legitimacy to perpetuate racism and misogyny. Myths about disease, intelligence, danger and physiology have been used to enforce superiority. White women’s fears are often prioritised over the legitimate grievances of black women and weaponised in dehumanising ways against them.

Nineteenth-century doctor Samuel George Morton used supposed anatomy differences to classify humans: Caucasians had the biggest brains, and the “Africanus” species were “lazy, sly, sluggish and neglectful”. American gynaecologist James Marion Sims experimented on black women to advance surgical techniques – with no painkillers, since he believed black women didn’t feel pain. 

In 1810, Saartjie Baartman was taken to Europe from South Africa and exhibited for people to view her buttocks and genitals. After she died in 1815 at 26, her body was displayed in a museum to prove African inferiority. It was returned to South Africa in 2002. 

Women were accepted into the Olympics in 1900 but were limited to sports considered delicate, such as tennis and golf. In 1928, they could run distances up to 800m. Commentators were appalled by the toll it took on competitors, calling it “too great a call on feminine strength”. At those Games, some questioned Japanese silver medallist Hitomi Kinue’s gender. Women were banned from running the 800m until 1960. Women’s boxing was added only in 2012.

In 1936, Avery Brundage, then American Olympic Committee president, fretted over female athletes’ appearance – and called for rules to “keep the competitive games for normal feminine girls and not monstrosities”. In the 1960s, “masculine-looking” Soviet athletes amplified concerns about male imposters and ushered in an era of humiliating mandatory sex testing, or “nude parades”. The IOC removed blanket sex tests only in 1999, following decades of pressure from doctors and athletes. 

Men who claim to want to protect certain women from being outperformed should instead focus on the biggest threat to women’s safety – which is men. One in three women worldwide has been subjected to either physical or sexual violence, mostly by men. The Netherlands allowed convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde to compete in the Paris Olympics beach volleyball. 

Sports governing bodies, the media and the public should reject calls to judge African women’s bodies according to Eurocentric perceptions of femininity. And future Games wanting to celebrate gender parity should shed the fixation with policing African women’s bodies under the guise of fair play. DM

Aimée-Noël Mbiyozo, Senior Research Consultant, Migration, Institute for Security Studies (ISS). 

First published by ISS Today.

• ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula hints at investigation into high-ranking party members Gigaba, Mahlobo, and Frolick by Integrity Commission, following Zondo Commission reports.
• Mbalula stays silent as ANC Veterans’ League leader Zikalala speaks out on need for accountability within party leadership.
• Despite promises to act against corruption, ANC continues to allow tainted members like Gigaba and Mahlobo to hold positions of power.
• Lack of action against corrupt individuals raises doubts about ANC's commitment to rooting out corruption, risking further decline in voter support.

Over the weekend, the first reports emerged that the ANC secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, had told the party’s Veterans’ League that its Integrity Commission would investigate three high-ranking party members, Malusi Gigaba, David Mahlobo and Cedric Frolick.

All three have serious questions to answer after the Zondo Commission’s report, but have not yet been legally charged.

Strangely, Mbalula has not made any public statement about this so far. Rather, ANC Veterans’ League leader Snuki Zikalala is the person who has been quoted in news reports.

Zikalala and his league have been running a campaign for accountability in the ANC, and have long criticised its leadership for allowing people implicated in wrongdoing to represent the party in Parliament.

There is much that is odd about this decision.

First, it is too late. The ANC has known for many years that the perception that it enables corruption has cost it electoral support.

Despite promising, for more than a decade, to act against its corrupt members, the ANC allowed them to represent it as MPs. President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has claimed many, many times the party is on a path of “renewal”, even appointed Mahlobo to his executive again, this time as deputy minister of water affairs and sanitation.

It was yet another public display of hypocrisy — why would he appoint to his government a person against whom so many extraordinary reports of criminality have been made?

The answer reveals much about the ANC, and that Mahlobo and others like him have significant political power.

This is a party that allowed Zweli Mkhize, implicated in the Digital Vibes scandal, to contest for the position of leader in 2022.

Gigaba, who was found to have lied under oath, was implicated in receiving huge amounts of cash from the Guptas, who enabled the destruction of SAA and recorded an infamous video, suddenly emerged once again as an ANC MP.

Hot air

The problem with the ANC’s position now is that when it promises to act against corrupt individuals, voters do not believe it.

After all, it was in 2012 that the party’s Mangaung Conference resolved that any member of the ANC found guilty of financial crimes or corruption by a court of law would be automatically expelled. By 2014, that resolution was just dead, empty words.

Even after the State Capture era, the ANC failed to act.

At the party’s policy conference in 2022, it was clear that the Integrity Commission’s chair at the time, George Mashamba, was both not empowered and not concerned about the problem.

Just over a year ago now, the Integrity Commission’s new chair, Frank Chikane, promised action, saying he would move against 97 party members implicated by the Zondo Commission.

Those 97 included Gigaba, Frolick and Mahlobo. Over an entire year, when the ANC faced an electorate it knew was concerned about corruption, it did precisely, exactly, absolutely … nothing.

This is why the party is likely to continue to lose support in the future, particularly in the local elections in 18 months.

While the timing of this move is curious, it does come in the context of what appears to be a more assertive tone from Ramaphosa. The real trigger for this action may be that his faction now feels it can move more freely.

One of the curious aspects of the coalition government is that it seems to have made Ramaphosa stronger within the ANC. At the same time, some of those who supported Gigaba, Mahlobo and others of their ilk have left the party.

Lying under pressure

Mbalula has interests of his own to pursue. The chatter is that he may make a play to be the ANC’s president in three years.

While he has a track record of lying under pressure, as secretary-general he is in a good position from which to campaign, and he appears to be trying to spruce up his public image.

Unfortunately, the fact that no action has yet been taken against Gigaba, Mahlobo and Frolick is a symbol of one of the most concerning developments in our country in the past few years: Despite all the evidence heard at the Zondo Commission, virtually no one has gone through legal proceedings to hold them accountable.

Of course, the National Prosecuting Authority is now making progress.

However, in some cases, political influence is still making itself felt. How else can one explain the fact that the acting magistrate in the Matshela Koko case had received money from Eskom in the past? (The Investigating Directorate has lodged a complaint against him.)

The fact that the MK party can now provide jobs in Parliament for Brian Molefe, Lucky Montana and Siyabonga Gama is an indication of how Ramaphosa’s promises of accountability have rung so hollow.

Optimists will believe that this reported promise by Mbalula is the beginning of something new, and were the Integrity Commission to take serious action against Gigaba, Mahlobo and Frolick, it could be the start of real change.

Unfortunately, after so many false dawns, we will believe it only once it happens. DM

• Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke reports success with expanded powers halfway through her term
• Agsa now able to enforce consequences for "material irregularities" including investigations and debt certificates
• Maluleke emphasises importance of looking beyond balance sheets to ensure entities fulfil mandates
• Billions squandered with estimated R14.34-billion financial loss in 2022/2023, highlighting challenges with unresponsive accounting officers and lack of oversight in municipalities

Just over halfway through her seven-year term, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke reports that the expanded powers granted to her office in 2019 are paying off.

The changes to the Public Audit Act have meant that when auditors issue a finding of “material irregularities” (MIs) against an entity, the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (Agsa) now has some teeth to enforce consequences. These could include the referral of the matter to bodies like the Hawks for investigation, or the issuing of a certificate of debt for financial losses incurred.

However, Maluleke, addressing the parliamentary Press Gallery Association on Monday, made it clear that her office aimed to look beyond balance sheets.

There were instances, said Maluleke, where the “debits and credits are fine” — but the public entity in question was still not fulfilling its mandate.

The Auditor-General cited the example of a newly built Mpumalanga neonatal high-care ward, a project which was financially compliant but which an inspection by her staff found was standing empty.

“Because we now have these powers, our team could expand its inquiry,” said Maluleke. They found that the facility was not being used because the relevant budget was insufficient to recruit the skills needed to run the ward.

Maluleke said this was an example of the kind of “harm” her team was now on the lookout for: “You are causing harm to the public because they should be benefiting from this asset government has invested in.”

In response to the Agsa investigation, the ward was now staffed.

“This, you won’t see in the numbers,” Maluleke told journalists.

Billions squandered

Those numbers are, however, still alarming.

Audits undertaken in accordance with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) during the 2022/2023 financial year revealed an estimated financial loss of R14.34-billion.

In local government, an estimated R5.19-billion financial loss was estimated by the end of the 2022 financial year — of which, Maluleke previously told Parliament, R1.6-billion alone was lost by municipalities which had invested in VBS Mutual Bank.

One of the major challenges that remained was unresponsive accounting officers.

Maluleke said that in matters related to local government, no actions were taken to address audit problems in 86% of cases until the Agsa team issued MI notifications. In cases identified in terms of the PFMA, no action was taken in 82% of matters until the auditors followed up.

“People get away with poorly performing their duties even if they have the skill,” said Maluleke.

“Non-compliance is tolerated.”

She said another area of concern when it came to oversight in municipalities was the preponderance of local councillors with “significant responsibilities” who were “not equipped to engage with those duties”.

Wasted public money rarely comes back

Asked how much of the squandered money was gone for good, Maluleke replied candidly: “Most of it.”

One of the reasons is the delays in uncovering wrongdoing: “When you have to wait for the AG to come a year later and highlight an overpayment, the chance of getting that money back is quite low.”

In some instances, businesses enter voluntary liquidation before money can be claimed back.

Investigations by law enforcement also tend to take too long. Maluleke cited the case of an inappropriate payment made for a particular project where Agsa raised an MI in 2021.

“By the time we got the Hawks to arrest someone it was 2023,” said Maluleke.

“The delays made it difficult to get any money back in the coffers of government.”

Plaudits and slow progress

Maluleke, South Africa’s first female Auditor-General, has won wide praise for her work and in 2023 was recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) with her appointment as an external auditor to the body.

Among the issues she has taken up during her time in office has been a crackdown on the use of expensive consultants to fulfil basic financial reporting responsibilities for public bodies.

When it comes to fruitless and irregular expenditure, she says, “much of it is about poor institutional capabilities. What we believe needs constant attention is building the capacity of municipalities.”

Maluleke acknowledges that it is too soon to point to significant change. “It will take time,” she said.

Agsa is responsible for auditing all state-owned enterprises except a handful, one of which is Eskom.

On Monday, Maluleke was diplomatic when asked for her response to the news that some fraud-accused former CEOs of state-owned enterprises were set to join Parliament as MPs for the MK party; namely, former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana and former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama.

“Democracy will deliver what it will,” Maluleke said. “Our job is to work with the oversight machinery.” DM

• Hundreds of households in Outspan, Matatiele struggle with water scarcity for more than 1.5 years.
• Municipality blames water delivery issues on illegal connections and vandalism.
• Residents wake up early to collect water from communal tanks filled once a month.
• Municipality plans to address water supply challenges in Outspan starting September 2024.

Hundreds of households in Outspan in Matatiele say they’ve had to adjust to life without consistent running water for more than one and a half years.

But the municipality has blamed water delivery problems on illegal water connections and vandalism.

In January 2023, we reported on protesters complaining that broken pipes and an electricity fault had been affecting water supply to their communities.

Outspan is about 24km from the town of Matatiele and falls under the embattled Alfred Nzo District Municipality. Most people have to wake up very early to collect water because they say the five communal water tanks only get filled once a month.

Resident Mathabo Ntise says she wakes up at 3am almost daily to walk 500m from her home to collect water from a well. She is among 800 households in the village who struggle to access clean water.

“We have been attending several meetings where [the municipality] promised us that soon we would have water out of our taps. Our constitutional rights have been violated,” said Ntise.

A community leader told GroundUp that their water woes started in early 2023. “I grew up in this area without water and this reminds me of that time when I was young. We also had to wake up at 3am so that we could be the first one at the well to get clean water,” he said.

Ward councillor Mzingisi Tsoanyane blamed the village’s water troubles on those making illegal water connections to structures in their yards.

According to Nelisile Xolo, a spokesperson at the Alfred Nzo District Municipality, Outspan has one borehole which does not have enough water supply to meet the current demand in the area.

“The scheme is also negatively affected by illegal connections since the scheme was not meant for yard connections. There has been some work done, including the installation of a gate valve near the reservoir. Work instruction was issued to a service provider to conduct a test on the existing borehole to check the availability of water underground,” said Xolo.

The municipality anticipates that this work will start in September 2024, said Xolo, warning that “illegal connections from the main line to households” could jeopardise work to be done to improve water supply.

“Water is connected before reaching the reservoir which affects the water flow into the reservoir, resulting in less water reaching the tanks,” said Xolo. DM

First published by GroundUp.

• Record-breaking rainfall in July 2024 in Cape Town compared with severe drought from 2015-2018, with dams now at capacity after historical rainfall.
• Cape Town experienced ongoing cold fronts, flooding and infrastructure damage despite slow start to winter, breaking multiple rainfall records.
• July 2024 marked wettest month on record for various weather stations in Cape Town since comprehensive records began in 1960.
• Experts attribute record-breaking rainfall to a shift in weather patterns, with cold fronts and moisture from South America contributing to extreme winter conditions.

Researchers tell Daily Maverick that the record-breaking rainfall in July 2024 –  what has been described as an extreme and remarkable 2024 winter – was nearly as extreme a climate event as the severe drought that struck the region between 2015 and 2018.

Just six years ago, dams across the Western Cape were bone dry with people queuing up every day to get water. Now these very same dams are at capacity with an abundance of rainfall that has broken historical records across South African Weather Service (SAWS) weather stations in Cape Town throughout July.

In July, Cape Town saw an ongoing onslaught of cold fronts with grey skies and heavy rainfall occurring week after week with flooding, burst river banks, infrastructure damage and people displaced across parts of the province. This is despite a slow start to the 2024 winter in Cape Town with its June rainfall accumulation notably below normal.

Dr Neville Sweijd, director at the Alliance for Collaboration on Climate & Earth Systems Science (Access), told Daily Maverick: “It was just the other day that we had rainfall failure, which is a negative anomaly. This now is a positive anomaly.”

What records have been broken in Cape Town?

Observatory, the oldest weather station in southern Africa, with data since 1850, recorded the wettest July on record and the third wettest month overall after June 1905 and May 1877.

The Cape Town International Airport station recorded the highest monthly rainfall total since the station’s inception in July 1956, exceeding three times the average for July. SAWS said that this remarkable record underscores the intensity and impact of the multiple cold fronts since the beginning of the month.

Read more: Cape of Storms

To understand the difference between last year’s winter rainfall, which was already a wet winter, and this year’s winter rainfall, the Cape Town City (Oranjezicht) station recorded 317.6 mm of rain in July 2024 whereas last July it saw only 81.8 mm of rain. 

SAWS said that 2024 was the highest monthly rainfall recorded for July since comprehensive records began in 1960. 

The Newlands station, a notoriously wet region in Cape Town, received more than 500 mm of rain for July 2024, making it the wettest month on record for this station since 1999.

The stations in Franschhoek, Kenilworth and Villiersdorp set new records since their inception in the late 2000s, surpassing the total monthly rainfall recorded during the September storm of 2023.

The Cape Winelands stations, including Paarl, Worcester, and Jonkershoek also broke long-term monthly records in July.

“This recent uptick in rainfall serves as a reminder of the vital role the SAWS plays in preparing communities for the varying weather conditions that can arise. The fluctuations in weather patterns do not only keep us on our toes but also highlight the importance of preparedness and resilience,” SAWS said in its statement.

Why are we seeing record-breaking rainfall and what has been causing it?

Stefaan Conradie, a lecturer in atmospheric science at the University of Cape Town (UCT), explained that the winter started quite slowly, as SAWS put it, with very few frontal systems from April into June. 

Then June was particularly inconsistent, Conradie said, because almost all the rainfall fell in the first week, and that rainfall was all contributed by a large cut-off low weather system — which caused massive flooding in Eastern Cape and parts of the Western Cape.

“That was part of a pattern where the fronts were continuously missing Cape Town for the start of the winter, and there was a pattern in the circulation in the southern hemisphere where the fronts were being blocked from entering the area around Southern Africa and being pushed south.

“Because of that, it was very dry during that period. But then the pattern switched around almost completely on 1 July, and then it became extremely wet,” Conradie said.

When July came, cold fronts were being sent straight in towards Cape Town, one after another. In addition, Conradie said the setup was such that moisture, water vapour from South America, was being channelled directly into the mountains here.

This also happened in June 2023 and Conradie said it was quite remarkable that we had these two extreme winter months for two years in a row, with a very similar setup.

“In both cases, it was predominantly cold fronts bringing in a huge amount of moisture from across the Atlantic, from South America, very heavy rainfall along the western mountains, and also intense rainfall at the time. It wasn’t just the accumulation, it was also the individual days with sometimes very heavy rainfall.

“We can definitely say it’s a very extreme and rare event, and it’s particularly rare to have so many such extreme events in such a short period of time – if we also consider the major storms from September 2023, March 2023 and May 2022… We’ve been hit by these major systems over a period of time.”

Read more: The city that blows hot and cold – Cape Town’s flood-drought dichotomy explained

Climate change could be related to the short-term intensity associated with the strongest fronts that were coming through at the beginning of July, but this would need to be tested and investigated first.

“There may be some evidence that because of the enhanced water vapour — the fact that there’s more moisture being evaporated off the warmer oceans, and that then creates potential for heavier rain — that might have made some of the heaviest rainfall that we saw in July, heavier than it would otherwise be,” he said.

Given how many extreme events we had in the recent period, and that two of those months, June 2023 and July 2024, had very similar setups associated with a very large number of fronts, Conradie said there was a need to investigate this and to get to the bottom of it.

Sweijd, from Access, said that the most important change happening around the world that was now relevant was that global average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were way above the long-term average.

“We are seeing unprecedented SSTs which are degrees warmer than a decade ago… Of course, as an average, it varies across the planet (with some areas even cooler than the long-term average) but what’s important is that the rain that falls on Cape Town doesn’t come from Cape Town.

“It comes from elsewhere, and so with warmer sea surface temperatures, one hypothesis is that there’s more water vapour in the atmosphere, so there’s more rain to fall,” Sweijd said.

Conradie said the warmer sea surface temperatures meant there was more evaporation. At the same time, as the atmosphere warmed, it had more capacity to hold water.

“That’s a major contributor. For every degree Celsius increase in mean temperature, the atmosphere can hold roughly 7% more waterfall vapour. That can add up relatively quickly, and that’s the primary driver globally of why we see more extreme rainfall with increasing temperatures,” he said.

Conradie said this was probably the case for most of South Africa, but because of the evidence in the literature published thus far suggesting that this did not apply to Cape Town, “It’s hard to say anything firmly.”

Global weather tends towards more extreme events

“Expect extreme weather… We’re going to have another drought eventually in the Western Cape. It seems crazy to talk about it in the winter like this. But imagine if I was standing next to Theewaterskloof Dam in January of 2018, with the dam bone dry, and I said that in five years’ time, this dam is going to be 104% full. What are the chances of that? But here we are, every dam is full,” Sweijd said.

He told Daily Maverick that whether this winter’s extreme was attributable to climate change was unclear without testing, but what they did know was that global weather was tending towards more extreme events. 

The International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) included a chapter on extreme events which identified what parts of the world had already experienced such trends and said southern Africa was warming drastically, at twice the global rate.

