“Rafal Pankowski (NEVER AGAIN) on the idolising of racist killer Janusz Walus by far-right in Poland.”

https://youtu.be/czWghKUckI8

Rafal Pankowski (NEVER AGAIN Association and Collegium Civitas) on the idolising of Janusz Walus (the killer of anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani) by far-right in Poland, 29.11.2022.

3:00 – “There is amazing story about an online market place OLX which is actually owned by Naspers which is a South African company. It was selling material around Janus Walusz; scarves, flags that sort of thing for football fans.”

https://mg.co.za/news/2020-09-08-right-wing-poland-and-the-glorification-of-hanis-killer/

Another worrying development for Pankowski is the growing commodification of Walus’s name and image. T-shirts, buttons, and scarves with his likeness, name and messages of support are for sale on the internet.

One of the webpages on which such paraphernalia is available is second-hand goods site OLX Poland. Technology-investment company Prosus owns OLX. Prosus is, in turn, owned by South African-based tech giant Naspers.

”‘The cult of Janusz Walus’: How Chris Hani’s killer became a neo-Nazi idol” – Walus now on Parole

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/janusz-walus-neo-nazi-far-right-idol-racism-poland-world-parole-hani-breaking-8-december/

08-12-2022 15:29

‘They wrote to him that they admired him because he tried to stop communism in South Africa, that he is the great hope of the white race,’ said a journalist who interviewed Walus.

After the Constitutional Court ordered Janusz Walus’ release on parole, a Polish anti-racism group said the decision would be met with an “explosion of neo-Nazi joy.”

JANUSZ WALUS REVERED AS A NEO-NAZI ICON ACROSS THE WORLD

Walus was officially released on Wednesday, 8 December, after spending decades in prison for the 1993 assassination of the South African Communist Party (SACP) leader, Chris Hani.

“I know what it means for the racists and the neo-Nazis in Poland and internationally. I would say that we can see an explosion of joy on social media on the part of the far right … those people who see Janusz Waluś as a role model.

“If he is to return to Poland, for some on the far right he is to be welcomed as a hero. He will be seen as a model for the violent far-right extremist movement in Europe,” said Rafal Pankowski, the spokesperson for the Never Again Association, to Cape Talk.

Walus will not return to Poland as the Department of Home Affairs issued him an exemption in terms of the Immigration Act, which will grant permanent residence in South Africa for the duration of his parole.

>>17912578

>NEVER AGAIN Association

about ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association

https://www.nigdywiecej.org/en

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent civil society organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights across the world.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association's co-founder and longtime leader was Marcin Kornak. From the age of fifteen, due to an accident, Marcin lived with a physical disability. He was an activist and a public figure as well as a poet and songwriter who collaborated with independent rock bands. Marcin passed away in 2014 at the age of 46, but his legacy lives on.

Since 1994 ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has produced a regular publication in the form of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ ('NIGDY WIECEJ’) magazine (nowadays e-zine), providing reliable information and in-depth analysis on hate crime and on extremist and racist groups.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ closely monitors racism and discrimination on the ground. Through its network of voluntary correspondents and regular grass-roots contacts with various minority communities, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has built the most extensive register of racist incidents and other xenophobic crimes committed in Poland, the ‘Brown Book’, https://www.nigdywiecej.org/en/brown-book.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association also provides information directly to journalists and researchers interested in the problem of racism and xenophobia. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has contributed to numerous programs on television (including BBC, CNN, Euronews, ARTE), as well as assisted in writing many press articles (including for The Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, Die Tageszeitung, Gazeta Wyborcza, and many more).

‘NEVER AGAIN’ has provided expertise as well as consulted legislation on issues of racism and xenophobia. Among others, it successfully campaigned for a ban on racist and neo-nazi activities to be included in Poland’s Constitution.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ has cooperated with major international organizations, including the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). It has actively participated in international civil society networks, including the Alliance Against Genocide (AAG), the European Network for Countering Antisemitism through Education (ENCATE), Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), and the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GADHE).

It has also conducted successful high-profile educational campaigns in the field of popular culture, ‘Music Against Racism’ and ‘Let's Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’. Every year, during the biggest open-air free music festival in Europe, Pol’and’Rock, also known as Polish Woodstock, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association organizes a football tournament promoting the message of ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’.