“We’re among areas where we’re seeing greater temperatures, as in record extreme temperatures. We are seeing greater heavy rainfall events. We’ve seen droughts. These are not abnormal in and of themselves, it’s really the frequency and cumulative and compound impacts that matter,” Sweijd said. 

Read more: ​​EXPLAINED: Seven climate tipping points that could change life as we know it

Extreme events are complex because we have to consider various properties – their frequency (how often they occur); their strength (eg the amount of rain); their duration (how long extreme conditions last); and their seasonality (when they occur).

Sweijd said, “Is this winter an extreme event? No doubt. Is it because of climate change? Can’t say that (yet).

“Extreme events are natural. They happen with a certain frequency. Whether we can say that one is being caused by climate change requires analysis. But what we can say is, if you look at the big picture, at the cumulative impact of all these different kinds of extreme events, droughts, and floods. If you look at it cumulatively, at the data, then there’s definitely a trend,” he said. DM

• Human rights organisations criticize arrests in Tanzania, alleging intimidation of opposition ahead of elections.
• President Samia Suluhu Hassan has eased some restrictions but arbitrary detentions persist, say rights groups.
• Police in Mbeya ban CHADEMA youth wing meeting, leading to over 500 arrests including party leaders.
• Amnesty International calls on Tanzanian authorities to end crackdown on opposition members and civic space.

• Cape Town woman still waiting for justice five months after being knocked down by police van
• Nolwazi Tokhwe lost her job and suffers unbearable pain after sustaining serious injuries
• Tokhwe's life has dramatically worsened since the incident, struggling to make ends meet
• Despite ongoing investigation, Tokhwe fears justice won't be served as the officer remains unpunished

Five months after a Cape Town woman was knocked down by a police van, SAPS says it is still investigating the case. Meanwhile Nolwazi Tokhwe says she has lost her job and her life has dramatically worsened.

Tokhwe was walking from her home in Capricorn to fetch younger relatives from a busy street party in Berg Street in March. When she arrived, she found a chaotic scene with youngsters scrambling as police tried to disperse them.

Tokhwe says she was about to cross the road in the dark when a police van came speeding “out of nowhere”, knocked her over and apparently drove over her right arm. Witnesses told GroundUp that the officer, who is known to Tokhwe, did not stop to help or to check on her condition.

She sustained a broken pelvis and a fractured spine.

Since the incident, Tokhwe says her life has been miserable.

She has been dismissed from her job at a call centre. 

Unbearable pain

“I was dismissed in July mainly because I was not coping at work due to physical pain on my lower back. Sometimes the pain was unbearable, and I would end up staying away from work or calling in sick. Painkillers aren’t as effective for me any more,” says Tokhwe.

She underwent treatment at Victoria Hospital for about a week and was discharged to recover at home. She says she still can’t walk long distances or sit for long periods.

“Now my sister is the only breadwinner, taking care of all six relatives in the house. I get a social grant for my two children, which I contribute, but it is not enough,” she said.

She has filed an application for unemployment benefits at the labour department.

Tokhwe opened a case against the police officer who knocked her over, but says nothing much has happened.

Little to no communication

“After I opened the case in March, there was little to no communication from the investigating officer. He came to my home last Wednesday, but he did not say much, except that the docket was taken to a prosecutor at Muizenberg Magistrate’s Court. He also asked me a few more questions regarding the incident,” said Tokhwe.

Western Cape police spokesperson Frederick Van Wyk confirmed that Tokhwe’s case was still under investigation. 

“The docket was referred to the public prosecutor and is currently with the investigating officer. After the finalisation of the investigation, the docket will be returned to the public prosecutor.”

But Tokhwe is afraid nothing will be done. “I don’t have much hope,” she says.

“I still see the officer who knocked me down in the area, sometimes he will drive past my house. He hasn’t even come up to me, faced me and apologised for what he did, leaving me lying there.”

“I think it is unfair that he still has a job and goes about his life as usual while my life is messed up,” said Tokhwe. DM

First published by GroundUp.

• Stellenbosch FC set for debut in Caf Confederation Cup after impressive domestic season.
• Club's rapid rise from second tier to Premiership and continental competition under billionaire owner.
• Stellies face Eswatini's Nsingizini Hotspurs in preliminary round, eyeing successful African campaign.
• CEO Benadie seeks advice from experienced clubs to balance domestic and continental challenges.

Western Cape soccer club Stellenbosch is about to embark on a new journey in its brief history as a Premiership outfit. 

Following a stellar 2023/2024 campaign in which Stellies finished in a club record third place in the league, and also won its first major trophy, the club will now taste continental soccer for the first time.

Stellenbosch will represent South Africa in the Caf Confederation Cup, which is the second tier of Confederation of African Football (Caf)-organised knockout competitions – after the premier Caf Champions League.

This foray into continental soccer comes as a result of Stellenbosch finishing in its highest position ever in the top-flight last season, behind Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates. 

While Sundowns were peerless, Stellies impressively finished level on 50 points with second-placed Pirates, only missing out on a Champions League slot due to an inferior goal difference compared with the Buccaneers.      

Nevertheless, qualifying for a continental competition in the same season in which they won the Carling Knockout Cup (their first major trophy) is an impressive progression for a club that is less than a decade old.

Rapid growth

It all started in 2016 when Vasco da Gama, a team that was campaigning in the South African second tier of soccer (Motsepe Foundation Championship) moved from Parow to Stellenbosch and rebranded itself. Thus, Stellenbosch was born.

Then two years after the team’s change of name, Remgro — which is headed by South African billionaire Johan Rupert — took over the club.

The new owners made Stellies the main character of Stellenbosch Academy of Sport, a subsidiary of Remgro.

This was just the boost that the club needed as it earned promotion to the Premiership at the culmination of the 2018/2019 season after finishing first in the Championship – under the stewardship of coach Steve Barker.

Since its arrival in the top flight, the Western Cape-based outfit has become one of toughest teams to beat. Especially when it is at its adopted home, the Danie Craven Stadium.

The fact that the club recruits youngsters to its flourishing academy (which has produced a number of its first-team starters), as opposed to splashing the cash of wealthy owner Rupert to lure ready-made superstars, has also bolstered the club’s profile in its community.

Welcome to Africa

Now the team is keen to make its mark in the rest of Africa. Stellies began its maiden continental campaign on Saturday, 17 August. It will face Eswatini side Nsingizini Hotspurs in the preliminary round of the Confederation Cup.

Despite Hotspurs being from neighbouring Eswatini, it will play its home game in Durban. This will make the logistical planning a bit easier for the South African outfit. The return leg of the group stage qualifier is scheduled for 24 August at Athlone Stadium.

It is never easy to juggle maintaining one’s domestic form while competing continentally, as Marumo Gallants found out when they reached the semifinals of the Confed Cup during the 2022/2023 season, but were relegated to the Championship domestically after finishing at the bottom of the Premiership.

To avoid any similar struggles, Stellenbosch has been in contact with clubs such as Gallants, who have walked this road before.  

“We are speaking with Sundowns. But we are also speaking with Orlando Pirates, SuperSport. (These are clubs) who have been to Africa many times. We are also in contact with Marumo Gallants on their experiences. We also are speaking with Sekhukhune United,” said Stellenbosch CEO Rob Benadie during a recent press conference organised by the South African Football Journalists’ Association. 

“There are quite a lot of people, including administrators who are no longer in the game, who we are talking to who have gone through many campaigns in Africa. We are trying to gather as much information as we can,” Benadie stated.   

“Like any football club, when we go to any competition, we go there with the goal to win it. But if we can get to the group stage, we will have an extra six games where we will learn a lot,” the CEO added.

“The players are excited about that. We are going to have to rotate our players better than we did last year if we are to do better in the league and perform on the continent as well.”

Barker factor

Possessing a small squad compared with the likes of Sundowns, Pirates and Chiefs, Stellenbosch recently lost some key players in the form of striker Iqraam Rayners and utility player Deano van Rooyen. Though it also made some acquisitions of its own.   

If it makes it past the preliminary round of the tournament, it may be forced to add a few more names to the team in order to keep the squad fresh across all competitions it will be participating in this season.      

Benadie said the fact that they have a stable technical team – led by coach Barker – is generally a beneficial factor for their potentially historic 2024/2025 season.    

“Steve might not work at all clubs as well as he works at Stellenbosch… But he works like a glove on a hand at this club. That’s partly because of his background. He comes from a military background and he’s very disciplined. And that’s a little bit of our environment,” stated Benadie.

“He’s also grown with us. He was with the team when we won promotion. He’s the one who won promotion for us. And we’ve stuck with him. He’s the longest-serving head coach in professional football in South Africa. Though it should not be like that. It’s only been about six or seven years,” the chief executive told journalists.   

The ambition for Stellenbosch is that Barker stays as long as Alex Ferguson stayed at Manchester United. Which was almost three decades. 

If the coach and his technical staff can continue shaping the club into a force in South Africa, as they have over the past few years, then this is possible. DM 

• Gospel industry mourns the loss of Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, founder of Crown Gospel Music Awards and Ukhozi FM radio personality
• Mbokazi-Nkambule, known as ‘Mazetzet’, passed away at 52 after battling lung cancer
• Tributes pour in from political parties and government, highlighting her immense contributions to gospel music in South Africa
• Legacy of Mbokazi-Nkambule celebrated for nurturing gospel artists and promoting the genre, details of memorial and funeral service to follow

“It is so hard to believe, even though it is true. It hasn’t really sunk in. The Gospel industry as a whole has lost a valuable person… Zanele made sure she represented Gospel until the formation of the Crown Gospel Music Awards that produced many talented gospel artists”  gospel singer Rebecca Malope said in response to the death of Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule.

“We are really saddened – it is unbelievable,” said Malope.

Mbokazi-Nkambule was an Ukhozi FM radio presenter and founder of the Crown Gospel Music Awards in 2007.  Known as ‘Mazetzet’, she died at Parklands Hospital on 12 August at the age of 52.

Her husband, Bishop Mpendulo Nkambule, confirmed the news of her succumbing to lung cancer in a heartfelt statement in the early hours of Monday.

“It is with a heavy heart that we, the Nkambule and Mbokazi family announce the passing of our dearly beloved Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, founder of the Crown Gospel Music Awards and Ukhozi FM radio personality.” 

‘‘She departed to be with the Lord; early hours of 12 August 2024 at Parklands Hospital. We are grateful for all the prayers, love and support we received throughout her illness. The family would appreciate privacy as we navigate through this challenging time,” said Bishop Nkambule.

She was born and based in Durban.

Mbokazi-Nkambule’s battle with lung cancer was evident in the months leading up to her diagnosis. In April, her health began to decline, causing her to miss her ‘Eshilo’ show on Ukhozi FM on Sunday, 21 April.

Mbokazi-Nkambule could not finish hosting her next show and was hospitalised shortly afterwards.

This marked the beginning of her public health struggles, and her husband later announced her cancer diagnosis on Ukhozi FM, the country’s largest national radio station based in Durban. 

Tributes

The Government Communication and Information System issued a statement saying that as the founder of the Crown Gospel Music Awards, “Mbokazi-Nkambule provided a platform for gospel artists to be recognised and to showcase their talents. This contributed immensely to elevating the genre to new heights. Her dedication and love for gospel music has helped many and nurtured the growth of gospel music in South Africa.’’

Political parties such as the ANC, the EFF and the DA also paid tribute.

The ANC said it “mourns the passing of Zanele Mbokazi, beloved award-winning gospel singer and television presenter that brought South Africans a lifetime of spiritual soul. Her legacy lives on in the body of work she leaves behind”.

The EFF also sent condolences:

The EFF sends its deepest condolences to the Nkambule and Mbokazi families for the passing of Ms. Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, the founder of the Crown Gospel Music Awards and UKhozi FM radio personality.

May her soul rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/cDOM0gqt3z

— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) August 12, 2024

The DA said on X:

🕊️ The DA extends its heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and fans of Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, founder of the Crown Gospel Music Awards and beloved Ukhozi FM radio personality. Your voice and leadership influence will be deeply missed by many. pic.twitter.com/CDnvUAARhs

— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) August 12, 2024

The Speaker of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, Nontembeko Boyce, described Mbokazi-Nkambule’s death as a huge loss for South Africa, particularly in the fight against cancer. 

“We appreciate the work done by the South African National Aids Council on the cancer awareness campaign, The Pink Drive. We believe it has assisted in closing the care gap.’’

Gospel contributions

Boyce acknowledged Mbokazi-Nkambule’s contributions to building and promoting gospel music: “On behalf of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, we appreciate and are thankful for the work done by Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule for the Gospel fraternity. May her legacy continue to live on.’

Lesedi FM radio presenter, Seipati Seoke, known as ‘Twasa’, highlighted Mbokazi’s contribution to the gospel industry: “One of the champions of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has gone to be with the Lord. 

“May the God of all comforts encircle you (the family, friends, and fans) with his love during this season of grief. Be encouraged, death will be defeated too. We will yet meet at our grand Sunrise.” 

Details  of her memorial and funeral service will be announced later  

Mbokazi-Nkambule is survived by her husband and a child. DM

• Video filmed by: Bernard Kotze
• Video edited by: Rufaro Chiswo
• Producer: Emilie Gambade
• Subbing by: Kevin Flynn

It’s the last of the winter broth, one more hearty soup before we (cross fingers and) say goodbye to the winter of 2022, the one that seemed to start early in southern Africa while Europe baked in unheard-of 40+ temperatures. But we have many British and continental readers too, so they might want to store this one up for the coming chill. Now the southern spring seems to be showing itself early, but we know the wiles of the Weather Gods well enough to know that it’s not over yet.

Pumpkin is at the heart of this dish, but there’s plenty of other veg too: onion of course, leek, carrots and celery, and a large yellow pepper for no particular reason other than I had it in the crisper and didn’t want to see it wasted. It lent a bit of sweetness to the soup.

There’s ginger and a range of spices too, and I used avocado oil for its mild flavour. It’s finished with double cream yoghurt, but you could use cream.

(Serves up to 4)

Ingredients

1 kg pumpkin, peeled and cubed

3 Tbsp avocado oil

2 red onions, peeled and chopped

2 fat garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

2 celery stalks, diced

1 leek, rinsed and sliced

1 yellow pepper, seeded and diced

3 fresh ginger peeled and grated

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground aniseed

1 tsp chilli flakes

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Salt and white pepper to taste

1 litre water

500 ml vegetable stock

2 Tbsp coriander stems, chopped

500 ml double cream yoghurt

Coriander leaves, chopped, for garnish

Cubes of bread tossed in butter until golden

Method

Peel the pumpkin and chop it into cubes. Prepare all the other vegetables. Sauté the onion and garlic in avocado oil on a low heat for a minute, stirring, then add the prepared leek, carrots, celery, yellow pepper, chopped coriander stems and the grated ginger. Stir in all the spices and cook gently, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Add the cubed pumpkin, stir, and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the water and stock, season with salt and pepper (be generous with the salt), and bring to a boil. Lower the heat a little and cook until the pumpkin is tender, about 20 minutes.

Process it with a handheld blender, return to the heat, and stir in the yoghurt. Bring it back to a simmer and let it cook for a few minutes more. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Serve with croutons (1 slice of bread, in small cubes, tossed in butter in a pan until golden) and chopped coriander. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

• Olympic athletics in Paris showcased astonishing quality and drama, from the men's 100m race to Sifan Hassan's marathon triumph.
• World Athletics head Sebastian Coe lauded the exceptional level of competition, praising the bandwidth of excellence on display.
• Memorable moments included Noah Lyles's 100m victory by a hair's breadth, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone's record-breaking 400m hurdles win, and Armand Duplantis's pole vault heroics.
• American athletes shone with unexpected victories, while Jamaica and the hosts faced disappointments in the sprints and overall medal count.

The Olympic athletics programme, highlighted by the shortest event and then the longest, saw performances of astonishing quality and spine-tingling drama, played out to a beautiful and unique purple backdrop that will forever mean Paris.

The closest and highest-quality men’s 100m race and a late-night pole vault world record lit up the first week, while Sifan Hassan’s final-day marathon win to cap a barely believable hat-trick of medals was a fitting way to bring down the curtain.

“It’s been fantastic and I think the quality of athletics at the moment is almost beyond description,” Sebastian Coe, head of World Athletics, said this week. “I can’t remember a time when we’ve had such a bandwidth of excellence.”

Nowhere was that more visible than in the men’s 100m where Noah Lyles caught Kishane Thompson on the line to win by five-thousandths of a second in 9.79. The six men behind them were also sub-10 – the first time that has happened in a legal race. South Africa’s Akani Simbine came fourth in 9.82s.

Lyles, the sport’s biggest showman, was unable to double up, taking bronze in the 200m and then revealing he was running with Covid.

Instead, Botswana’s quiet assassin, Letsile Tebogo, became the first African to win it with a time if 19.46s.

The US delivered a world record in the rarely run mixed 4×400 relay but Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s obliteration of her own world record to win the 400m hurdles was of a different magnitude of quality. She clocked 50.37s, winning the race by a mammoth 1.5 seconds.

Armand Duplantis also beat his own pole vault world record in a moment of great theatre at the Stade de France. With all other events finished and the Swede’s expected gold long pocketed, he failed twice at 6.25m before sailing clear to a stupendous roar.

Read more: Olympic Games Paris 2024 

Coe hoped the men’s 1,500m would be a “race for the ages” and it was – though not in the way he or anyone else expected.

Briton Josh Kerr ran the race of his life to get past defending champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, only for long-shot American Cole Hocker to come past them both and win in a huge personal best to produce one of the biggest upsets of the Games. His time of 3:27.65 was a new Olympic record.

Ingebrigtsen bounced back to win the 5,000m, while in the women’s 1,500m Kenya’s peerless Faith Kipyegon completed an unprecedented hat-trick.

American success

Medals galore over the shorter distances has usually been the norm for the US but they found remarkable success in all sorts of events in Paris.

When Yared Nuguse took bronze behind Hocker it was the first time in 112 years that two Americans had medalled in the 1,500m.

Grant Fisher went toe-to-toe with the mighty Africans to win impressive bronze medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m, while Kenneth Rooks did the same for a notable 3,000m steeplechase silver.

After relatively slim pickings in Tokyo, the US were back in charge – and some – with 14 gold, 11 silver and nine bronze medals to set them up for hosting the next Games in Los Angeles.

In contrast, Jamaica had a torrid time, barely featuring in the sprints they have dominated for years, and their solitary gold medal was a shock discus win for Roje Stona.

The hosts also had a campaign to forget, despite the nightly roars of support from fantastic fans who filled every session. They were saved from a total wipe-out by Cyrena Samba-Mayela’s silver in the 100m hurdles on the final night of track action.

There was still one more event to go, however, and it provided a fabulous and scarcely believable finale as Dutchwoman Hassan won the women’s marathon after taking bronze in the 5,000m and 10,000m.

She was the first woman to even attempt the treble, let alone medal in all three, and now stands alongside athletics royalty in the shape of Emil Zatopek, who won all three in 1952.

Forty-three countries won athletics medals, with Saint Lucia, Dominica and Pakistan doing so for the first time, all golds, via Julien Alfred in the women’s 100m, Thea LaFond in the women’s triple jump and Arshad Nadeem in the men’s javelin. Reuters/DM

• South African with spinal muscular atrophy becomes first to receive Evrysdi medical aid cover in 2023
• Evrysdi and other spinal muscular atrophy treatments come with hefty price tags in South Africa
• Fall leads to severe fractures amid reauthorisation confusion for medication
• Administrative hurdles delay approval process, leaving patient in challenging physical and mental state

I live with spinal muscular atrophy, an often-fatal neuromuscular disorder that results in progressive muscle wasting. In 2023, I was the first person in South Africa to receive medical aid cover for Evrysdi, one of three spinal muscular atrophy treatments available globally and the only one of the three registered as a medicine in South Africa.

​​All three spinal muscular atrophy treatments carry heavy price tags. In South Africa, the few Evrysdi approvals that are being granted by some medical aids are on an ex gratia basis: at the discretion of the medical aid, and not according to scheme rules. As such, regular reauthorisations are required.

When the fall occurred, I was applying for reauthorisation. 

The fall came with severe consequences. A hairline fracture in my left hip, as well as a crumble crack in my already crushed lower vertebra.

There is no choice but to treat episodes like these as a test from the stoic gods. 

Nonetheless, the counterfactuals swirl. If I hadn’t been off the medication for three months out of the past six, would I have been able to hold myself up a half second longer, and maybe prevent the fractures? 

It’s impossible not to ask such questions, even if inadvisable.

Reauthorisation mess

The reauthorisation mess resulted from confusion on behalf of those handling my application; between the political will from the medical aid to pay the bill and the bureaucratic process necessary to get the reauthorisation application in front of the ex gratia committee, which has to sign off on the payment.

To explain: I received a phone call from the medical aid special cases representative a day after I ran out of medication, to tell me that my application was nowhere near the ex gratia committee, had never been to the committee and was in fact not in the system at all. 

This after I’d been informed for the previous five weeks by the NGO handling my application – on the basis of the feedback they were getting from their relationships at the medical aid – that the reauthorisation was sitting with the ex gratia committee, and we were awaiting a decision.

The special cases representative then restarted the process (which had already been running for two months), accelerating it as much as possible. 

This time, when I received the standard rejection letter from the chronic department it had the crucial paragraph at the bottom explicitly stating that the case was being sent on to the ex gratia committee; whereas on the first run this text was missing. 

The next day I received the expected request for my financials, which I hadn’t the first time around, and from there it was a full calendar month before the next six months approval was granted.

After my interactions with the special cases rep it was clear that regardless of who says what in the offices of the higher-ups there is only one process to follow for reauthorisation, and that there are flags that need to be watched for and heeded – the most obvious being the hard requirement to submit financials. 

Administrative dead space

If you’re not asked for your financials, your application is adrift, stuck in administrative dead space. Suffice to say, now that I understand the process in gritty detail, I will handle future reauthorisations myself.

I’ve had enough hairline fractures through the years to decide to manage these on my own this time. Well, with Robyn (Field), my wife. We have been quite literally inseparable for the past eight weeks, as I have been unable to move without her. 

We chose not to go to the hospital for X-rays, MRI scans and such because the end result of hairline cracks – often referred to as “granny cracks” – is that you have to go home and rest and wait for your osteoporotic bones to knit together. My other cracks had resolved quickly: within four to six weeks. 

These have been different. Only seven weeks in did we start to reach the stage of demonstrable knitting.

The challenge has been extreme in all dimensions: physical, mental, practical, existential. It involves an endless triangulation between 1) sitting working at my desk, while 2) getting enough bed rest to heal the fractures, while 3) becoming steadily weaker due to a lack of physical activity – an accelerating dynamic much like driving downhill with your foot on the gas. 

The first four weeks were decent enough in terms of strength, but then I went off the cliff. In the context of the gain magnificence of 2023, the experience has been, and remains, profoundly jarring on the psyche. Physical pain is one thing. Losing everything you’ve clawed back physically through hundreds of hours of gym and many doses of wildly expensive genetic medication… quite another.

My mind has repeatedly gone back to 1 April this year when I walked down the back slope of our house in one go, with shoes on, using only Robyn’s shoulder for balance. Something I have not been able to do for the past seven years, or more. The memory is still fresh enough in me to know that I can do it again, and that today’s downward trajectory isn’t necessarily the future trajectory, even though that kind of strength now feels like it belongs to someone else. 

Hope

There is, in other words, hope. And, perhaps more important than hope, memory. I know it is possible. I can recall the physical sensation. What it feels like on my toes, and in my thighs. If I’ve been there once, I tell myself, I can go there again. 

A friend commented to me that it’s all very much like a lifelong game of snakes and ladders. To which I agree, with a caveat: in this particular game you never know where the bottom of the board is. And every time you think you do, you have to remind yourself that really you know nothing at all. 

Thankfully, however, as so often seems to be the case in this world, there has been a significant, shimmering silver lining. 

There are times in life, such as this one, when you need to be led. When you are desperate to be shown the way. To have a relationship with someone who gives you this, exactly when you need it, and exactly how you need it… well… it’s impossible to imagine how I would have got through without Robyn guiding me. This particular counterfactual has fallen, and continues to fall, like happy summer snow. 

And then, of course, there is the greater context, which always has to be born in mind, or at least clung on to. I have done this many times before. And every single time I have asked myself, quietly, down at the bottom of that ladder, all the dark questions. The answers have never been clear in the moment, but they have always come. And – despite many grinding physical realities – they have always been positive. 

Every time I have lain on my bed for weeks or months or years, watching the river of life wash by and wondering whether I will be able to fight my way back in, the answer has been yes. You can. You will. In time. DM

You can subscribe to Andrew Miller’s newsletter here.

Desert regions in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have been well studied by archaeologists as the home of early humans and as routes of migration along “green corridors”.

The archaeology of southern Africa’s west coast desert belt has not received the same attention.

The Namib Sand Sea, part of the Namib Desert, is on the west coast of Namibia. It is a hyperarid landscape of towering dunes, occupying about 34,000km² between the towns of Lüderitz in the south and Walvis Bay in the north. However, there are clues that this environment was not always so dry and inhospitable, suggesting that there is more to be learnt about ancient human life here.

We are part of an interdisciplinary research team of physical geographers, archaeologists and geospatial scientists, interested in the long-term history of deserts and human-environmental interactions.

“In the operating room, we examined Juri (aged 9 years) from head to toe. This beautiful, meek little girl was missing two inches of her left femur along with most of the muscle and skin on the back of her thigh. Both of her buttocks were flayed open, cutting so deeply through flesh that the lowest bones in her pelvis were exposed. As we swept our hands through this topography of cruelty, maggots fell in clumps onto the operating room table.” – Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa

In April and May 2024, Dr Mark Perlmutter and Dr Feroze Sidhwa, two American surgeons, spent a fortnight in Gaza performing surgeries at the Gaza European Hospital. Together they have a combined 57 years of volunteering in over 40 surgical missions on four continents.

They describe being on “intimate terms with death and carnage and despair”, but that none of this could prepare them for what they saw in Gaza. 

Perlmutter speaks of children being shredded; of pinpoint shots to the hearts and heads of children, and of a toddler who had been shot (twice) in the heart by a sniper – making any argument about an accidental shooting absurd.

Two months later, on 2 July, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) ordered the Gaza European Hospital to close. Before I go on, let that sink in. On 2 July, the IDF, who are conducting the most intense bombing campaign of the last century, ordered a hospital to close.

Pro-IDF protests

The end of July saw protesters (with the support of several MPs) storming a military base in Israel to prevent the questioning (not even the imprisonment) of IDF soldiers accused of the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners. Surely, this must be one of the first times in history that high-ranking officials of a government have rioted in support of rape as a weapon of war?

Early August saw Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich say that “nobody will let us cause two million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned”. In a normal, even only marginally moral society, Smotrich would be in jail. In Israel, he is the finance minister.

We are in the 11th month of an invasion of an occupied territory, where the bodies of thousands of children are being shredded and burnt by 900-kilogramme bombs; a likely death toll of up to 186,000 (7.9% of the population), with the minds of countless more punctured and torn by the endless explosions day and night for over 300 days.

Children listening to and wondering whether it is this bomb or the next that will kill them and their families. Then hearing the explosion as the bombs kill their neighbours and friends. The ensuing nightmares and chronic trauma will mark a generation.

Dystopian game

It is as if Israel is playing a dystopian reality television game. Moving Palestinians around like pieces on a chess board. A chess board bounded by walls. A board from which the only escape is death. Squid Games for Palestinians. Go here. No, go there. Go to that safe place. No, we changed our mind. Bomb the safe place. Bomb the tents. Burn the children. Bomb the hospital. Blow up that school. Kill the journalists. Kill the aid workers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant and Smotrich have created a hellscape from their Knesset offices. 

It is the work of a regime that is utterly convinced as to its impunity, no matter the transgression. 

And as I write this on Sunday 11 August, 2024, Israel has just issued a massive evacuation order in Khan Younis, following on the heels of yet another bombing and massacre at a school where displaced people were sheltering. At least 80 people were killed.

How do we come to understand the callousness and slaughter in Gaza? How do we even begin to understand the minds of people like Netanyahu and Smotrich?

Reverse empathy

In his remarkable book, Against Empathy, the American psychologist Paul Bloom presents us with an intuitively unsettling idea. We tend to see empathy as a virtue beyond reproach – how can empathy be a bad thing? Commonly, empathy is understood as the capacity to put yourself in the shoes of another, to feel what they are feeling, and to then act accordingly.

But, as Bloom shows so powerfully, it is more complicated than this. He shows that empathy often leads to biased and irrational decision-making and that we are far more likely to empathise with those who are ‘like us’ than those we see as different.

The pretty, white, blonde little girl stuck at the bottom of a well will receive endless help from the community and reams of media attention – often global attention. The pretty black girl will also receive help, but substantially less than the white girl. The ladder of diminishing ‘empathy’ follows a neat, linear, racial, cultural and gender path. The homeless black child will receive little empathy – “What were they doing playing so close to that well, anyway?”

Does Bloom’s proposition help us understand the minds of men like Smotrich and Netanyahu? Of course, there is politics, history, religion, racism and colonialism. But what else can we draw from to offer insight into these men? In thinking about this, a word and a political philosopher kept intruding. The word is righteousness; the political philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Wrong side of righteousness

A righteous person is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as someone who behaves in a way that is morally correct, while the etymology of righteousness is “purity of heart; just, upright; sinless, conforming to divine law”.

It is easy to see how the word is commonly framed in religious terms. Netanyahu and Smotrich are so utterly convinced of their righteousness, that they believe that they must, by definition, be sinless. And because (in their minds) they are conforming to divine law, nothing is therefore out of bounds. There is no obscenity, no transgression, no number of dismembered children that would cause Netanyahu or Smotrich to stop and think.

And it is that word, “think”, that brings me to Hannah Arendt, the 20th-century philosopher of totalitarianism and evil. In her book on Arendt, Lessons in Love and Disobedience, Lyndsey Stonebridge draws on Arendt’s views on the origins of the totalitarian mind, the mind that can no longer hear another voice, the mind that cannot have an inner dialogue, that has no moral imagination.

For Arendt, the most important thing that any of us can do is to think. For her, thinking is a solitary act, of looking within, about engaging with something broader. And importantly for our purposes here – being able to connect to a moral order that is bigger than one’s own narcissism.

Hatred

Smotrich and Netanyahu are bereft of ideas, responsible for unfathomable suffering, and utterly incapable of thinking from the standpoint of a Palestinian, of a mother who has lost her child, a child that has lost its parents. Both are utterly overwhelmed by hatred and incapable of a moral stance.

If any part of the rule-based international order is to be salvaged from the horror that Israel has rained down on Gaza, now is the time for the International Court of Justice to stop delaying and declare a genocide, and for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Smotrich.

They are war criminals. They should be in jail. DM

• Olympic grump turned enthusiast: Parisians' rollercoaster journey mirrors mine, with French Olympic success surprising even themselves.
• Per capita vs GDP: New Zealand shines, Caribbean islands dominate, while SA's medal count lags behind.
• Home-ground advantage evident in Olympics: China and France exceed expectations, highlighting the impact of hosting on performance.

Like many people, I started off being an Olympic grump but by the end of the competition, I was overwhelmed. The intensity, the upsets, the pride, the disappointment. I mean, really — does anything compare? That trajectory, I’m interested to see, is very similar to Parisians’, who complained endlessly, left the city and then snuck back again searching for tickets. I was amused to read there is a French-run website on X which celebrates French sporting failures. The Fédération Française de la Lose counts 400,000 followers — 100,000 more than the actual French Olympic team.

However, by the end of the fortnight, the French were smitten, their country standing higher on the medals table than it has in all but one year. And what a wonderful backdrop and venues: horseriding on the grounds of Versailles; beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower — I mean, come on! Genius!

My most gratifying moment was when the women’s beach volleyball teams of Canada and Brazil started shouting at each other in the final event. The teams parted, took a breath, and the DJ put on Imagine by John Lennon. The crowd smiled and laughed, the team members smiled and laughed. Then the crowd started singing along … and swaying! I hope someone gave that DJ a medal — talk about diffusing a situation! There was a lot of sportsmanship on show, which surprised me, given how hard people train for the prizes.

So. The reckoning. Like many people with an economic bent, I can’t help wondering what the Olympic Games tell us about the world and its economy — if anything. The two favourite measures in pursuit of this rather frivolous goal are medals per capita and medals vs GDP. With the best will in the world, I’m sorry to say, they don’t show much.

The search for the words “per capita” shot up in New Zealand during the Olympics, and I suspect it’s because of its never-ending competition with Australia. Australia wins more medals, but per capita, New Zealand wins many more, as any New Zealander will tell you, chest slightly puffed up with pride. There is a great New Zealand-based (obvs) website that tracks this difference (here) and indeed New Zealand does beat Australia per capita.

The big per capita winners are the small Caribbean islands of Grenada and St Lucia, both of which, I’m delighted to drop into the conversation, I have visited, but also Dominica. Only after that does New Zealand feature. In previous years, other Caribbean islands have done well too, notably Jamaica, particularly during the Usain Bolt era. But once gained, the advantage seems to stick. Jamaica performed the same as South Africa this year in its medal count, despite Bolt having retired some years ago.

The per capita measure puts things into perspective: the biggest winning nations, China and the US, drop down the list propitiously. Botswana does only marginally worse than the UK. The big winning nations — the nations that win many medals but have small populations — are New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands and, interestingly, Hungary. These are the countries to which SA’s sporting bodies need to look for guidance and assistance.

What about GDP and medal winnings? There is a correlation, but it’s surprisingly light. If you are interested, the correlation coefficient between GDP per capita and the total number of medals won at the 2024 Paris Olympics is approximately 0.34, with 1 being the highest and -1 being the lowest. Hence, it is positive, but not very strong.

You can see that in the table: the big economies, the US and China, are well down the list. Once again, the Caribbean islands dominate the top of the list, interestingly joined by countries in West Asia — Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — which, by the way, enjoyed a fabulous Olympics, winning 13 medals.

For SA, this list is worrying. Technically, with its six medals, SA is ranked 44th on the medals table. Applying a GDP screen over that, SA is ranked 66th, which demonstrates ground that could easily be made up. A respectable target for SA should be about 12 medals, which would bring the numbers more or less in line. (By the way, this is assigning gold=4, silver=2, bronze=1).

The last issue to look at is home-ground advantage. It’s extraordinary how the home country outperforms in the Olympics. China won the most medals it ever has at the Beijing Olympics and this year, as mentioned, France outperformed.

It’s the same in many sports, where the home team’s advantage is huge: the home side in the English Premier League wins 60% of the time, more or less the same as Japanese baseball teams, and everything in between. Some people think it’s because of crowd support providing motivation, but this has been debunked in several academic studies. National pride, too. Athletes operating at this level hardly need more motivation; they have it already in spades. The other factor is referee bias in favour of the home team, and weirdly this applies as much to referees from neutral countries as it does to referees from the host nation itself.

A big factor in the Olympics is investment in sports and a strategic focus on medal winning. Some countries do well by focusing on particular sports. Every member of the Chinese diving team won a medal this year and there were 11 of them — roughly 10% of the country’s medals were won in a single discipline.

An athlete from SA is a good example of how close this all is. Jo-Ane van Dyk won a silver medal in the javelin throw — a magnificent performance — but several of her rivals threw farther than her in the heats. Van Dyk didn’t get much support from SA’s Olympic structures after coming 15th in the world championships in 2002 and 10th the following year. She came 24th in the Tokyo Olympics.

Sprinter Akani Simbine did get support from SA’s Olympic Committee, but his three teammates in the 4×100, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza, did not. Bronze medallist mountain biker Alan Hatherly was offered support, and the Blitzboks didn’t get support because they are run by SA Rugby.

It shows how much of a crapshoot this process is and how adding a bit of boodle does increase your chances, even in situations where the historical performance record is a bit light. It’s like that old joke about someone asking God to help him win the lottery. God says okay, but you have to meet me halfway and buy a ticket.

Here’s to a few more tickets next time. DM

• Review application related to alleged theft of railway line postponed in Eastern Cape High Court
• Co-accused in the case include former Prasa CEO and Cape Town businessman
• Delays in criminal proceedings due to changes in legal representation and court challenges
• New hearing date set for 28 November, accused claims innocence and lack of legal representation

A review application related to a criminal case in which a former acting Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) CEO and a Cape Town businessman allegedly stole 42km of railway line in the Eastern Cape, was postponed in the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court in Gqeberha on Thursday.

This was the first time the review application, brought by Syed Mohiudeen, had been heard, 18 months after the notice of motion was filed at the High Court in February 2023.

Mohiudeen is co-accused with Mthuthuzeli Swartz, who was Prasa’s Western Cape regional director when a case of the theft of a Transnet railway line between Sterkstroom and Maclear was opened at the Elliot police station in the Eastern Cape in February 2013.

It took six years before Swartz was arrested on 22 January 2019, with Mohiudeen arrested on 27 February 2019.

It is alleged that Swartz and Mohiudeen, acting through his company Spanish Ice, took a R1.5-million deposit from Cape Town cousins Adrian and Cedric Samuels for the sale of the disused Transnet railway line, which the Samuels cousins then uplifted for its steel value.

In the period between the case being opened and Swartz’s arrest, Prasa appointed him as acting CEO. He served in this position for three months, from January to April 2018, until the Prasa board removed him because insurers wouldn’t provide directors’ and officers’ liability cover.

The criminal case, which itself was beset with delays prior to the review application, partly due to Mohiudeen changing lawyers and difficulty in obtaining court transcripts, ground to a halt after Mohiudeen filed an application for the High Court to review magistrate Nolitha Bara’s dismissal of his request for further particulars of the charges against him. He is also contesting the R58-million claimed in damages to Transnet as result of the line being uplifted.

Mohiudeen’s heads of argument, which he on Thursday told the court that his niece in London had helped him draft, were filed on 3 June this year.

Responding papers

Appearing before Judge Avinash Govindjee and Acting Judge Nicholas Mullins in the High Court on Thursday, Mohiudeen asked for a postponement so he could obtain legal representation. He said he had only received the State’s responding papers that morning. Since the start of his criminal case, Mohiudeen has changed lawyers at least four times, with his latest attempt to obtain legal representation from Legal Aid turned down.

Mohiudeen said Legal Aid had informed him of its decision on 1 August, at which point Judge Govindjee noted the reason was that Legal Aid deemed his application had “no real prospects of success”.

Advocate Bongo Mvinjelwa, for the State, argued that a postponement would further delay the criminal proceedings in the Commercial Crimes Court, which would “prejudice the State”.