It implemented the UEFA EURO 2012 ‘Respect Diversity’ programme: major educational and awareness-raising activities that took place before and during the European Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine.

>>17912578

>>17912608

>The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association's co-founder and longtime leader was Marcin Kornak.

“Howard Holmes honours Marcin Kornak (NEVER AGAIN) at European Medal of Tolerance ceremony, 9.03.15.” - https://youtu.be/ZnJot4DvsTo

“Marcin Kornak (1968-2014) – the founder and leader of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association”

https://www.nigdywiecej.org/docstation/com_docstation/188/marcin_kornak_the_founder_and_leader_of_the_never_again_association.pdf

Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former president of Poland wrote in his letter of condolence, addressed to the representatives of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association: “Marcin Kornak was a brave man with a big heart, who devoted many years of his life, to building a world free of discrimination. He launched many beautiful initiatives, spreading tolerance and promoting multiculturalism, which has enriched our society. We had the pleasure to experience the effects of his laudable actions as well as observe and admire his determination and constant optimism. His merits will stay with us forever. We received the news of his passing with a great deal of pain and regret. It’s a huge loss to both “NEVER AGAIN” – who has lost its founder – as well as for the whole country, which, thanks to his tireless efforts has become a more tolerant and open minded place”.

Thanks to the professional cooperation and great friendship between Marcin Kornak and Rafal Pankowski…the “NEVER AGAIN” Association began collaborating with international organisations, including the Council of Europe, United Nations and The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. “NEVER AGAIN” is also an active participant in various, international anti-racist networks such as: UNITED for Intercultural Action, Football against Racism in Europe (FARE), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA), International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH) and Anti-fascist Network for Research and Education (Antifanet). In cooperation with these organisations, “NEVER AGAIN” has organised numerous international conferences and workshops in Poland and abroad.

Thanks to its consistent and effective work against racism and xenophobia, the “NEVER AGAIN” Association is becoming prominent both in Poland and abroad – specialising in monitoring crimes committed by neo-fascists and the far right. In 1996, Marcin Kornak initiated the “Brown Book” – a record of racist and xenophobic incidents and various other acts of discrimination – which he continued for the next eighteen years. The “Brown Book” is recognised as the most comprehensive independent compilation of its kind throughout Poland, and the information it provides is used by the media, international organisations and various scientific centres… The “Brown Book” monitoring system is therefore used for educational purposes, as a form of intervention in specific cases as well as a tool for raising public awareness.

“NEVER AGAIN” cooperates with UEFA and various sport clubs. Furthermore, the Association conducted educational activities during the 2006 World Cup and 2008 European 3 Championships. A year later, in 2009, “NEVER AGAIN” became an official partner of UEFA and started to coordinate the UEFA EURO 2012 Social Responsibility Programme “RESPECT Diversity”. This was a unique educational anti-racist programme, organised in Poland, Ukraine and the entire Eastern European region in preparation for Euro 2012.

In the 1990s, he initiated the campaign “Music Against Racism” which attracted performers of various musical genres, to spread a positive message to hundreds of thousands of listeners. At that time, Marcin encouraged artists to join the movement against racist violence with the following words: “We count on an effective reaction from the circle of people connected to music, who multiple times in history, have proven their social sensitivity. There is only one race - the human race!”

Thanks to the cooperation between the Association and the media, thousands of articles, TV programs, radio broadcasts, documentaries and academic works have been produced, which discuss the phenomena of racism and neo-fascism.

The path that Marcin took in life, can be illustrated by the great deal of awards given to him in recent years. In 2011, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski awarded Marcin Kornak the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta – one of the highest honours in Poland. Marcin also received the Man Without Barriers Award - given to an outstanding disabled person who breaks down barriers and stereotypes and who is a positive role model in various walks of life. In addition to this, in 2012, Marcin Kornak was awarded the title of “Social Activist of the Year 2011” by the Polish edition of “Newsweek” weekly.

Is it a major push for an ‘environmentally sustainable’ power supply?

“Mantashe says load-shedding worse than state capture” - https://youtu.be/_xhzylIoKQg

“‘Water challenges’ in some towns as stage 6 load-shedding takes toll on infrastructure”

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-12-09-water-challenges-in-some-towns-as-stage-6-load-shedding-takes-toll-on-infrastructure/

09 December 2022 - 12:03

Municipalities are urging residents to use water sparingly as stage 6 load-shedding starts taking a toll on infrastructure and the provision of services in some areas where water resources are already stretched in the Western Cape [it also affects other provinces].