Mvinjelwa said Mohiudeen had legal representation when he made the High Court application, and the matter was covered in the heads of argument before the court.

He said there was no merit in Mohiudeen’s application, and that he was using “Stalingrad tactics” to delay the criminal proceedings.

After a 15-minute adjournment, Judge Govindjee ruled that despite “suspicions of Stalingrad tactics”, the matter would be postponed. Although the State’s responding papers were sent to the Legal Aid Board on 23 July, it appeared they had not been forwarded to Mohiudeen until after the Legal Aid Board’s decision to turn down his request for representation, and he needed time to familiarise himself with the legal arguments.

New date for the hearing

A new date for the hearing was obtained for 28 November.

Outside court, Mohiudeen said he had been accused of something that he had not done. He said he did not expect not to have legal representation in court. 

“I’ve been railroaded,” he said. “The Samuels are the ones who stole the rail, and who got permission from Swartz,” he said, adding: “I can’t plead without the right information.”

He said the Apartheid Criminal Procedures Act was being used against him and it was a “trial by media” that had ruined his reputation. DM

First published by GroundUp.

• Moroadi Cholota denies guilt in corruption and money laundering charges, stating lack of evidence against her in bail application hearing.
• Cholota, former PA of Ace Magashule, faces extradition from US in R225-million asbestos scandal involving fraud, corruption, and racketeering.
• Cholota's testimony at State Capture Commission crucial in revealing her intermediary role in financial dealings for Magashule.
• State prosecutor opposes Cholota's bail application, citing extradition on charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering.

“I wish to state from the outset that I’m not guilty of any charges against me. I verily believe that the State will not be able to present any objective facts or provide any evidence that will prove that I engage in corruption or money laundering,” Moroadi Cholota, the former personal assistant of former Free State premier Ace Magashule, stated on the first day of her bail application hearing in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court.

This is part of Cholota’s affidavit, which was read into the record on Monday, 12 August, to support her application for bail.

Magashule is also the former ANC secretary-general. He set up a rival party, the  African Congress for Transformation (ACT), to contest the most recent provincial elections, where his party got one seat in the Free State legislature. 

State prosecutor Johannes de Nysschen told the court that the affidavit was handed to them at 9am on Monday, hence the State was unable to argue the case.

However, De Nyssschen stated that the National Prosecuting Authority was opposing the application and would submit a comprehensive affidavit from the investigating officer outlining the State’s reasons.

Cholota’s case was set for Monday after she was arrested on Thursday, 8 August, when she arrived at Oliver Tambo International Airport. On Thursday, 8 August 2024, the SAPS confirmed Cholota was escorted by Interpol and South African police officers while she was being extradited to South Africa.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Ace Magashule’s former PA extradited and inbound from the US in asbestos saga”

Cholota has been in detention since being arrested in the US on 12 April 2024 and brought to court. A US court heard that South African authorities had charged her with four counts of fraud and five counts of corruption, in violation of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

Following the delay, the asbestos case was heard again in June 2024. At this point, the court ruled that the trial date would be April to June 2025, even if Cholota had not been extradited by that date.

Read more: Magashule and Co will have their day in court – next year

Cholota’s extradition was approved on 7 June by Judge Erin Aslan of the Maryland District Court.

Cholota is a co-accused alongside Magashule and others in a R225-million asbestos scandal that included charges of fraud, corruption, theft and racketeering.

The other co-accused are businessman Edwin Sodi, former director-general of the national Department of Housing Thabane Zulu, as well as Nthimotse Mokhesi, Mahlomola Matlakala, Sello Radebe, Adel Kgotso Manyeki, Nozipho Molikoe, Albertus Venter, Margaret-Ann Diedericks and former MEC and Mangaung mayor Olly Mlamleli.

In addition, companies charged include Blackhead Consulting, 602 Consulting Solutions, Mastertrade 232 and Ori Group.

Cholota’s testimony before the State Capture Commission in late 2019 is key to this trial, which revealed much about the intermediary role she played in requesting financial favours from people like the slain Igo Mpambani, on behalf of her boss.

NPA’s brief address

De Nyssen informed the court that Cholota would be accused number 17 in the indictment. For the bail application, he also submitted a report from the Department of State of the United States, signed by the Deputy Secretary of State of the United States, indicating which charges the accused was extradited for.

“Without prompting the implication, US courts and the Secretary of State granted her extradition on charges of fraud, corruption, and money laundering in which she is charged with former premier Magashule. The State is aware that Cholota will file an application, but we want to make it clear that we oppose the bail,” he said.

“I’m not guilty”

Cholota’s deposed affidavit was read into the record by her legal representative, Advocate Loyiso Makapela of Group One Advocates. Cholota said she would attend all relevant court hearings in this matter, would not flee the country, pose a flight risk nor would she commit any crimes or intimidate the witnesses in the matter.

“While I appreciate the seriousness of charges levelled against me I wish to state from the outset that I’m not guilty of any charges against me. I verily believe that the State will not be able to present any objective facts or provide any evidence that will prove that I engage in corruption or money laundering,” she claimed.

Cholota, describing her personal circumstances, stated that she was 37 years old and born in Parys, Free State, and had lived in South Africa her entire life. Her parents and family members all lived in and around Bloemfontein and Parys, and prior to her studies in the US she lived at her property at 10233 Grasland Bloemspruit Street, Bloemfontein.

She intends to live with her with my parents upon her release, in Uitsig, Bloemfontein.

“I no longer possess a passport and any form of travel documents. I was transported to South Africa on emergency travel documents. My passport was left behind in Baltimore, Maryland, and has not been in my possession since my arrest and detention in April 2024.”

On the merits of the case, Cholota submitted that she was informed that she was accused of committing fraud, corruption, and money laundering. 

“I deny the aforesaid allegations in the strongest terms. From the outset I wish to state I’m confident that I will not be found guilty on the charges levelled against me.

“The law requires that the State proves the case against me without reasonable doubt. I’m certain that it would fail to do so as it has no evidence that links me to any fraud, corruption or money laundering. I will plead not guilty in the envisaged trial,” she claimed.

She went on to argue that the case against her was inherently flawed for the following reasons:

1. It is well known that I was a State witness in this matter following my oral testimony at the State Capture/Zondo Commission on 19 December 2019.
2. I was not charged with corruption, fraud and money laundering with my co-accused as there was no evidence linking me at all to the crime my co-accused was charged with.
3. I was informed by the investigators that I will be questioned about same matters canvassed in the State Capture Commission when they told me I was a State witness on 16 November 2020 via email.
4. On or about 21/22 September 2o21 I was interviewed by the investigators in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Washington DC in respect of the asbestos project.
5. The investigators threatened to charge me with the same charges as my co-accused if I did not cooperate with them.
6. There was no evidence to show that I never cooperated with the investigators.
7. They felt that I had not provided them with the information that they were looking for and decided to charge me with fraud, corruption and money laundering.

She further pointed out: “The charges against me do not arise out of any factual and objective evidence. But from stance from (sic) wanting to punish me for not cooperating with the investigators.

“I was never implicated in any wrongdoing related to the asbestos project in all the investigations undertaken by the various state agencies, including the State Capture Commission, the Public Protector, the Auditor-General and Special Investigating Unit (SIU).”

In order to persuade the court that it would be in the interest of justice to release her on bail she provided the following additional information:

1. I was arrested in United States on 12 April 2024 at the request of the South African government and remained in detention from that date until the present date.
2. I was first detained in Baltimore, Maryland, and then upon 1 August 2024 I was moved to a prison in New Jersey, USA.
3. On 8 August I was detained at Brooklyn police, Pretoria, thereafter I was transported to Bainsvlei Prison, in Bloemfontein, and detained over the weekend until Monday, 12 August.

“This means that I’ve been in prison and detained since in jail for almost four months. There is not a single one of my co-accused that has spent longer than even a day in prison. They have all their freedom and liberty respected by the State and have been released promptly on bail,” she said.

Cholota requested that the court set bail at R2,500, adding that if the court sets bail at a higher amount, she would not be able to raise the funds but would comply with any court-imposed conditions.

The State will present arguments on Tuesday, 13 August. DM

• Johannesburg continues to suffer from maladministration, with daily power outages and water shedding adding to the city's challenges.
• The closure of the Johannesburg library for years has sparked protests, highlighting the neglect and mismanagement by city officials.
• The city's budget is being misspent on contractors and vanity projects, with industrial extraction becoming an existential issue for Johannesburg's infrastructure.
• Johannesburg is on the brink of replacing Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda, as the ANC grapples with its electoral losses in the cities.

I thought there were only so many times that Johannesburg city governors could break your heart. As a citizen of and ardent advocate for this excellent, bustling city, I find the maladministration visited upon it by administration after administration heartbreaking.

My mom, my family and the wider community are so abused that, even as rolling blackouts have mercifully stopped in the rest of the country, Joburg still suffers outages almost daily.

Water tankers race across the city as water shedding adds to our difficulties. Last week, we put in water tanks to add to the solar.

I laugh when I think of my disbelief when the Nigerian writer Azubuike Ishiekwene warned me decades ago that people would each have to become our own local government as service went down the drain.

“Not our Joburg,” I remember thinking. So naive.

On 18 May this year, many hearts felt sore when we protested against the Johannesburg library being closed for years. A small group organised by Defend Our Democracy, the tiny group of activists who hold progressive politics together so beautifully, made a big noise outside the library.

Professor Achille Mbembe, the storied scholar renowned for his work on the post-colony, spoke at a piece of public art to honour the role of women in the struggle. It is the centrepiece of Beyers Naudé Square, the open space of the library named after the beloved cleric who fought apartheid.

For years, the mandarins who nominally “run” the city have kept it closed. The park is rundown. A young woman, now with her own asset management company, came to protest. She said the library had allowed her to learn and dream when, as a learner, she visited and studied there. With her dad, they would have a Wimpy date and then he’d go to work and she’d go to study.

The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, run by the indefatigable Flo Bird, has been a lone earworm for the city bureaucrats fighting for information about the library closure. The city officials exemplify the cruel bureaucrats of the post-colony that Mbembe has studied for decades. In the post-colony, and without deeper-rooted transformation, the new leaders mimic the cruelties of the colonial old.

Taking rather than giving

The people are forgotten as the new politicians climb over each other in a frenzy of extraction and taking, rather than giving. The promised revolutionary servant leadership never happens.

For years, somebody has got rich from continuing work on the library – claimed to be a fire risk, but with insufficient explanation of exactly how. 

I asked our colleague Brooks Spector what would happen if, say, the New York Public Library was closed inexplicably by city hall for years. What would people do? “There’d be running riots on the street,” he shot back quickly.

And yet, the tyranny of our lowered expectations of Johannesburg is so ingrained now that there are none.

The city has been repurposed for State Capture. In their path-breaking study of national State Capture, professors Ivor Chipkin and Mark Swilling explained how public sector systems, budgets and networks are repurposed for extraction. The patterns they identified were one of the processes that eventually led to the ousting of former president Jacob Zuma.

As a student of State Capture then and of Johannesburg governance now, the patterns are exactly the same. The city, with an excellent operating budget of R73-billion, a capital expenditure budget of R7-billion and numerous conditional grants from the National Treasury, should make it work for its people.

But you see how much is spent on contractors (R20-billion for services its staff should be performing) and read how it is misspent on vanity projects exhibited on the city’s social pages. The multiparty coalition is using contractors and positions on the entities to extract billions.

So, industrial extraction is now existential. Johannesburg needs R220-billion merely to get its water, energy and transport infrastructure back to basics, Bloomberg reported this week. The Metro Centre, the city’s lungs and heart for its citizens, stands closed after a suspicious fire.

Some staff and councillors believe it was arson to allow a massive “decant” into private office space that is costing billions. A cadre was set to get the deal until the National Treasury stepped in ahead of the election. I could go on for pages and pages.

But now Johannesburg is on the cusp of firing hapless Kabelo Gwamanda as mayor as the ANC at national level clicks how it lost the election primarily in the cities. Gwamanda is like a character from Can Themba’s story The Suit – an empty caricature of a mayor. He is the fifth mayor since the election in 2021, when no single party won.

Elected as part of a tortured compromise to create a coalition between the ANC and the EFF, Gwamanda is from Al Jama-ah, which has only three seats in the council.

He owes loyalty and fealty to his political bosses, but he needs to show no accountability to the people because they did not appoint him. In a callous display of this, he called citizens “stooges” in July when protests grew against the impact of sky-high electricity tariffs and charges.

According to my source, he will be out in a week, and the city will have its sixth mayor since the local government election in 2021.

As the place where gold was discovered and a metropolis shot up without a supporting river or body of water, Johannesburg is an exciting and storied city.

Rebuilding Joburg

The mayoral musical chairs is a political joke, but it’s not funny. Johannesburg is systemic for South Africa; it’s too big to fail. Too many people live here. Too much of the economy is concentrated here. Too much of our history is contained here.

It is going to take much more than a change of mayor to fix it. What does that fix look like? Fortunately, we know about it because of the work of Jozi My Jozi, the civil society and corporate programme to bring it back from the brink, and the Johannesburg Crisis Alliance.

Jozi My Jozi’s team has relit the Nelson Mandela Bridge and revamped the arterial on- and off-ramps into the city. In a major programme, its volunteers cleaned Hillbrow on Mandela Day. Ahead of the All Blacks game at Ellis Park at the end of August, a plan is under way to revamp and uplift the eastern inner-city area from Ponte to Ellis Park and further down.

The Crisis Alliance has tabulated and project-managed exactly what a fix of Joburg will require and how it should happen. The city needs to be put under national administration, like Durban’s eThekwini council. It is the only way to bring back the two cities from the urbacide (killing of a city) visited upon them by local State Capture.

In Joburg, this will entail a legal shake-out of the administration and entities such as City Power, Johannesburg Water, the Johannesburg Roads Agency and Pikitup, through which the city is ostensibly managed. Each one of them is a basket case, rendered so by decades of cadre deployment and extractive politics.

The neoliberal method of city management was meant to introduce business savvy into how Johannesburg was run. That project has long lost its way and introduced a level of bureaucracy that has removed the city from citizens in ways that are stultifying for service and opaque for residents.

And yet, Johannesburg lives and breathes and thrives. As publisher and cultural icon Laurice Taitz-Buntman says, it is, in fact, a metropolis of five cities. It insists on growing and jiving despite the poor governance that besets its basic skeletal infrastructure.

The city needs a government to suit its exciting citizens, who never stop doing wonderful things.

In the next month, Mandla Sibeko, the curator of the Joburg Art Fair, will lace across the city an arts megafeast that is on a par with anything in Dakar, Milan or New York’s best. Almost every week, if you browse Taitz-Buntman’s In Your Pocket guide to the city, you will learn of a new district, a fabulous artist and an entrepreneur starting up.

It is a generous city where soup kitchens, food gardens and WhatsApp groups share a spirit that has always been part of its identity and culture.

The fascia that holds the city together is outside its government now, and what the city needs from any change of political heart is to return Johannesburg to its people. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

You may write a letter to the DM168 editor at [email protected] sharing your views on this story. Letters will be curated, edited and considered for publication in our weekly newspaper on our readers’ views page.

• City of Johannesburg earmarked a Transitional Relocation Area in Alexandra to ease congestion during Covid-19.
• R97-million spent, but only illegal occupants in containers meant for Alexandra residents.
• Evictions spark protests and violence, with fatal shooting of EFF councillor.
• Delays in project completion blamed on various factors, including community unrest and Covid-19 restrictions.

In July 2020, the City of Johannesburg earmarked a Transitional Relocation Area (TRA) to ease congestion in Alexandra’s Setswetla informal settlement during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The MMC for human settlements, Mlungisi Mabaso, had instructed his department to urgently find solutions that would help prevent the spread of Covid-19 in highly congested areas such as Alexandra, and 1,600 people were meant to be housed in converted shipping containers.

“The solution identified to de-densify these areas was the development of new Transitional Relocation Areas (TRAs) using multi-stacked shipping containers and prefabricated structures,” said City of Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane.

The city intended to complete the Alexandra project within three months of its inception, but years later, after R97-million was spent, the only occupants have been families who lived there illegally.

Read more: Overpopulated Alexandra to benefit from temporary housing project

In February, more than 50 people were evicted after the city obtained a court order that they had illegally occupied the containers. Some then erected structures outside the property.

“I was evicted in February with my family of 15. We don’t know why we cannot stay if the containers were meant for the people of Alexandra. After we were evicted we returned to our tiny two-room shack where we hardly all fit in,” said Brenda Shange.

Another Alexandra resident, who asked not to be named, said: “I was also evicted in February. We had moved into the containers because we are too many for our small shack. We were staying rent-free until the day we were evicted.”

Alexandra resident Agnes Ntuli said: “That place is now completed but we cannot move in and we do not know why. I heard the security guards were chased away on Wednesday [7 August]. The city can avoid all the clashes if they can immediately allocate, but we are all waiting to see what criteria will be used in allocating the containers because as you can see, we all need houses.”

Several residents told Daily Maverick they would occupy the containers until they were allocated homes.

Last week, EFF councillor Moshe Mphahlele was fatally shot in Alexandra when the police and security guards dispersed a crowd protesting against the eviction of people who had illegally occupied the containers.

Three other people, including a pregnant woman and a 16-year-old, were shot during the incident.

When asked about the housing issue, the area’s councillor, Deborah Francisco, who recently had a petition launched against her for incompetence, said: “I cannot comment at the moment. All housing matters should be referred to the Department of Housing.”

City spokesperson Modingoane said the reasons for the delays in the project’s completion included:

• Working under Covid-19 restrictions prevented the timeous  sourcing of materials;
• Work stopping due to non-payment;
• Price increases of materials;
• Numsa’s steel strike in 2022, which affected the availability of building materials;
• The community halting construction and requesting clarity on the allocation of the units;
• Work being suspended for almost a year after the Special Investigating Unit said in November 2020 that it was investigating the project; and
• The invasion and vandalising of the site in March 2023 by Alexandra residents. A court order was obtained and the invaders were removed in February after numerous attempts by the SA Police Service and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department.

When asked what measures were in place to ensure that the TRA was not invaded again, the city said it had increased the number of security personnel at the site.

“There are also court orders in favour of the city that protect the property from further invasions. The order had provisions for the SAPS and JMPD to remove unlawful invaders,” said Modingoane.

However, the security guards were chased away by angry community members after EFF councillor Mphahlele’s memorial service at the Alex San Kopano Hall last Wednesday. DM

• Residents of Kommetjie blame local authorities for recent human-baboon conflict due to inadequate baboon management resources.
• A protest in Kommetjie turned violent, with one baboon severely affected by pepper spray and residents wielding sticks.
• The Cape of Good Hope SPCA intervened, rescuing the injured baboon, but its prognosis remains uncertain.
• The Baboon Civics Coalition criticises the lack of resources and responsiveness from authorities in managing baboons, calling for better baboon-proof fences and waste management.

Residents of Kommetjie, a village on the Cape Peninsula in Cape Town’s deep south, say that the failure of local authorities to provide adequate resources for baboon management is a key factor behind recent escalations in human-baboon conflict in the area.

This comes after a protest about the presence of baboons in the town on Sunday culminated in an attack on a member of the local troop. The gathering, which was reportedly intended as a peaceful protest organised by the Kommetjie Baboon Action Group (KBAG), took place outside a burned-out building in which the troop had begun sleeping at night.