“Dysselsdorp, we urgently need your help to avert a water crisis. Due to level-6 load-shedding, pumps cannot get enough water into the reservoir quickly to provide water to you. We urgently ask that you limit your water consumption to absolute necessary use,” was the call made to residents on Thursday by Oudtshoorn mayor Chris Macpherson.

The provincial government confirmed municipalities had also raised concerns about the increased cost of diesel to keep backup generators running for longer.

“The costs associated with load-shedding keep piling up. We are concerned about water reservoirs that cannot fill sufficiently with subsequent pipe bursts due to uneven pressure in the pipe networks when normal levels are restored,” said local government, environmental affairs and development planning minister Anton Bredell.

“Sewerage systems are designed for a constant flow of water, and interruptions due to load-shedding can cause blockages and spills.

“With the increased severity of power cuts, the department is aware of water challenges in Kannaland. The Garden Route district municipality is supporting Oudtshoorn municipality with water tankers in Ladysmith and Dysselsdorp. The Matzikama and Swartland municipalities have also reported technical issues with their water and sewerage systems, and the department is engaging them on these issues.”

Load-shedding was also having a knock-on effect on services provided by the department of social development, such as the provision of food and security at gender-based violence shelters and the department’s offices.

“Load shedding leaves taps dry in iLembe”

https://www.ecr.co.za/news/news/load-shedding-leaves-taps-dry-ilembe/

Updated Dec. 9, 2022, 1:49 p.m.

Some residents of Ndwedwe hadn't seen a drop in three days.

Shami Harichunder, who speaks for Umgeni Water, says initially there were leaks in the bulk distribution pipelines.

That was repaired and they started to supply the area in the north of Durban again.

But the rolling blackouts, which were ramped up to a higher stage this week, have caused five reservoirs to dry up.

"Which resulted in the situation where Umgeni Water was not able to supply water through to iLembe and therefor the municipality was unable to supply water to consumers in Ndwedwe,” Harichunder says.

“The leak has since been repaired and Umgeni has begun supplying water. The difficulty is that it will take a few days before the system recovers completely and full water supply to consumers can be restored."

It is also affecting South Africa’s neighbour Zimbabwe.

“Council called to order for blaming water crisis on ZESA”

https://www.suburban.co.zw/council-called-to-order-for-blaming-water-crisis-on-zesa/

09 DEC, 2022

HARARE residents have called the City of Harare (CoH) to order after the municipality made a claim that the increased electricity load shedding was the main challenge in reduced water production at the city’s water treatment plants.

This week council claimed that the long power outages, occasioned by suppressed electricity generation at Kariba Dam due to dropping water levels, was affecting its water rationing scheme.

In a statement, the CoH said that the incessant power cut have affected water production but residents would have none of the blame game. Also water production is an essential service and arrangements can be made for the City of Harare’s water treatment plants to be spared from the load shedding.

“We all know that council problems go way beyond the ongoing load shedding. What they are saying now is confusing us as the residents. In the recent past it was lack of water treatment chemicals, now its load shedding. They should just put their house in order,” said a resident.

Other residents described the municipality’s statement as an attempt to pass the blame for its incompetency on other utilities.

Last week, the City of Harare resolved to ration water as purification of water at its treatment plants remained suppressed due to unreliable supply of chemicals.

Production at Morton Jaffray Water Works currently stands at 136 megalitres out of an available capacity of 450 ML while at Prince Edward council is producing only 78 ML. Harare needs at least 600 mega-litres daily.

“The Environment Management Committee has resolved that council rations water in the wake of suppressed water production. This is to ensure equitable distribution of water in the city.

“All efforts are being made to work out sustainable solution to problems. Residents are therefore encouraged to use availed supplies conservatively all the time they receive water.

All inconveniences caused are sincerely regretted,” said the municipality.

Residents from several of the city’s suburbs such as Avondale, Greendale, Marlborough, Mainway Meadows in Waterfalls, Glen Norah, Glen View confirmed that they do not have council tap water.