The Cape of Good Hope SPCA confirmed that one baboon was “severely impacted” by pepper spray during the protest, and suffered visual impairment and further injury on an electrified fence while disoriented and attempting to escape. Some residents, wielding sticks, reportedly went for the baboons.

“The situation escalated when animal activists, attempting to protect the baboons, clashed with the residents… SPCA inspectors were called to the scene and promptly intervened, rescuing the injured baboon and transporting it to our wildlife department for urgent care. Despite our best efforts, the animal’s prognosis remains uncertain,” it said.

Patrick Dowling, acting chairperson of the Kommetjie Residents and Ratepayers Association, was present at the scene attempting to mediate between the different groups.

“Most of the people who arrived, their intention seemed to be to have a peaceful but determined sort of protest… There are a range of different attitudes to baboons in Kommetjie, going from extreme affection and support to radical and belligerent opposition. There were individuals from both those extremes who exchanged invective,” he said.

“There was a human casualty from being sprayed with mace or pepper spray and there was a baboon injury as well, caused in the same way. It was disappointing to see this event deteriorate in this way.”

Susan Hume, an artist and Kommetjie resident, was taking her dog for a walk when she came across the protest. She said that while she understood residents’ frustrations about the presence of baboons in the urban area, she had to draw the line when it came to cruelty to animals.

“I’ve had damage to my own property, so I can understand it. I’ve got dogs. It’s very, very stressful for me,” she said. 

“But seeing the [pepper-sprayed] baboon flailing around – it ran into a car, then it dashed into a wall – it was trying to get up a tree, it couldn’t see anything – I found that very, very upsetting. 

“I find it really worrying that people feel okay about doing that, and I personally lay blame at the feet of the authorities. We desperately need help… If it weren’t for the SPCA, I don’t know what we would do.”

Service delivery crisis

Dowling is part of the Baboon Civics Coalition, an organisation made up of representatives from associations in baboon-affected areas. He said the group had been trying “unsuccessfully to engage meaningfully” with the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team. 

“The build-up of frustration in the human community here has a lot to do with habituation problem and the insufficiently resourced management by the [baboon] rangers, because there are not enough personnel on the ground to do the job thoroughly, which means there are more and more incursions and… damages,” said Dowling.

“I think one of the main actions should be the [baboon-proof] fences. There’s still some opposition to that, but I think there’s more opposition to nothing happening. A lot of public perception is around [the idea that] there’s been a decided lack of responsiveness from the organisations that should be most responsible, and there seems to be… a reluctance to take over the payment for rangers.”

Most baboon troops on the Cape Peninsula are monitored by rangers from NCC Environmental Services, the city-contracted service provider for baboon management. 

However, the Urban Baboon Programme under which NCC Environmental Services is contracted is scheduled to be terminated in December. This will bring an end to the network of city-contracted rangers who are currently tasked with keeping baboons out of urban areas. 

Read more: Community baboon monitoring project in Cape Town claims pushback from authorities

Both Hume and Dowling say they have seen very little action by the task team when it comes to implementing baboon management strategies, other than the city-funded baboon monitoring programme in Kommetjie.

“Some people feel that it needs to hit rock bottom before the authorities will sit up and take notice,” said Dowling.

“A lot of others are also repeating the call for better-resourced and better-policed waste management. This has been an ongoing cry for probably several decades – promised bins of various designs have not been forthcoming.”

According to KBAG member Steve White, the gathering on Sunday was intended as a “service delivery protest” about the presence of baboons in the town. He claimed there had been instances in which dogs were injured in fights with baboons and had to be euthanised.

“[It’s about] a lot of people living in houses and paying rent and rates and not having the baboons in town. The baboons have become a major disruption to people’s lives in Kommetjie,” he said.

“My feeling is that the city needs to employ its own monitors… it also needs to have dedicated people that will manage the baboons.”

An online survey is currently being circulated in Kommetjie to gather information about residents’ interactions with baboons. As of Thursday, there had been 200 responses. Of the respondents, 66% reported that they had experienced damage to property or vehicles due to baboons. Just over half of the respondents indicated they would be willing to contribute money towards baboon rangers.

Polarised community

The SPCA has said it will be conducting a thorough investigation of the events surrounding the pepper spraying of the baboon on Sunday, and collecting evidence to proceed with a criminal case of animal cruelty in terms of the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962. It has also approached CapeNature to explore further charges under the Nature Conservation Ordinance.

“We urge the public to respect the law and the rights of animals. Taking matters into your own hands and inflicting harm on wildlife is not only illegal but also morally reprehensible. Be assured that we will pursue justice aggressively for these acts of cruelty. No one is above the law,” said Jaco Pieterse, chief inspector of the Cape of Good Hope SPCA.

The issue of the baboons has been very polarising for the Kommetjie community, said Hume, adding that there have been previous instances of people attacking the animals.

“There have been many, many baboons shot at, pellet-riddled and poisoned… one died right outside my house one day. It’s absolutely traumatic. It’s a terrible, slow death,” she said.

“It’s terribly polarised now where we are, and I’m very depressed about it.”

Hume said she supported the legal action that was launched in April against local authorities responsible for baboon management strategies. 

Four applicants – the Baboon Matters nonprofit organisation; Beauty Without Cruelty; Jo-Anne Bosman, an animal rights activist in the Western Cape, and Ryno Engelbrecht, a resident of Capri on the Cape Peninsula – have approached the Western Cape High Court in an effort to hold local authorities accountable for their failure to implement proposed baboon management strategies in the region. The case will be heard on 4 November.

Read more: Baboon activists launch legal action seeking better management of troops in the Cape

Task team responds 

Daily Maverick reached out to the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team about the concerns raised by Kommetjie residents. It said it had received a report from the service provider contracted to manage baboons in the area, detailing the following challenges:

• The easy access to human-derived food attractants in the area, including unprotected rubbish bins, fruit trees and vegetable gardens;
• The damaged building in the Kommetjie CBD that had become the preferred roosting site for the troop;
• The claim that some residents were intimidating the rangers and undermining their ability to operate safely or efficiently; and
• The polarisation in the community, with “severe differences” in opinion on how baboons should be managed and responded to. 

“This is not new but has escalated in recent times due to loud opposing voices. Most recently, this led to community unrest on 4 August 2024 where approximately 80 residents who wanted baboons out of the urban area were met with opposition from approximately six residents/individuals who believed that these residents intended to harm the baboons,” said the task team on the issue of polarisation. 

The team said there was an issue with some residents’ use of “extreme deterrent tactics” like paintball or pellet guns in Kommetjie. 

“[This causes] the baboons to scatter further afield, undoing the work of the rangers as they attempt to push individuals back together into groups to move them out of the area. The use of unpermitted weapons also poses a security and safety risk to the baboon rangers,” it said.

The task team claimed that some residents were feeding the baboons on their properties, which was illegal and detrimental to the rangers’ work.

When Daily Maverick asked about how the task team planned to address residents’ concerns about the impending shutdown of the baboon monitor programme, it responded, “The [team] will communicate the details of the transitioning period, starting on 1 January 2025, to the affected communities in due course.” DM

• If Kamala Harris wins the US presidential election, expect a surge in demand for gold coins in America, based on data from the World Gold Council.
• Historical trends show a significant increase in gold coin sales when a Democrat wins the White House, with Republicans also leaning towards gold bars.
• Conservative Republicans advocate for a return to the Gold Standard, linking the US dollar to bullion reserves, despite economists dismissing the idea as impractical.
• Gold's recent price surge is driven by emerging market central bank purchases and geopolitical uncertainty, but its stability as a monetary anchor is questionable.

Predicting market and demand trends can be a mug’s game, but here is one I feel pretty confident in making. 

If Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris beats Republican Donald Trump in November’s US presidential election, there will be a surge in demand for gold coins in America. 

I base this forecast on data compiled by the World Gold Council, which recently released a report on the effect of US elections on gold. 

The most pronounced trend to emerge from the data is the rush to buy gold coins if it looks like a Democrat will win the White House, a buying spree that continues apace if that scenario pans out. 

“Historical data suggests that the sale of gold coins via the US Mint tends to spike in anticipation of a Democratic victory,” the report says. 

“… in any given month the average volume of ounces in gold coins sold to authorised purchasers via the US Mint is roughly 60,800 ounces. However, during the month of an election in which the Democrats win, this figure has risen on average to 86,400 ounces, compared with 71,000 ounces for Republican victories over the past 37 years.” 

The real scramble

That is an over 42% rise on the monthly average in the month in which the Democrats win the White House. And then the real scramble begins. 

“… this pattern extends beyond the election month. Over the 12 months post a Democratic win, the average monthly volume sold is roughly 79,000 ounces compared to a mere 32,500 ounces observed after a Republican victory,” the report says. 

So when a Republican wins the presidency, such sales fall below the monthly average over the next 12 months, but surge when a Democrat secures the White House. Such sales account for about 5% of global demand, so don’t really move the needle much for the price.

But it’s an interesting case of how asset demand can be politically driven, and while the specific data in the report is focused on coins, Republicans are seen as significant buyers of gold bars, which account for about 17% of global demand. 

“Anecdotal evidence indicates that retail bar and coin buyers may be Republican leaning. This could partially explain the increase in demand around the election, particularly when a Democrat wins,” the report says. 

On this front, while the evidence may be anecdotal, it is also quite overwhelming. 

Gold Standard

US conservatives and Republicans have long been wild about the precious metal, and many are fervent backers of bringing back the Gold Standard, which Richard Nixon abandoned in 1971. 

The late conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh used his radio show to promote gold coins as a store of wealth, and right-wing agitator Glenn Beck has hawked the coins. 

“Project 2025”, an extremist policy document drawn up by the right-wing Heritage Foundation to guide another Trump term, pointedly calls for a return to the Gold Standard, which would link the value of the US dollar to bullion reserves. 

This would fix the exchange rate and allow the greenback to be freely converted into gold. And the gold coins that conservative Republicans are so taken with could be used as currency under such a system. 

Like so much of the Make America Great Again agenda, most economists see this as simply bonkers.  

It’s true that gold has been on an absolute tear and its price is near the record highs of almost $2,500 an ounce that it scaled last month. This has been driven by mostly emerging market central bank purchases as such portfolios diversify away from a reliance on the US dollar, as well as gold’s “safe-haven” status in times of rising geopolitical tensions and uncertainty. 

But like all commodities it is subject to speculative booms and busts, and is hardly a stable anchor for monetary policy. 

Conservative backlash

Part of the conservative backlash to the status quo is an objection to the US Federal Reserve’s power to craft monetary policy by setting interest rates in response to inflation. This is seen as an example of “Big Government” in such circles. 

And while the Fed doesn’t always get it right – there are current concerns that it has waited too long to cut rates and the US economy may be tipping into a downturn – a return to the Gold Standard is simply magical thinking. 

This, I think, is part of the appeal. 

I mean, Trump supporters clearly engage in “magical thinking” if they believe a transparent con artist has been sent by God – as many do – to save America from the leftist hordes.

This also explains why conservative Republicans trigger a rush for gold coins when a Democrat wins a presidential election. If you believe Kamala Harris is a far-left Marxist about to impose tax-and-spend policies that will unleash inflation, then gold coins are your hedge. 

It’s similar to the reason why gun sales surge in such a scenario: the fear that Democrats are going to come for your arsenal. 

It must be said that not everyone who regards gold as a store of wealth or investment option is a far-right extremist or Make America Great Again cultist. But conservative Republicans tend to be gold bulls, and a Democratic White House victory is a red flag that they will charge. 

And since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Harris – the current US vice-president – has roared into a lead over Trump, according to a number of polls including in key swing states that are seen as the path to victory. 

The election is almost three months away, but it looks like the sale of gold coins is set to fly in the US. DM 

• Delayed import duties on small parcels to be implemented by SARS from 1 September, including 15% VAT and 20% import tax as an interim measure. Final duties on various goods set for 1 November.
• Offshore retailers like Temu and Shein currently enjoy minimal taxes on imports, with parcels valued at under R500 taxed at 20% and no VAT, while parcels valued at over R500 face a 45% duty.
• South African e-commerce players and clothing sector unions push for tax hikes on offshore retailers exploiting loopholes, accused of undervaluing and splitting shipments to avoid higher duties.
• SARS commits to streamlining trade processes and addressing concerns over unfair competition in e-commerce, partnering with industry players to protect local businesses and stimulate economic growth.

The delayed import duties on small parcels will go into effect next month. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has announced that it will impose both VAT (15%) and a 20% import tax on small parcels from 1 September as an interim measure. 

The final “appropriate” duties on a range of goods will go into effect on 1 November.

Currently, customers of Temu and Shein are paying a minimal price for importing clothing and other products through the online offshore retailers. Parcels valued at under R500 are taxed at 20%, but don’t attract VAT; for parcels valued at over R500, they pay a 45% import duty.

South African ecommerce players such as Takealot, as well as clothing sector unions have long called for these taxes to be hiked because the offshore retailers have profited from exploiting the country’s laws which allow them to bring goods into the country at a lower cost than local rivals.

In April, leading South African e-commerce group Takealot, which incorporates the Takealot.com, Mr D and Superbalist platforms, said that it is under immense pressure from the Chinese players.

Known as the “de minimis rule”, the loophole has been exploited by Temu and Shein, that have been accused of splitting up larger orders into smaller packages to qualify for the lower import duties.

They have also been accused of undervaluing small shipments, which the National Clothing Retail Federation says has given the foreign businesses an unfair advantage at the expense of domestic clothing manufacturers.

The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) has lobbied SARS for two years to take action against the platforms to stem a surge in cheap items coming from China.

In June, SARS announced that it would clamp down on these imports, but earlier this month it was revealed that the new import duties had not yet been instituted. 

In a media statement, SARS has now said it remains committed to streamlining trade processes and creating a clear, predictable environment for businesses in an era of rapidly expanding e-commerce. 

‘Legitimate concerns’

“SARS noted legitimate concerns that have been expressed in the importation of several goods, especially clothing, via e-commerce by a number of importers who have not been paying the obligatory customs duties and VAT on these imports, resulting in unfair competition with other industry players.

“The concerns stem from the fact that, due to the immense scale of trade via e-commerce, SARS Customs implemented a ‘concession’ for goods valued at less than R500, in terms of which importers paid a flat rate of 20% in lieu of Customs duties and no VAT.”

To address these concerns and to provide clarity for importers of goods via e-commerce, SARS said it would make several changes in line with the World Customs Organisation (WCO) framework. 

It said the rapid growth of cross-border shipments of low-value goods through courier and express mail services in the early 1990s prompted the World Customs Organisation (WCO) to develop the WCO guidelines to standardise customs clearance procedures for e-commerce goods globally. 

The changes to be implemented include the introduction of VAT in addition to the current 20% flat rate customs duty by 1 September 2024, and the reconfiguration of the current 20% flat rate into the WCO regime for other categories of goods with appropriate duty rates, by 1 November 2024.

SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said that SARS would partner with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), as well as other industry players, to bolster public trust and create a fair business environment by protecting local industries and stimulating economic growth. He said that SARS would resort to “the greater use of data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and algorithms to better facilitate trade while minimising risks to the economy”.

Last month, Financial Times reported that the European Commission was planning to scrap the €150 (R2,987) threshold below which goods can be brought in duty-free, targeting China’s online marketplaces Temu and AliExpress and clothing retailer Shein. 

The British daily newspaper reported that last year, 2.3 billion items below the duty-free €150 threshold were imported into the EU. Ecommerce imports to the region had more than doubled year on year, reaching 350,000 items in April — which was almost two deliveries per household, commission data showed.

China benefited from subsidised postage costs, which made it cost-effective to send cheap goods by air, the Financial Times reported. The new provisions would apply to any online retailer shipping to EU customers directly from outside the bloc. 

US-based Amazon typically used sellers based in Europe, the Financial Times said. DM

• Agritourism promotion needed in the Karoo region, offering great cuisine, landscapes, and history.
• Karoo Lamb could boost economic activity and create jobs if properly marketed and supported as South African heritage food.
• Municipalities must invest in beautifying towns, improving infrastructure, and reducing crime to attract tourists and investors.
• Nationwide challenge of failing municipalities impacting economic growth, with a call to support local products and regulate misleading marketing.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Having spent a week in the Karoo among farmers, attending meetings and interacting with market agents, it would be fair to say this region is one of the most in need of agritourism promotion. The region has much to offer – great cuisine, landscapes, and history.

However, agritourism would also be a lifeline for some regions that previously relied on railway activities. There is now reduced economic activity. Thus, unemployment is rife, leaving some towns exposed to potential instability.

In the case of farmers, they do their part and create employment in their regions. Therefore, proper marketing of the unique and premium Karoo Lamb that most produce would bring the much-needed revenue, which would be reinvested in the farms, and ultimately, increased economic activity in the regions and job creation.

The marketing of Karoo Lamb requires societal support and is viewed as South African heritage food. This means that as we shop at our various retailers across South Africa, we must ask the store managers about the Karoo Lamb, great South African wines, fruits and our other high-quality regional foods.

Restaurants should also do their part and stop marketing any lamb as Karoo Lamb when they haven’t bought it from a certified abattoir or supplier.

Municipalities, particularly on the Northern Cape side of the Karoo region, must do their part in beautifying towns, keeping them clean and fixing municipal refuse dumps. Investing in proper recycling efforts will help to create valuable income for the poor and jobs for the locals.

Importantly, when people drive across the country and notice the cleanliness, beauty and care given to these towns, they may stop, spend money or even think of investing in such towns.

The provincial government also has a vital role in improving the road networks and ensuring that municipalities are functioning effectively. This is vital in ensuring the success of tourism. The issue of crime also needs a constant eye to ensure the safety of these towns. When towns are carefully maintained and clean, roads are constantly fixed and crime is low, economic activity will recover over time.

But we can all agree that the small towns of the Karoo are microcosms of the bigger problems in municipalities across South Africa. Perhaps the neglect of infrastructure in other towns is even more stark.

Here, I think of my home province, the Eastern Cape, where we read regularly about corruption. At the same time, we know that for some villages in the province life has not improved much, at least in terms of connectivity, roads, water infrastructure and safety.

So, agritourism and tourism in its entirety will not improve much and yield greater economic benefits for the Eastern Cape if such neglect continues. I am raising the Eastern Cape issue because, as I drove through some small towns in the Karoo and saw a sense of hopelessness and despair in the streets among the unemployed, I could recognise those difficulties from the Eastern Cape.

The issue of failing and weak municipalities is a nationwide challenge, and especially in North West, the Free State and Gauteng. Properly functioning municipalities and roads are vital for the farming sector – these are the links to markets and routes used to bring various inputs to farms and across agribusinesses.

The current inadequacies lead to increased transaction costs and weigh on multiple businesses and, ultimately, job creation. I know of dairy farms in the Eastern Cape that bleed cost-wise because of the poor roads and water infrastructure and the failure of the local government to improve matters after several attempts to engage them.

Therefore, to meaningfully support the broader Karoo region and its people, the first step is to buy their high-quality products. The second part lies with the regulators ensuring they keep an eye on food fraud in restaurants and other outlets that inappropriately market their products as “Karoo”, misleading consumers.

More importantly, the provincial and local governments should consistently improve the road and water infrastructure, keep the towns clean, and deal with crime. This same approach must apply across all small towns of South Africa.

Our country has many opportunities – let’s embrace them and consistently build communities. DM

• Chinese badminton player Liu Yuchen proposes to Ya Qiong Huang after her Olympic victory in Paris
• French steeplechase athlete Alice Finot breaks European record, proposes to partner at Stade de France
• French sailing bronze medallists Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon are proposed to by their boyfriends post-Olympics
• Love wins at the Paris 2024 Olympics as athletes seal victories with heartfelt proposals

• The Miss South Africa event at the weekend was an exercise in hypocrisy.
• At the centre is how we define ourselves as South Africans and our country as part of Africa.
• Like xenophobia, this debacle holds nothing of value for anyone.
• Nationality and identity issues continue to fuel xenophobia in South Africa, highlighting complexities of immigration laws and prejudices.

Last week, the Patriotic Alliance, led by the minister of sport, arts and culture, Gayton McKenzie, publicly claimed that 23-year-old Chidimma Adetshina did not qualify for the finals of the Miss South Africa beauty pageant.

This was because both of her parents were not born in South Africa. Later, the home affairs minister, the DA’s Leon Schreiber, issued a statement confirming that his department was investigating whether Adetshina’s mother had committed fraud in 2001.

To his credit, he said that Adetshina had played no part in any wrongdoing — she was an infant in 2001.

The PA then approached a court, arguing that Adetshina should not compete in the competition, and she withdrew from it. 

It is hard to escape the sense that the PA and its leaders, McKenzie and Kenny Kunene, are guilty of plain bullying here. They would have known, and not cared, that this would cause Adetshina pain even as she has played no part in our public life or committed any wrongdoing in connection with her legal citizenship.

If it turns out that she was not legally granted South African citizenship she would not be the first — former DA MP Phumzile van Damme found out through a very difficult and public process that she had been born in Eswatini, while official documents had proclaimed that she was born in Mbombela.

Other politicians have found themselves in a similar position. In Australia, 15 MPs were found to be occupying their office illegally after it emerged that they held dual citizenship.

Targets of xenophobia

Our current political situation is such that issues around identity and nationality are likely to be contested in many ways for some time.

Only about 3% of the people living in South Africa are from other countries.

However, the fact they are visible and may have higher levels of economic activity than many South Africans has made them targets of xenophobia. 

Perhaps the first public figure to use xenophobia for political gain was Herman Mashaba while he was DA mayor of Joburg.

He was followed by the PA, the ATM and several other parties.

Even the DA once claimed it would make the issue of immigration a major part of its election manifesto, but then stepped back from doing so. It was their home affairs minister who made a public statement.

While Schreiber may have felt he had no choice in going public with the decision to investigate Adetshina’s citizenship, this could well blow up in his face.  

It could be that Adetshina’s mother lied when she was registered. Or that she, in good faith, asked someone else to register her child (perhaps through an agent or agency) who then lied to her.

As the immigration lawyer Stefanie de Saude-Darbandi wrote this weekend, there have been many cases when officials have given citizenship applicants the wrong advice. She pointed out that it would be impossible for any foreign national to break the law without the connivance of a South African Home Affairs official.

It may be impossible to prove what happened. Schreiber might well be asked why he decided to make a public statement if it turns out there was no wrongdoing. Without his statement, Adetshina could argue that she may have won the contest.

Nationality and the law

This gets to the heart of very difficult questions about nationality and the law.

The Department of Home Affairs — and its counterparts around the world — is at the centre of so many controversies because it is the department where human behaviour, such as sexual identity, falling in love, having children and moving around the world in a non-binary way, has to be defined in a binary way under the law.

But to judge, or in any way change the way you treat a person because of where they were born is the height of absurdity and prejudice.

Our grandchildren might one day find it as difficult to understand why people were treated so differently based on where they were born, as do many young children to understand racism today.

This is also a useful reminder of the southern African experience of nationality.

Since long before the colonial era, people have moved around southern Africa. The discovery of diamonds in what is now Kimberley and then the gold rush in what is now Gauteng led to a huge movement of people into what is now South Africa.

The upshot was that some people who were born in other countries played an immense role in our history and some people born here played major roles in the history of other countries.

For example, the ANC leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Luthuli was born in Zimbabwe; the founder of the National Union of Mineworkers, James Motlatsi, was from Lesotho; and the late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace Mugabe was born in Benoni, as was the Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron. Springbok prop Tendai Mtawarira, known to the rugby world as “The Beast”, was born in Zimbabwe.

It seems strange to suggest to voters that people from other countries must be treated differently, while our government has publicly celebrated the success of the Ndlovu Youth Choir in a television competition called America’s Got Talent.  

Jean Ping, who had a Chinese father, was the chair of the African Union Commission. In the UK, the fact that a former prime minister, the current mayor of London, and the immediate past leader of the Scottish National Party were all of Asian descent has been rightly celebrated as proof that ethnic identity should not be a factor in anyone’s life.

Such are the vagaries of the legalities of citizenship that at least six pairs of brothers have played football for the national teams of different countries. 

Miss SA organisers

Unfortunately, politicians are not the only hypocrites in the Miss South Africa debacle. 

The Miss South Africa organisers was one of the groups who first approached the Department of Home Affairs asking for clarity about Adetshina’s citizenship. While they might say this was out of concern or because they were determined to ensure no law was broken, they should have known that the controversy would bring much more attention to their event. 

The fact that the event was held over the Women’s Day long weekend suggests an attempt to link beauty with the value of a woman.

Such a claim defies rationality, but this is an organisation with a long history of hypocrisy.

In 2021, it proclaimed that its acceptance of a contestant who identified as transgender was proof it was inclusive.

However, just a year before, its rules stated: “The applicant shall not ever have been married, nor had a marriage annulled… Miss South Africa titleholders are also required to remain unmarried throughout their reign… It is accepted that while an applicant may be in a committed relationship or engaged, they must adhere to the rule of not getting married … during the year of reign.”

They were also not allowed to become pregnant or to be the legal guardian of a child.

Irrational

There is no rational reason for these requirements — if the objective is to assess “beauty”, what possible influence could a contestant’s marital status have? And why would it be such a mortal sin to become pregnant?

This is in complete defiance of the reality of our society, where many young women find themselves the de facto parents of young children through no choice of their own. Without the incredible efforts of these young women, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of young children would be left uncared for.

While the Miss South Africa competition may claim to be inclusive, over the years it has appeared to ensure that the winner has not been married, a parent, pregnant, short or skinny.

It has no bearing on our country or the lived existence of almost everybody in SA.

The furore over Adetshina has been closely watched in Nigeria, where politicians have been rightly concerned about xenophobia against their people in South Africa. 

One of the responses was from the Miss Universe Nigeria competition inviting Adetshina to be a part of their contest.

While the rules of participation in that pageant are not clear on its website, it seems unlikely that contestants who have already qualified will welcome this. This appears to be an attempt to benefit from the controversy.

Even the Puebla International Literature Festival in Mexico said it had rescinded South Africa’s status as the Country in Focus as a result of this furore.

It says this is a statement against injustice.

Its organisers had conferred this status on our nation despite our unjust inequality and the appearance that it supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Somehow, the organisers of the event decided that this furore over a young beauty contestant was more unjust than anything else our government had done before.

Beauty pageants are magnets for hypocrisy. For people who watch them, they are an exercise in confirming their own biases, an opportunity to claim that their “standards of beauty” are correct.

Like xenophobia, this debacle holds nothing of value for anyone. DM

• ANC to hold disciplinary hearings for MPs implicated in State Capture, including Gigaba, Mahlobo and Frolick.
• Gigaba accused of conspiring with Zuma and Guptas, Mahlobo of bribing judges, and Frolick of dodgy dealings with Bosasa.
• ANC's Integrity Commission to resume disciplinary processes for members damaging party's image.
• ANC luminary Netshitenzhe finds party lost votes due to lack of public confidence, calls for renewal and accountability.

The African National Congress (ANC) is moving forward with its renewal project as three members of Parliament implicated in State Capture are set to face long-overdue disciplinary hearings.

This development is meant to signal a turning point in the party’s commitment to accountability and the restoration of public trust. The hearings are seen as a critical step in addressing the legacy of State Capture and bolstering the ANC’s integrity.

Those facing scrutiny are former ministers Malusi Gigaba, David Mahlobo and Cedric Frolick, who have been implicated in corruption scandals. 

Gigaba was implicated at the Zondo Commission for allegedly conspiring with former president Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.

Possibly the most damning testimony heard by the commission against Gigaba came from his ex-wife Norma, who testified that Gigaba would come home with bags of cash from the Guptas. Gigaba called the allegations “patently untrue”.

Mahlobo, now the deputy minister of water and sanitation, was accused of bribing judges during his tenure as state security minister under “Project Justice”. The operation allegedly had a R1.8-million monthly budget and was aimed at influencing the judiciary. Mahlobo has denied the allegations.

Frolick, the chair of the House committee in the National Assembly, was implicated in the Zondo Commission’s State Capture report. He was accused of having dodgy dealings with Bosasa.

He is said to have played a critical role in “winning over Mr Vincent Smith, the [former] Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services and Justice” to the benefit of Bosasa’. In 2020, Smith was criminally charged with corruption related to Bosasa.

Frolick was one of four MPs cleared by the  Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests after being implicated in the State Capture report.

Clean-up attempt

The ANC’s top officials recommended Gigaba, Mahlobo, Frolick and Zizi Kodwa withdraw from the party’s national and provincial candidate lists before the 29 May general election. However, the four declined to do so and were not forced to by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC).

Former minister Kodwa resigned as an MP in July after he was criminally charged in connection with corruption charges in June. The ANC had deployed him as an MP in Parliament despite being fully aware he was facing criminal charges. 

ANC Veterans’ League President Snuki Zikalala told the Sunday Times this week that ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula informed them that he had written to the party’s Integrity Commission asking it to resume disciplinary processes after it declined to take action ahead of the elections. Zikalala told the Sunday Times this would be remedied.

“All issues that relate to the integrity and dignity of the organisation, we have raised them… We had a thorough discussion on Zizi and [Mbalula] has taken action. On the other three, action will be taken against them,” said Zikalala.

“There will be a meeting of the NEC that will discuss the Integrity Commission’s report on those found wanting in State Capture. It will happen and [Mbalula] promised that.”

ANC luminary Joel Netshitenzhe’s election assessment found that the ANC had haemorrhaged votes because people lost confidence in it. 

Mbalula has been vocal in press briefings about the party’s plans to get the National Disciplinary Committee to deal with those damaging the party’s image. 

He recently said a special NEC meeting would be held to look at outstanding Integrity Commission reports.

In his closing remarks to the ANC lekgotla last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa said if members “tolerate acts of corruption and patronage … then not even the best communications strategy will be able to improve our standing among the people.

“The renewal of the ANC must be reflected in our everyday behaviour, on how we conduct ourselves in public platforms and what we post on social media. Let us not occupy headlines for the wrong reasons. Let us be known for excellence and competence.”

Other members facing allegations

Other ANC members are implicated in State Capture allegations.

It remains to be seen whether the Integrity Commission will investigate Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, whom Zondo referred to the National Prosecuting Authority for investigation after he allegedly received security installations from Bosasa for no charge.

At the time, Mantashe was the ANC’s secretary-general and did not hold any position in government. He now serves as the party’s national chairperson.

Zondo found Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni was “probably culpable” in the Guptas’ capturing of Denel, along with other board members of the parastatal.

Former minister Nomvula Mokonyane is alleged to have received gratification from Bosasa.

Acting ANC spokesperson Zuko Godlimpi said he could not confirm whether more ANC members would face disciplinary charges.

Zikalala told Daily Maverick that Mbalula mentioned only Frolick, Mahlobo and Gigaba. DM

• uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party plans to bring controversial figures to Parliament, including Brian Molefe, Lucky Montana and Siyabonga Gama, all facing past fraud and corruption charges.
• Proposed parliamentary members include relatives of party leadership, sparking nepotism accusations and internal tensions.
• Tom Moyane withdraws from Parliament consideration, opting for other party activities.
• Parliament receives MK party's removal of 15 MPs, triggering allegations of cronyism and power struggles within the party.

In an unsurprising move that will shake South Africa’s political landscape, the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, the Government of National Unity’s official opposition, is reportedly planning to bring several controversial figures to Parliament. Among those slated for parliamentary seats are former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana and former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama – all of whom have previously faced charges of fraud and corruption relating to the state-owned enterprises they once led.

Adding to the controversy is the inclusion of individuals who appear to have close familial ties to the MK party leadership. The proposed list seen by Daily Maverick and submitted to Parliament suggests that the new members may include relatives of the party’s parliamentary chief whip, Sihle Ngubane, and a relative of party leader Jacob Zuma. The implications of these connections have fuelled accusations of nepotism and have exacerbated tensions within the party.

Daily Maverick has further learnt that former South African Revenue Service commissioner Tom Moyane, who was also expected to take up a seat in Parliament, has decided to withdraw from consideration. Instead, Moyane will pursue other interests, including activities within the party.

The proposed changes are outlined in letters dated 5 July, in which  Ngubane informed National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza of the removal of certain members and their proposed replacements. The MK party had made headlines for abruptly removing more than a dozen MPs, ostensibly to make way for figures like Molefe – a move that outraged  many in the party.

Read more: Zuma’s MK party ousts 15 MPs in rapid shake-up, sparking allegations of cronyism

Parliament has confirmed that it has received correspondence from the MK party advising the Speaker of its decision to remove 15 of its public representatives from the National Assembly (NA). According to the Constitution, a person loses membership of the NA if they cease to be a member of the party that nominated them to Parliament.

“Simultaneously, the Speaker has received email correspondence of persons on the party’s reserve list, indicating their unavailability to fill any vacancies in the National Assembly,” a statement from Parliament reads 

“The emails were submitted through the party’s chief whip in Parliament. The Speaker is currently considering these correspondences, and a decision will be made in due course,” it says. 

The sudden and drastic purge has led to allegations of cronyism and internal power struggles. Aggrieved party members have accused Ngubane and Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Sambhudla-Zuma, of orchestrating the ousting of MPs to consolidate their own influence within the party. Sambhudla-Zuma has denied any involvement in the matter.

There are also claims that party leader Jacob Zuma is unaware of the changes. “We met with the president following the swearing-in and he was happy with us. He never discussed any of these new changes,” said one MP who lost their seat.

The Daily Maverick sought a comment from Zuma, but was directed to the party spokesperson by the spokesperson of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, Mzwanele Manyi, who is an EFF member.

Speaking on behalf of the MK party, Nhlamulo Ndhela defended the decision to replace the MPs, stating that those affected were aware of their impending removal and were advised not to proceed with their swearing-in. “They were further advised not to proceed to avail themselves for the swearing-in, or if they so wished, proceed with the understanding that they would be replaced at a later stage, pending the parliamentary procedures,” he said.

Ndhela also alleged that the MK party’s IEC list had been compromised by saboteurs who populated it with friends, family members and neighbours. He claimed that even Zuma’s inclusion on the list was premature, and that the plan was to introduce him later, as was done with former judge John Hlophe. A case regarding the list has reportedly been opened at the Sandton police station.

“The letter of the chief whip to Parliament was leaked, and certain terminated members further leaked them to social media. It is this ill-discipline and rogue behaviour that has led to the spurious misleading reports,” Ndhela added. 

The MK party is yet to finalise its constitution and is still led by an interim leadership. DM

• Iran vows to retaliate against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, while Israel expands presence in Abu Dhabi, strengthening ties with UAE amid regional tensions.
• US bolsters forces in the Middle East to support Israel against potential attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, ahead of Gaza ceasefire talks scheduled for later this week.
• Efforts to secure ceasefire and release hostages in Gaza intensify, with US and Israeli officials discussing strategies to deter aggression from Iran-aligned groups.
• Israel's military campaign against Hamas continues, with deadly strikes drawing international condemnation as ceasefire talks loom. Rift emerges in Israeli leadership over approach to conflict.

Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, reiterated the country’s determination to punish Israel for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in particular.

Israel Aerospace Industries is proceeding with a plan to establish a presence in Abu Dhabi, where it will convert Emirates aircraft into freighters, highlighting how the United Arab Emirates remains committed to building ties with Israel even as tensions rise in the region.

US beefs up Middle East forces ahead of Gaza truce talks

The US shored up naval and air forces in the Middle East to help Israel fend off any major attack from Iran or Lebanon’s Hezbollah, ahead of a resumption of Gaza ceasefire talks planned for later this week.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group, equipped with F-35C fighters, to speed up its arrival in the region and also dispatched the guided-missile submarine USS Georgia, according to a readout from a call with Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Sunday.

The move bolsters Israeli defences and may deter Iran, which — along with its Hezbollah proxy — has vowed reprisals for the back-to-back assassinations of top militants in Beirut and Tehran almost two weeks ago.

Read more: Israel bolsters infrastructure defence amid Iranian threats

Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, reiterated the country’s determination to punish Israel for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in particular. Washington is keen to avoid a major flare-up three months before a presidential election. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.

The US, Qatar and Egypt last week called for a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks on 15 August, an effort to resolve long-deadlocked negotiations between Israel and Hamas more than 10 months into their war. Hamas has pushed back against the proposal, saying discussions should centre on implementing previous plans.

France, Germany and the UK endorsed the plan for talks on Monday and urged Iran to refrain from attacks.

Israel has agreed to attend the talks. One Israeli official said they would take place in Doha with a focus on whether Hamas might relent on truce terms. Another Israeli official said the Arab mediators would confer with Hamas afterwards. Israel has not yielded on its main terms, said the officials, who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue.

Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Yemen-based Houthis engaging in rocket-fire battles in solidarity. All three groups are sponsored by Iran and designated terrorist organisations by the US.

Read more: How Iran extends its power via allied militant groups: QuickTake

Austin and Gallant discussed “efforts to deter aggression by Iran, Hezbollah and other Iran-aligned groups across the region” and progress towards securing a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza, according to the statement from the US Department of Defense.

Gallant’s office played up the “inter-operability” of Israeli and US military systems, indicating the allies would fight as a united front.

Previous rounds of ceasefire talks have been held up in part by Israel’s determination to resume fighting after any pause to ensure Hamas is destroyed. Hamas has demanded a total Israeli withdrawal from the coastal Palestinian territory it has run since 2007, now partially destroyed by months of war.

Other sticking points include the number of hostages Hamas is prepared to release and when, and which Palestinian prisoners would be offered in return.

A deal that offers Hamas a reprieve could be enough to persuade Iran and its proxy groups to hold off on their promised attacks. But Israeli media has speculated a retaliation for the assassinations could come before the truce talks are scheduled to start.

Israel’s military campaign against Hamas continues, with a deadly strike on Gaza City attracting international condemnation at the weekend. The Israeli military said the attack, which Hamas authorities said killed about 100 people, was aimed at a Hamas “command and control centre” embedded within a school and adjacent mosque and that at least 31 fighters were among the dead.

“These are fateful days,” Israel’s Maariv newspaper quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as telling his Cabinet members, adding that he instructed them not to discuss the stand-off in public. Netanyahu’s office had no comment on the report.

But a rift still opened up in high office, after the Ynet news site quoted Gallant as speaking dismissively, during a closed-door parliamentary session, of the concept of “total victory” which has been Netanyahu’s rallying cry.

Gallant’s spokespeople declined to comment on the report, which drew a rebuke from Netanyahu. “When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage-release deal,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Israel Aerospace to set up freighter shop in Abu Dhabi

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is proceeding with a plan to establish a presence in Abu Dhabi, where it will convert Emirates aircraft into freighters, highlighting how the United Arab Emirates remains committed to building ties with Israel even as tensions rise in the region.