Some residents actually laughed off the city’s announcement as a joke because some Harare suburbs have not had council tap water for periods as long as two decades. The residents said the city cannot claim to ration something that is not available.

“Citywide power outage hits Mbombela”

https://lowvelder.co.za/807602/citywide-power-outage-hits-mbombela/

December 7, 2022

The reason for the power outage across Mbombela is unclear at this stage. The City of Mbombela has yet to release an official statement on the matter.

Mbombela is in the midst of a power outage stretching across the whole city.

The reason for the outage is unclear at this stage.

Cllr Sanley van der Merwe of the DA said in a statement the party is aware of the power outage affecting the entire City of Mbombela.

“As councillors we have not received any official communication on this matter, but believe it is important to keep residents informed.

“As the DA in the City, we do not believe that this is only related to the stage 6 load-shedding as announced, and it is definitely not due to the Delta network. It is our understanding that there might be a possibility that Eskom has moved the City to rotational shedding due to the enormous default on the municipal account that currently exceeds the R1.1b mark. This has not been confirmed, though, and our opinion is based on WhatsApp messages that have gone viral on social media platforms.

“Unfortunately, we have been kept in the dark about the possible consequences, and at this stage we cannot confirm whether the move to rotational load-shedding is true or not. Eskom indicated that they will not provide information prior to the City administration’s official communication.”

Van der Merwe said they would continue to put pressure on the executive for answers.

She concluded by requesting residents to kindly allow them time to gather the correct information and to provide a factual report.

https://lowvelder.co.za/807888/city-of-mbombelas-electricity-situation-back-to-normal-for-now/

December 8, 2022

The City’s residents were left in the dark and without answers when their homes and businesses suddenly lost power ahead of the scheduled load-shedding times and also in areas that are not supposed to have it at all.

According to a statement released by CoM yesterday evening, “The ongoing implementation of stage 6 load-shedding by Eskom has also led to an increased scope of a load reduction programme that affected about 40 municipalities across the country that experienced this sudden addition of areas/substations that were not on the normal schedule.”

The City added that it “would like to set the record straight and indicate to consumers that the outage had nothing to do with its debt to Eskom. The City continues to service its account with Eskom as per the agreed payment plan.”

>>17913252

“Silulumanzi water reservoirs critically low and likely to run dry soon” – “City of Mbombela warns residents of water shortages due to blackouts”

https://lowvelder.co.za/807938/silulumanzi-water-reservoirs-critically-low-and-likely-to-run-dry-soon/

December 8, 2022

Because of the ongoing power outages, Silulumanzi has issued a water scarcity warning to residents of Mbombela, Nsikazi and Matsulu.

The water utility’s spokesperson, Richmond Jele, said the additional electricity load-shedding, coupled with load reduction, has resulted in the Silulumanzi Water Treatment Works being without electricity for up to six hours at a time.

All reservoirs are critically low and likely to be empty if the electricity supply is not resolved soon. They continue to monitor reservoir levels and will communicate further changes accordingly, and arrange for the deployment of water tankers to the affected areas.

“We further appeal to our customers to please save and use the available water sparingly, while the relevant authorities resolve these unprecedented electricity outages,” Jele said.

“City of Mbombela warns residents of water shortages due to blackouts”

https://lowvelder.co.za/808084/city-of-mbombela-warns-residents-of-water-shortages-due-to-blackouts/

December 9, 2022

The municipality said the water shortages are expected to continue until the load-shedding stages are reduced.

The City of Mbombela said its four regions will be experiencing ongoing water shortages.

A post on the City’s Facebook page earlier today, December 9, said the water shortages are due to the Eskom load-shedding hovering between stages 5 and 6.

The City said in its post that water tankers will be dispatched where possible, however, the problem is at the water sources, as the pumping capacity is compromised by the rolling blackouts.

“The community is urged to use water sparingly when it becomes available while this situation is upon us. The situation will improve as soon as the load-shedding stages are reduced,” said the City.

>>17945033

Africa may be the next Ukraine as Biden states, US is “all in on Africa’s future.”

“Pres. Biden Pledges $55 Billion In Investments At U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” and it is just the beginning

https://youtu.be/4mpiIK0DVxI

The irony is;

WASHINGTON — The last time leaders of the African continent were invited to the White House, Barack Obama was president. It was August 2014, and Vladimir Putin had just invaded Ukraine — for the first time. The world was grappling with a deadly virus: Ebola. And Joe Biden was vice president of the United States. https://news.yahoo.com/african-leaders-white-house-summit-biden-192355564.html

“FBI beat security cluster in identifying cyber hack of the SA Reserve Bank, says Godongwana”

https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/fbi-beat-security-cluster-in-identifying-cyber-hack-of-the-sa-reserve-bank-says-godongwana-0c5e9af6-00e2-45bd-9867-a386cd351db7

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022

Cape Town - Cyber-criminals attempted to hack the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) on August 12, Treasury Minister Enoch Godongwana has revealed, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) beat the security cluster in identifying the breach.

The FBI took it upon itself to notify oblivious law enforcement authorities that the bank was under cyberattack.

Godongwana made the revelation as he spoke at an SA Local Government Association event.

Delivering off-the-cuff closing remarks in Xhosa, Godongwana said: “Cybersecurity … on August 12, the SA Reserve Bank was hacked. They saw it themselves. Our own security cluster didn’t see it.

“The FBI in America phones the Hawks and says: ‘Your bank is being hacked’. Do you see how exposed we are in this nation, and yet we criticise you (municipalities) as if we’re better at national level?”

SARB spokesperson Ziyanda Mtshali confirmed that the bank had received information regarding “a possible breach in August” from “both State agencies and private cybersecurity providers”.

She said there was no impact on the bank’s operations.

SAPS spokesperson Athlenda Mathe referred queries to the Hawks.

Hawks head advocate General Godfrey Lebeya said he was on leave and had forwarded the query to spokesperson Brigadier Nomthandazo Mbambo, who said the SARB would be better positioned to indicate whether the matter was reported to the Hawks.

World Wide Worx founder and tech analyst Arthur Goldstuck said: “SA institutions have regularly demonstrated that they are unprepared for the global escalation in cybercrime in recent years.

“The fact that the SARB had to be alerted to an attack by a third party tells us they were not adequately monitored and protected by their own systems.”

The SARB hack attempt was yet another incident of the SA security cluster being upstaged by a foreign intelligence service in what is supposed to be SAPS, Hawks and other local law enforcement agencies’ stomping ground.

Citing Police Minister Bheki Cele’s response in Parliament, the Cape Argus recently reported that the police were caught unaware of an FBI investigation and interception of a Bonteheuwel mother who was in the act of selling her 4-year-old child to paedophiles. [https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/sa-cops-still-in-the-dark-after-fbi-intercepted-the-sale-of-a-4-year-old-bonteheuwel-child-6a5751e6-5d61-4020-ab7c-ecb84df27c00]

US intelligence also one-upped its local counterparts in October when the US embassy issued a terrorism alert, warning its citizens of an imminent attack in Sandton, leading to diplomatic tensions between the two nations.

The State Security Agency and SAPS crime intelligence were widely chastised for allegedly failing to identify the threat.

Goldstuck said the Transnet ransomware attempt and the crashing of the Justice Department’s systems last year were the most dramatic, as they brought down two of the country’s most critical infrastructures.

He said: “A key element of cybersecurity is visibility of attacks and the ability to analyse these in order to further shore up defences.”

Godongwana also touched on the rolling power cuts.

“No amount of progressive macro-economic can work when you have no electricity. We have 14 years trying to fix Eskom, not to fix power to the grid for 14 years,” he said.

On the shortage of diesel at Eskom to mitigate load shedding, Godongwana said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe informed him there was enough diesel in South Africa, but Eskom refuses to fork out cash.

He said Mantashe also told President Cyril Ramaphosa, who “frantically” called Godongwana to ask: “Brother, where is the diesel? Your people should also be there every day (in meetings with Eskom officials).” [flogging the dead horse]

Godongwana said: “I heard him (Ramaphosa) swear for the first time in isiXhosa, ‘uyayazi mos yikaka lanto yenzeka pha kula Eskom’.” This loosely translates to “you know what’s happening at Eskom is literally sh*t”.

>>17949516

>On the shortage of diesel at Eskom to mitigate load shedding, Godongwana said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe informed him there was enough diesel in South Africa, but Eskom refuses to fork out cash.