The aviation arm of IAI, which provides maintenance repair and overhaul services for aircraft, is set to reconfigure 10 Boeing 777s from Emirates’ fleet into cargo freighters at two hangars starting in October, said Shmuel Kuzi, the executive vice-president of the division.

The Israeli company had signed a deal with the airline to convert four aircraft in 2021, which at the time marked one of the first outcomes for aviation companies from the normalisation of relations between the UAE and Israel.

Relationships between Israel and several nations across the Middle East have been strained since October, when the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza. Turkey halted trade with the state, while US-led efforts to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to formally recognise each other have stalled. The UAE, meanwhile, has pledged to stick with its decision to recognise Israel, though it has frequently criticised the country for continuing its war in Gaza and has called for a ceasefire.

“The situation is very, very sensitive,” said Kuzi, referring to talks with airlines and leasing companies that are current or future customers. “Aviation is always influenced by the political issues, but today I’m able to say that hangars are full.” DM

Read more: Middle East Crisis news hub

• Russia intensifying offensive in Africa, facing resistance from Ukraine, turning continent into proxy battlefield
• Setback for Kremlin as Wagner Group suffers heavy casualties in Mali skirmish, challenging Russian expansion in Africa
• Russian presence expanding in Niger and Central African Republic, countering Western influence
• Russia maintains strong foothold in Libya, speculation over motives for engagement in the region

Russia appears to be intensifying its offensive – on various fronts – to gain influence in Africa, and its enemy Ukraine is fighting back, threatening to make the continent a major proxy battlefield. 

Minor military skirmishes elsewhere in Africa exploded last week when Moscow’s Wagner Group (now Africa Corps) took heavy casualties in a battle with Tuareg separatists and jihadists in Tinzaouaten, Mali. This was a setback for the Kremlin, which appeared to be expanding its presence or at least rebuffing Western efforts to regain lost African ground.

Russian soldiers had already begun filling the vacuum left by the US with the withdrawal of its last troops this week from Agadez, Niger. The US base had been used to monitor Islamist extremists throughout the Sahel. In Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s Central African Republic – effectively a client state of Moscow’s for some years – Wagner operatives scuppered attempts by the US security outfit Bancroft Global Development to establish itself in Bangui in January. 

Russia has also maintained a strong foothold in Libya, fighting on the side of strongman Khalifa Haftar, the military head of the eastern government based in Benghazi, against the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, in the west. 

That war went cold in 2020, but as Chatham House Libya expert Tim Eaton told ISS Today, thousands of Wagner troops were expected to remain in Libya. The Russians still operate their airbase at Jufra in central Libya, and Russian military materiel is still entering the east. “There is a lot of speculation over the extent to which Russian engagement in Libya is about Libya, or access to Africa (particularly the Sahel) or both,” Eaton said.  

‘Marketing campaign’

On the propaganda front, Russia’s state-owned television network RT seems to be trying to relaunch or rebrand itself in Africa. An extensive marketing campaign of billboards and other advertising media featured images of liberation heroes such as Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Uganda’s Apollo Milton Obote, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. “Your Values. Shared,” the billboards read. In a press release, RT claims it is committed to the “dismantling of neo-colonialist narratives in news media”.

But it’s difficult to establish RT’s actual presence in Africa. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the network was widely pulled off the air and now seems to be operating largely through Chinese proxies.

South African media analyst Anton Harber said RT’s campaign was “too dated”’ to hold much sway with young Africans. Also: “There is a huge irony in RT promoting itself as a voice of anti-colonialism at a time when Russia is increasing its influence on the continent in ways that could be described as neo-colonial. One thing we know about RT is that it is not an African voice, but Putin’s outlet, there to serve him and his country. So it is dressing up its ambitions for influence in Africa, with a paternalistic anti-colonial rhetoric.”

However, Samuel Ramani, Russia-Africa relations expert at the Royal United Services Institute and Oxford University, believes plugging the old anti-Western colonialism line “will definitely increase Russia’s soft power over time”.

Russia’s information war, as in the US in 2016, is also being conducted below the radar in Africa, with bots trying to influence election outcomes in South Africa, Madagascar and perhaps elsewhere. 

Though Moscow’s African offensive is broadly aimed at the West, it is also more narrowly aimed at Ukraine, at least concerning propaganda. And Ukraine is fighting back.

Ukraine’s special envoy for Africa and the Middle East, Maksym Subkh, said the country is opening several new embassies in Africa. This is not only to boost diplomatic, economic and other relations but to counter Russia’s anti-Ukraine propaganda. A wider diplomatic footprint would allow Ukraine to help Africans counter Wagner’s influence because, he said, Kyiv had learnt how to deal with Wagner when it was fighting it in Ukraine.

After last week’s fierce battle in Tinzaouaten, when Tuareg separatists claimed to have killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian troops, senior Ukrainian intelligence agency spokesperson officer Andriy Yusov said the Malian rebels had received the ‘necessary’ information to conduct the attack – implying it came from Ukraine.

In response, Mali’s military junta severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine, accusing it of supporting “international terrorism”. Ukraine denied the charge, saying Mali had acted hastily without investigating the full circumstances of the incident or providing evidence of Ukraine’s involvement. 

Mali’s fellow military junta regime in Niger also broke diplomatic ties with Kyiv. And Russia accused Ukraine of opening a new front in Africa – which is of course deeply ironic. 

If the Russia-Ukraine war has indeed spilt over into Africa, it could have grave implications for the continent. The Economic Community of West African States, in a rather general statement, condemned ‘foreign interference in the region … as well as any attempt to draw the region into the current geopolitical confrontations.’ The African Union seemingly hasn’t responded. 

But this development may not be entirely new in Africa. Ramani suggests that if Ukraine were indeed involved in Wagner’s defeat in Mali, that would be consistent with its strategy towards Africa, which he said had two prongs. First, diplomatic outreach through establishing new embassies and second, “below-the-radar special operations like we have seen against the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] in Sudan”.

RSF is engaged in a ferocious civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Russia, and particularly Wagner, are widely known to have been supporting the RSF. And in February, the Kyiv Post reported that Ukrainian special forces were operating in Sudan, backing the SAF against the RSF-aligned Wagner forces. 

Ramani suggested that Wagner’s defeat in Mali was no cause for complacency. It would lead to introspection, and Wagner forces probably being placed under greater state control, “much like the process currently underway in Libya”.

He added that “it might also give Burkina Faso and Niger, which are allowing small contingents of Russian advisers to operate in their countries … second thoughts about entrusting Russia more broadly with counter-terrorism missions”. But Ramani says Russia has suffered major military setbacks before – and will bounce back. 

“Russia is a very agile, flexible and nimble player which can take advantage of coups and crises. Its influence is likely to endure mainly because African countries see it as an integral pole within the international system and a power to be engaged with alongside others, and not a country that should be isolated like the West wants them to.’

Peter Fabricius is a consultant at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria.

First published by ISS Today

• Edmond Phiri's controversial article leads to Press Council ruling against Sunday Independent and Sekunjalo-owned titles.
• Panel upholds complaints of breaches in Press Code regarding dignity, reputation, and fair comment.
• Media Monitoring Africa admitted as amicus curiae in the case, addressing procedural and substantive issues.

Edmond Phiri exists. Or at least that’s what we are told. But when asked in a recent virtual hearing of an adjudication panel of the Press Council to turn on his camera, Phiri “said that the desktop computer he was using did not have a camera”. When asked “whether he could at least briefly use his mobile phone to show himself, he said he did not have data”.

It is not at all clear whether the dog also ate his homework.

It was Phiri’s article – “Is Karyn Maughan South Africa’s Leni Riefenstahl – the Nazi Film Propagandist?” – that was the focus of the virtual hearing at which Phiri may or may not have appeared.

In their complaint about the article that was first published in the Sekunjalo-owned Sunday Independent on 3 March 2024, News24 and Maughan alleged two separate breaches of the Press Code: clause 3.3, read with clause 7.2; and clause 2.1.

Clause 3.3 requires the press to “exercise care and consideration in matters involving dignity and reputation”, with clause 7.2 effectively recognising the defamation law defence of fair (or protected) comment.

In terms of clause 2.1, the media “shall… not allow commercial, political, personal or other non-professional considerations to influence reporting, and avoid conflicts of interest as well as practices that could lead readers to doubt the media’s independence and professionalism”.

Both aspects of the complaint were upheld by the panel in its ruling on 6 August 2024, with the Sunday Independent and all other Sekunjalo-owned titles that published the article being directed to retract it and apologise to Maughan. The article had been promoted on social media, and presumably also published by IOL, Pretoria News, The Star, Mercury, Daily News, Cape Times and Cape Argus, as well as by Iqbal Survé, Sekunjalo’s chair.

Read the adjudication panel’s ruling.

In addition to the two substantive issues, to which we return below, the panel had to consider two procedural points: first, whether the complaint ought to have been accepted; and second, the nature and extent of the role to be played by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), which had also lodged a complaint, but was admitted as amicus curiae (friend of the court/panel). MMA describes itself as “a nonprofit organisation aiming to be ‘Africa’s pre-eminent [media] ‘watchdog’”.

On the first procedural issue, the panel found “the objections raised as excessively technical ones that are at odds with the letter and spirit of the [Press Council] process”. The complaint had first been directed at IOL, which claimed it had wrongly been cited, as the article had been published first by the Sunday Independent. It, in turn, refused to entertain the complaint, because it was addressed to IOL. By the time an updated complaint was sent through, Sunday Independent claimed it was out of time.

On the second issue, the panel had to consider Sunday Independent’s objection to MMA’s participation on two grounds: first, that “the matter was between two parties and adding another party did not ‘sit very well’”; and second, that MMA “sought to widen the ambit of the complaint and were not relevant”. The panel resolved this procedural issue by admitting MMA as amicus curiae, limiting its participation to “addressing points made in the main complaint”.

Insofar as the first complaint (“exercise care and consideration in matters involving dignity and reputation”) is concerned, the panel noted that a failure to fall within the protection offered by clause 7.2 does not, on its own, constitute a breach of the Press Code. Rather, it simply opens the door to considering whether a provision such as clause 3.3 has indeed been breached. In this case, the panel found that the article couldn’t rely on the safe harbour provided by clause 7.2, because – as comment – “it did not take adequate account of the facts”.

Despite noting “that comment writers should be given latitude to develop their arguments and are allowed to use hyperbole and other devices to make their case”, the panel nevertheless found that the article could not rely on the protection offered by clause 7.2 because of the breadth and severity of the attack on Maughan, which was based upon “the thinnest of foundations”. Even a self-commissioned report, “which purported to identify bias in Maughan’s reporting over five years”, could not assist.

Without the protection of clause 7.2, it was always going to be difficult for the article not to be seen as in breach of clause 3.3. Importantly, the article was not considered in isolation, but rather in light of the manner in which it was promoted online, including by Survé himself, as well as in the context of “the well-known history of gender-related abuse directed at Maughan and other female journalists online”. In their view, the article represented “a torrent of unsubstantiated abuse”.

It was in dealing with the second complaint that the panel considered Phiri’s identity. Noting that they did “not have conclusive evidence that the byline is a pseudonym”, they “proceed[ed] on the basis that the person… [they] heard was the author, an occasional contributor to Independent titles”. In large part, this appears to be based on the recognition that “answerability for publication rests with the proprietor, who is represented by the editor”. In short, you publish at your peril.

Finding in favour of the complainants, the panel made a number of devastating findings in respect of various editorial decisions taken by the Sunday Independent and its sister titles. In particular, the panel found that the newspaper “allowed corporate interests to influence its editorial decision to publish the column at issue, creating a conflict of interest that breaches clause 2.1”.

Put simply, Sekunjalo-owned publications are being used by their editors to advance Sekunjalo’s corporate interests.

On 8 August 2024, just two days after the panel’s ruling was issued, Sekunjalo-owned “Independent Media… slammed the SA Press Council ruling in favour of a complaint made by News24 and journalist Karyn Maughan against an opinion piece by Edmond Phiri”, characterising it “as a ‘serious misstep’ endangering press freedom and revealing the Press Council’s systematic prejudice”. If an application for leave to appeal is to be made, as expected, this should happen by 16 August 2024. DM

GroundUp publishes the Ombud Watcher column to inform the public about Press Council rulings. The editor of GroundUp takes full responsibility for the content of this column.

First published by GroundUp.

The frightening scenes of far-right extremists clashing with police and even rioting in British towns and cities in recent days have many wondering how to stop the spread of the propaganda that encourages racism, violence and misogyny.

The tough truth is that, in seeking to fact check misinformation and force social media companies to remove hateful content, we are doing it wrong. Another message will simply pop up in place of each one that is removed. The people who plant propaganda are far more advanced in their methods than the people trying to stop them. They are not thinking about messages, but about audience. Hate is clickbait. And social media algorithms put it on steroids.

The unrest started in Southport, England, where a group who claimed to be “protesting” against the deaths of three young girls during a knife attack in the area attacked a mosque. They seemed to believe that the attack was perpetrated by a migrant (which was untrue). More than 50 police officers were injured when they responded to the emergency.

Misleading messages about the Southport attack were posted online, and Reform UK MP Nigel Farage “questioned” whether we were being lied to about the Southport attacker’s identity (although he told the BBC that he had “merely expressed a sense of sadness and concern that is being felt by absolutely everybody I know”).

Out of date

Our working definitions of propaganda are hopelessly outdated because they all focus on message. And message is unimportant because propagandists will say anything to generate clicks, income or power. They will post calls to “build a wall” and “stop the boats”. They will claim “those kids were murdered in the name of Islam”.

Factual accuracy  is not important – what matters is that those who wield online influence identify and target a power base.

If what they say is taken down, they will simply find a different way to say it to the people they are trying to reach. In the meantime, they can claim to be censored victims of the establishment.

They appeal to emotion rather than rationality, and though their messaging is equal parts ludicrous and disturbing to the rest of us, it wins an audience. Therefore, that audience – rather than the messaging – should be our focus.

‘Imagined communities’

The modern propagandist creates what political scientist Benedict Anderson described as “imagined communities”. He argued that states and nations (and mass media) are founded by successfully creating a community with its own foundation myths, symbols and history. This chimes with the work of propagandist theorist Jacques Ellul, who argued that myths were central and necessary to successful propaganda.

Some symbols are well known and largely shared among us all – spitfires, the British bobby, royalty. But others, like the “cockroach” immigrant, the loss of national agency and the language of conspiracy theories, are foundational to a community that speaks only to itself.

Worse still, those who don’t share their beliefs are naive and need to “do their own research”. Marianna Spring, the BBC disinformation and social media correspondent, found in her recently published book, Among the Trolls, algorithmic rabbit holes with their own imagined communities.

Such myths are also fundamental in the process of generating “agitation” propaganda. Traditionally, agitation propaganda is the casus belli summoned by states to send people to war. In the same way, the hatred of today’s racist bigot and the misogyny of the incel are both founded in “agitation” propaganda. Influencer Andrew Tate, for example, has made his name summoning an army of men to fight for his cause.

As Ellul would have it, “hate is generally its most profitable resource… Hatred is probably the most spontaneous and common sentiment. It consists of attributing one’s misfortunes and sins to ‘another’… Propaganda of agitation succeeds each time it designates someone as the source of all misery, provided that he is not too powerful.”

Add to this mix social media bots and it brews a poison for our democratic public sphere.

Finding the lost

Fact-checking is not useless, but it doesn’t resolve the central problem. Better to identify the silos, and work with their members.

We could water down the messaging being sent out to the people causing unrest on the streets with other, better sources. We might even block some of the networks that deliver the content.

This is better than playing fake news whack-a-mole. Once we have identified the silos of information, we can target the algorithms that create them, and those being targeted or isolated.

We can then mediate and ameliorate the problem by reaching out to these groups, spending our energies introducing alternative views, new symbols and foundational myths, negating the effects of the algorithm that led them to their silo.

Spring writes of people whose lives have been ruined, of charlatans who create clickbait, but most of all the pathos of those dragged down.

Fact-checking simply convinces the converted that those who don’t share those views have taken the blue pill of blissful ignorance, rather than the red pill of painful knowledge.

Malicious actors are more than prepared to “flood the zone with shit”, as Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon puts it. This makes clearing the misinformation impossible. But, by thinking about audience first, we can, maybe, find the lost and lead them through the storm. DM 

First published by The Conversation.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

• Grandparenthood is a complex and evolving relationship that defies simple linear predictions, influenced by various factors such as personalities, distance, and family dynamics.
• Emigration adds layers of complexity to grandparent relationships, introducing challenges like geographical distance and cultural differences that affect attachment bonds.
• Emotional attachment between grandparents and grandchildren is crucial for children's well-being, providing love, support, wisdom, and stability.
• Despite geographical barriers, modern communication tools and strong parent-grandparent relationships can help maintain and strengthen the bond between grandparents and grandchildren.

Grandparenthood traditionally unfolds in a straightforward manner: your adult child becomes a parent, and you, in turn, become a grandparent. 

This significant event typically marks the beginning of a lifelong bond, providing the foundation for a potentially nurturing relationship.

At first glance, this life-altering event appears as simple as a straight line. In mathematics, a straight line is represented by a linear equation. Similarly, the bond between a grandparent and grandchild might be expected to strengthen over time, envisioned as a straightforward, ascending line. 

However, the unique dynamics of these relationships are far more intricate, and simple linear predictions fail to capture the profound depth and complexity of grandparenthood. 

Numerous variables come into play, that may include: the personalities of the child and grandparent, the number of grandchildren, the grandparents’ gender, whether they are maternal or paternal, geographical proximity, the quality of their relationship with adult children, as well as the frequency of contact. 

Additionally, the marital status of the grandparents and adult children, as well as the age of the grandparents, further contribute to this dynamic relationship. These unique connections are too complex to be captured by a simple mathematical metaphor.

The addition of emigration to this equation increases variables and unfamiliar challenges. 

Emigration brings significant geographical distance, cultural differences, and the logistical difficulties of communicating across time zones. These factors complicate the dynamics of grandparenthood even more, including additional layers that can affect the attachment bond. 

The complexity of transnational grandparent relationships

Emotional attachment is a fundamental element of human relationships that create a sense of closeness and affection, sustaining meaningful connections over time. 

This attachment begins early in life, with initial bonds formed between infants and their caregivers. According to John Bowlby’s Infant Attachment Theory, children are born with an innate need to form attachments with primary caregivers, describing attachment as a deep and enduring emotional connection that transcends time and space.

Grandparents, together with parents but not only, serve as attachment figures, playing a vital role in the well-being of children. By building a relationship with their grandchildren they can not only provide unconditional love and emotional support, but also could serve as an important source of wisdom – from their experience – and stability. 

Grandparents also often become role-models and mentors, passing on family traditions and values. 

A healthy relationship with grandparents can offer comfort and guidance, helping children develop resilience and coping skills. Overall, having grandparents emotionally involved can enrich one child’s life, contributing to their character development and emotional growth.

With emigration, the traditional roles of grandparents often shift from frequent in-person visits to virtual interactions. 

Although technologies like video calls and emails help maintain connections, it can feel artificial and lack the warmth of physical presence. 

Being physically distant yet emotionally available can lead to emotional distress, particularly when grandparents miss simple physical comforts like holding their grandchildren. 

In my research interviews with grandparents, three primary factors have emerged as particularly influential: the geographical distance separating the grandparent and grandchild, the frequency of their contact, and the quality of the grandparent’s relationship with their adult child.

The interplay of these factors can either strengthen or weaken this bond, depending on the unique circumstances of each family. 

These dynamics are further influenced by societal changes, technological advancements, and evolving family structures. Understanding these three factors provides an appreciation of the challenges and joys inherent in contemporary grandparenting.

Healthy grandparent-grandchild relationships

Geographical proximity has long been identified as the key factor in shaping the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship. Living nearby usually enables frequent contact that allows for grandparent involvement and emotional closeness, leading to the formation of strong attachment bonds with the grandchildren.

As an emigration therapist, my initial hypothesis was that geographical distance would be the most significant barrier in forming and maintaining a strong attachment between grandparents and their grandchildren. 

While distance can indeed complicate these relationships, it is not insurmountable. 

Modern communication advancements have made it easier for grandparents to stay in regular contact with their grandchildren. These tools effectively bridge the gap, sustaining relationships despite geographical barriers. 

However, my research indicates that a healthy relationship between parents and their own parents (the grandparents) plays a crucial role in overcoming the challenges of geographical distance. 

Parents act as a vital link in maintaining the connection, particularly when grandchildren are too young to communicate directly and depend heavily on their parents to facilitate communication with their grandparents. 

For instance, when grandparents send emails, it is the parents who read these messages to the grandchildren. Additionally, grandparents often rely on parents to share daily events and milestones in their grandchildren’s lives.

A grandparent shared: “I have no doubt that in my relationship, with my son and daughter-in-law, distance doesn’t define our relationship. There have been times when the distance gets me down, a lot! But I have found peace with it because my son and daughter-in-law encourage their children to join in on FaceTime calls.”

This intermediary role is crucial for keeping grandparents informed and emotionally connected. The proactive involvement of parents in facilitating these interactions is essential, as it ensures that grandparents remain included in their grandchildren’s lives, helping to nurture and preserve these important bonds.

Families often live far apart due to work, education, and other commitments. While geographical distance can pose challenges, the frequency of contact between grandparents and grandchildren has proven to be crucial in maintaining strong relationships. 

The regularity of these interactions, rather than physical proximity, helps build and maintain a close bond.

Frequent interactions enable grandparents to be actively involved in their grandchildren’s lives, whether through daily caregiving, sharing experiences, or simply being a consistent presence. This regular engagement creates a strong emotional connection and helps create a sense of continuity and support that can be particularly meaningful during the grandchildren’s formative years.

While the frequency of contact may naturally decrease as grandchildren grow older and become more independent, the emotional closeness established during earlier years often persists. 

Even as grandchildren enter adolescence and adulthood, the foundational bond created through regular interactions tends to remain strong. This enduring emotional connection, cultivated over time, reflects a deep-seated attachment that overcomes distance.

Relationship with their adult child

The quality of the relationship between adult children, now the parents, and their own parents significantly influences the grandparent-grandchild bond. 

The “middle generation” acts as a crucial link, shaping the dynamics of this relationship that will endure throughout their lives. 

The attitudes and practices of parents towards their own parents directly affect how grandchildren perceive and interact with their grandparents.

In essence, the middle generation acts as a relational bridge, determining the success of these attachments.

Research indicates that parents often serve as gatekeepers, either facilitating or restricting the interactions between their children and the grandparents. 

This role can be literal, where parents control the frequency and nature of these interactions, or figurative, where children model their relationships with grandparents based on their parents’ interactions with them. 

The emotional closeness between grandparents and their adult children, as well as family practices that foster intimacy, are important for developing strong and enduring grandparent-grandchild relationships.

In my study, some participants reported having more frequent and meaningful interactions with their daughter’s children. They felt more involved in their daughter’s pregnancy and early child-rearing, because the daughter actively included her parents, giving them a “front row seat” to these important life events. 

This inclusion created a sense of privilege and strengthened emotional bonds, highlighting the importance of the quality of the parent-grandparent relationship in shaping access and engagement with grandchildren.

Grandparenthood, a timeless equation

In an ever changing world, the essential role of grandparenthood remains unchanged: providing unconditional love and a sense of safety and security to grandchildren. 

Whether through the warmth of shared moments, a listening ear, or a comforting hug, grandparents can help enhance their grandchildren’s well-being. 

Staying connected requires  creativity and effort due to physical distances. As families adapt to contemporary challenges, by embracing modern means of communication and maintaining a focus on emotional connection, they can ensure that the invaluable role of grandparents remains a cherished part of the family. Both parents and grandparents play a crucial role in sharing the responsibility to maintain this emotional connection. 

While at first glance, the dynamics of grandparenthood might resemble a straightforward mathematical equation, in reality, no complex formula can adequately express the profound connections established. 

As we redefine grandparenthood in the context of contemporary life, it becomes clear that the true measure of these relationships is not determined by geography, but by the depth of emotional connection. DM

• Future large-scale migration expected globally by mid-century due to push factors like climate change in regions such as Africa and the Middle East, and pull factors like labor demand in countries like Germany, China, and Japan.
• Climate change already impacting poorest countries, exacerbating push factors for migration.
• Declining populations in regions like Europe will lead to labor shortages, creating unstoppable momentum for migration.
• By 2050, populations of 64 countries will be in decline, with most population growth expected in Africa and outliers like Canada and Australia due to high inward migration rates.

The future will almost inevitably see large-scale migration on a level unknown in several generations, possibly centuries. It won’t happen in the next two years but will steadily ramp up so that by mid-century, hundreds of thousands of people globally are likely to be on the move annually. 

Large-scale migration will occur because of push and pull factors. The push factor will be caused by climate change and the lack of opportunity in regions such as Africa and the Middle East. The pull will be from declining populations and demand for labour in countries such as Germany, China, Russia, Poland, Japan and South Korea. 

The push effect of climate change is already evident in regions that include some of the poorest countries globally, such as the Horn of Africa and west Africa, and is exacerbated by deprivation.

Research by the Institute for Security Studies’ African Futures and Innovation team indicates that growth requirements of more than 15% a year are needed to end extreme poverty in Africa before mid-century. China and the Asian Tigers managed sustained growth rates approaching a much more modest 10% a year. In an era of slow growth globally, Africa is unlikely to approach even that rate. The result in Africa will be many economies with a surplus of educated people but limited formal sector jobs.

As we see in our long-term employment forecasts, the implication is that many Africans will survive in the informal economy and remain poorer than in most other regions, although their situation will steadily improve. They will inevitably search for opportunities abroad, eventually pushing against an open door as demand for labour elsewhere increases. This will happen even as African governments work to create job opportunities, constrain outward migration and grow their economies.

The pull effect will be provided by the declining populations of regions such as Europe, with its high standards of living, freedom and infrastructure. This year, the population numbers of 29 countries globally – including Finland, South Korea, Germany, Russia, Japan and Ukraine – are in absolute decline. 

The pull effect of labour shortages in rich European countries and elsewhere will eventually create an unstoppable momentum.

Already in 2022, Europe had six million vacant jobs. Technology can compensate for the decline in the size of the labour force as a percentage of the total population, but artificial intelligence does not cut hair, drive garbage trucks and look after the elderly.

The pull effect of labour shortages in rich European countries and elsewhere will eventually create an unstoppable momentum. Consider, for example, that in the European Union, 112 million people are currently aged over 65 years – roughly 22% of the total population. By 2050 it will have increased to 142 million (30%). 

No amount of investment in hard borders and other controls will succeed in the face of huge demand for elder care, or compensate for Europe’s labour force reduction from its current 251 million to 228 million. The challenges with stricter border control are evident in how countries like the US, Italy, Spain and others struggle to contain the current trickle. 

By 2050 the populations of 64 countries will be in an annual decline. In China, that trend starts in 2026. By the end of the century, the number of countries with falling populations will have more than doubled to 147 out of 188 countries in our database, including India (from about 2057) and the US (from about 2082). 

Most countries still experiencing a population increase by 2100 will be in Africa, with a few possible outliers such as Canada and Australia (due to high rates of expected inward migration). This also includes a poor country such as Afghanistan with its tenaciously high fertility rate. The only countries with large populations that will still increase would be Nigeria (then the fourth-largest population globally) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (sixth-largest population globally). 

The world will have to consider the ramifications of these changes and design appropriate strategies. In the short and medium terms – before the labour shortages in destination countries become acute – increased migrant flows will polarise electorates and energise nationalist and nativist movements. This is already evident in the US, Germany, the UK, France, Sweden and elsewhere.

Governments in destination countries need to match migrants’ skills and attributes with their labour needs.

Eventually, in those countries with declining populations that don’t attract migrants, rural and urban areas will be scarcely populated, with low or no demand for additional housing. Employers will struggle to recruit staff. The consequences in authoritarian countries such as China, North Korea and Russia are less clear and more likely to contribute to economic stagnation and eventually regression. 

Richer, democratic countries that attract large-scale migration will struggle with cultural matters, including social tensions if migrants are not well integrated. On the other end of the equation, large outflows of skilled and semi-skilled people could undermine sending countries’ economies. The effect of a brain drain is already decimating the health profession of Nigeria and Ghana, for example.

In previous centuries, when large-scale migration occurred, such as from many European countries to the US, an entire logistics value chain was established to process and manage the flows legally. We will probably eventually see the same, with flows this time from Africa. 

Instead of hardening border protection, African and Western governments should negotiate bilateral agreements where Africa supplies skilled workers to Europe as part of formal, government-to-government arrangements. This could help Europe meet its skills gaps while African governments gain funds to train and educate more people. 

For this reason, the World Bank encourages strategic migration management by making labour migration an explicit part of the development strategy in migration-origin countries. Governments in destination countries need to match migrants’ skills and attributes with their labour needs. The alternative – migration as part of organised crime – is simply too ghastly to contemplate. DM

Jakkie Cilliers, head, African Futures and Innovation, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria.

First published by ISS Today.

• Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa highlights ongoing internal debates on South Africa's nuclear ambitions, emphasising transparency in the procurement process.
• Eskom celebrates 138 days without load shedding, attributing success to deliberate measures and addressing malfeasance.
• Looming threat of load shedding persists, with plans to extend Koeberg Power Station's life for additional megawatts.
• Refinement of nuclear fleet expansion procurement framework under way, focusing on transparency and avoiding past opaque practices.

In a briefing on Monday, 12 August, 2024, Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa revealed that South Africa’s nuclear ambitions are still being debated internally despite the procurement process getting the green light months ago. He emphasised that he wants to ensure the process is not “soiled” by a lack of transparency.

The minister also lauded the successes the generation division at Eskom has seen, with the country not experiencing load shedding for 138 days.

“We are seeing an exceptional performance on the generation side. It’s a result of the measures that have been put into place. This has been engineered, it’s orchestrated, it’s deliberate and, of course, all of these things are coming together.” 

“It’s a constellation of the efforts, the people issues, the engineering issues, the financing issues, and also addressing issues of malfeasance across the board at Eskom.” 

Looming threat

He underscored that the country is not yet out of the woods and that load shedding remains a threat.

Speaking about Koeberg Power Station, the minister said “We’re hoping to get an extension of life of Koeberg unit number two. We succeeded on unit number one. It’s not automatic. We are not complacent doing everything by the book, ensuring that they cross all the Ts, dot all the Is, and be diligent in what we submit to the nuclear regulator of the country.” 

Read More: Koeberg Unit 1 can operate until 2044 despite concerns, says nuclear regulator

“We are still optimistic of getting that extension of life for 20 years of  Koberg unit number two, which will give us an additional 980 megawatts. So the point I’m making is that we do expect that by the end of August this year, just from the Eskom fleet, we should be getting an additional 2,500 megawatts.”

Asked about the planned expansion of the nuclear fleet, Ramokgopa said that they were refining the procurement framework. 

“Yes, I’ve committed to that, I did say we are working on the procurement framework, so it’s an internal conversation on how best to do that,” he said. 

Read more: Questions raised after Ramokgopa starts procurement process for 2,500MW of nuclear power

He said they wanted to have it done by July, but “having sight of what the team is proposing, we really need to make it more robust”. 

At the end of last year, the minister announced that all the “suspensive conditions” preventing the procurement of 2,500MW of nuclear power had been met and that the country would begin the process to procure new nuclear capacity for the first time in decades.

He said that much of what had “soiled” nuclear power in the public imagination, fuelling “misgivings”, was the lack of transparency in the procurement process. 

Daily Maverick previously reported that according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, then president Jacob Zuma unexpectedly travelled to Russia in August 2014, and that “just three weeks later, in Vienna, South African and Russian representatives signed a formal agreement on strategic nuclear cooperation”.

The deal, expected to cost the taxpayer hundreds of billions of rand, was eventually overturned by the courts for having a flawed, opaque public consultation process. 

It is precisely this type of situation that Ramokgopa seeks to avoid.

“So the technical and scientific basis of nuclear (power) is established, and so the issue is the process of procurement and the transparency of that process. When I say we must build every step of the way the transparency of the process without compromising the process itself, by that I mean there could be information that can’t be shared publicly and it could be proprietary information.

‘The science is established’

“But with regards to what is the cost to the country relative to other forms, what is the opportunity cost of going this route, what does it mean – that will be shared with the country. I’m making that undertaking, that we will do because I think this process fails and succeeds on the basis of the transparency component. The science is established, every serious scientist will tell you ‘no, this is clean, more efficient’ and from an operational point of view, cheaper, but from a finance point of view, the capital cost could be prohibitive,” said Ramokgopa.          

Eskom is also broadly supportive of plans to increase the role of nuclear power in the country’s energy mix. In response to questions from Daily Maverick, the utility’s media desk said that “both the IRP2019 and the IRP2023 reflect additional nuclear capacity beyond Koeberg, and nuclear is recognised as a means to support the move towards a low carbon energy supply. The safe operating history of Koeberg has demonstrated that Eskom has the capability to safely and reliably manage nuclear (power plants), and it has established a good base upon which the nuclear programme in South Africa can be expanded.”

“Eskom is supportive of the government initiative to procure an additional 2500MW, and sees itself as the owner/operator of such plants as specified in the nuclear policy. Eskom has continued over the years to maintain and develop potential sites on which additional nuclear generation capacity could be built.” DM

• Gold Fields acquires Osisko Mining for over $2-billion in Canadian dollars, eyeing the Windfall project in Quebec as a key asset.
• The deal is expected to boost Gold Fields' gold production by 300,000 ounces annually for 10 years at a low cost of $758 per ounce.
• CEO Mike Fraser opts for a cash deal to avoid shareholder dilution, emphasising the company's strong financial position.
• Despite concerns from investors about the premium in the offer price, Gold Fields remains confident in its strategy to acquire quality, low-cost assets with a low carbon footprint.

Gold Fields brought a bakkie-load of cash this time around and sealed the deal.

The JSE-listed gold producer announced on Monday that it had entered a definitive agreement to acquire all of the shares in Canada’s Osisko mining for over $2-billion in Canadian loonies, or just shy of R28.6-billion. This still needs approval from Osisko’s shareholders and some regulatory green lights but it is expected to be complete by the end of the year, and both boards are on board.

The jewel in the crown of this deal is the Windfall project in Quebec, which the two companies have been developing as a JV. 

“Windfall is among the largest gold deposits in Canada, and a top 10 gold deposit globally by head grade. Full ownership of Windfall enables Gold Fields to streamline decision-making and increase flexibility with respect to the development and subsequent operation of Windfall,” Gold Fields said. 

It is expected to produce 300,000 ounces of gold a year for 10 years at an all-in sustaining cost of $758 an ounce, which Gold Fields says will make it one of its lowest-cost mines. 

Gold Fields’ last attempt at a major acquisition was a $6.7-billion all-share offer in 2022 for Canada’s Yamana Gold, which triggered a backlash from shareholders worried about dilution. 

A counter bid that included cash won the day when Gold Fields decided against a bidding war, and its then CEO Chris Griffith stepped down. 

Read more: Chris Griffith falls on his sword, quits as Gold Fields’ CEO over failed Yamana transaction 

Current CEO Mike Fraser, who took over on 1 January this year, has been fast out of the blocks with a deal and this time around, cash is king.

“We believe there is still value in our share price relative to our peers and therefore going out with a dilutionary share offer would probably not be the right answer,” Fraser said during a conference call about the transaction. 

“Second, we have fairly low gearing in our portfolio so it made sense to use cash. Also with the ramp-ups of the current projects in our pipeline, we see ourselves deleveraging our balance sheet pretty rapidly. And last, it enabled us to move pretty quickly on executing this transaction.” 

Gold Fields maintains it is in a financial position to fund this deal, with $424-million in cash at the end of March and $1.8-billion available in undrawn debt facilities. And with the gold price near record highs, the company is clearly generating cash at the moment. 

It must be said that investors do not seem thrilled – Gold Fields’ share price had lost over 5% by late afternoon trade on Monday. 

There is a hefty premium in the offer price of 55% to Osisko Mining’s 20-day volume-weighted average trading price for the period ending 9 August 2024. One mining analyst told Daily Maverick that the assets in the current deal were “good but expensive”.

But Gold Fields’ share price tanked 20% when the Yamana bid was announced, so shareholders are not nearly as freaked out by this prospect.  

Gold Fields’ strategy is to acquire quality, low-cost assets that also have a low carbon footprint, and the Windfall project ticks all those boxes – it is fully powered by hydroelectricity. 

Whether or not it translates into a Windfall remains to be seen. DM

“We view the 2Q24 result as better than we expected and pointing to strong demand for the brand,” Cristina Fernandez, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, wrote in a note.

On’s shares rose as much as 7.5% in early New York trading, bringing the gain this year to about 50%, outpacing rivals including Nike, Adidas and Puma SE.

Founded in 2010, On is a relative newcomer to the sports world and its quarterly results often cause swings in the share price. The company has expanded rapidly across Europe and North America in recent years thanks to strong uptake from wholesale partners and specialty running stores.

Now, it’s selling more of its products directly to consumers and trying to move from being a precocious upstart to an established player that can keep poaching customers from rivals.

The Zurich-based company affirmed its full-year forecast of sales growing by at least 30% and achieving a gross profit margin of around 60%. To get there, it will need to ratchet up the pace of its sales and profit growth in the second half of the year.

The gross profit margin reached 59.9% in the second quarter, a touch behind analyst estimates.

Sportswear Line

The company plans to gain momentum in the coming months by adding more automation to its US warehouses, it said. That’s part of its broader efforts to scale up its distribution capabilities in North America, its biggest market.

On continued its expansion in the Americas, where sales jumped by about 25%, it said Tuesday. Revenue grew by about 22% in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and by 74% in Asia-Pacific, its smallest region.

The company is increasingly marketing high-end sportswear including hiking T-shirts that sell for $80 and trek jackets that fetch $290. While still small, that business expanded by 63% in the quarter.

On continues to generate most of its business with footwear, thanks in part to new products like the $150 Cloudrunner 2 and the $160 Cloudtilt, which it’s marketing with singer and actress Zendaya, a new brand ambassador.

The company is hoping that Zendaya and FKA Twigs, another ambassador, will help build credibility with younger customers. It also wants to capitalize on the Paris Olympics, where six of its sponsored athletes took home medals, including bronzes for tennis star Iga Świątek and the Boston and New York City marathon champion Hellen Obiri.

“We have seen a significant increase in brand awareness,” co-Chief Executive Officer Martin Hoffmann said in an interview, citing record traffic to the company’s website, among other things. “This is really meant to benefit On in the long term and to lay the foundation for reaching our goals.”