>He said Mantashe also told President Cyril Ramaphosa, who “frantically” called Godongwana to ask: “Brother, where is the diesel? Your people should also be there every day (in meetings with Eskom officials).”

Eskom R400 billion debt and Diesel costs

https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/government-take-over-portion-eskom’s-r400-billion-debt

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Government to take over portion of Eskom’s R400 billion debt.

https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/extreme-load-shedding-ahead-as-eskom-diesel-budget-runs-dry-20221120

20 November 2022

UPDATE | Extreme load shedding ahead as Eskom diesel budget runs dry

At a state of the system briefing last week, Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said that since 1 April, Eskom has spent R12 billion on diesel against an initial budget of R6.1 billion. This was later revised to R11.1 billion.

"If we continue to burn diesel the way we have for the past seven months, the cost would be astronomical. But we do not have the cash to spend. We would be able to pay if the municipalities were paying us," said Oberholzer at the time.”

In the past, Eskom has overspent its diesel budget excessively, arguing that the R500 million a day per stage cost to the economy is greater than the cost of buying diesel. Eskom has therefore spent profligately on diesel to keep the lights on, with the only cap being the amount of diesel that can physically be delivered and burnt each month. This has equated to about R2.4 billion of diesel a month.

>>17940569

>Lindiwe Sisulu and Zweli Mkhize have been accused of being cowards after they were nowhere to be seen during the National Assembly debate on the Phala Phala report.

“Lindiwe Sisulu speaks on missing Parliament vote, says the Phala Phala scandal is ‘untenable’”

https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/lindiwe-sisulu-speaks-on-missing-parliament-vote-says-the-phala-phala-scandal-is-untenable-8922242d-6c9b-4f33-babe-59a13d7ae14d

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022

Cape Town - Senior ANC Lindiwe Sisulu says the Phala Phala scandal is “untenable” and that there has been one cover-up after another in the saga that implicates President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Sisulu, who was speaking on The Press Club podcast, was a notable absentee in the vote and rejection of the adoption of the Section 89 report on the Phala Phala fallout.

“I was shocked like everybody else when this (the Phala Phala saga) was revealed,” said Sisulu, who is also Tourism Minister and holds membership to the party’s National Executive Committee and National Working Committee.

“When I was in intelligence, we had come across illicit outflows and inflows of money and we knew this would affect the value of the rand.”

Their discovery gave effect to the establishment of the Financial Intelligence Centre and other measures “in preparation that we’d never experience something like Phala Phala”.

“Several laws have been broken. I must say this about Comrade Cyril: I think his first instinct was to say ‘let me walk away’. It’s the people around him, I believe, who are dependent on his patronage, who said, ‘but Mr President, what about us?’

“We’re sitting with a group of people holding the whole country and its integrity at ransom.”

Sisulu said a prevailing culture in the ANC was that there aren’t people who can tell Ramaphosa the truth “and tell the emperor that he’s naked”.

Sisulu said Ramaphosa should’ve been allowed to resign and the Phala Phala saga thoroughly investigated. “What we’ve done is covered up, creating a situation which is untenable.”

Podcast anchor Professor Sipho Seepe asked her to opine on those who say “better the devil you know” and whether Ramaphosa was a good man.

“I don’t know what the definition of a good man is, but the presidents we’ve had I have looked up to … I didn’t expect that I would be discussing Comrade Cyril with money stashed in Phala Phala. That is not how I associate his position and relationship with society.”

Sisulu said the ANC was clear about what happened, but there was an “active agenda” to try to cover up that which “is irregular, blatant, wrong in the extreme”.

Sisulu said the incident happened as Luthuli House employees had not been paid for seven months – it could’ve been used to assist poor people.

She said Namibian president Hage Geingob has a “very high moral standard” and wouldn’t have known the truth behind Phala Phala.

On her being absent from the Section 89 voting, she said she and NEC member Dr Zweli Mkhize were “aggrieved” in a recent NEC meeting where, she said, ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe “did not recognise us”.

Sisulu said a decision cooked outside ANC processes saw Mantashe tell MPs to toe the party line.

“It got so heated we were worried about the exchanges between Mkhize and Mantashe.”

She said she addressed a caucus meeting on Tuesday to disagree with Mantashe, but was “hauled down. I could not continue”. Sisulu said the matter was “managed to have a particular outcome”.

Sisulu said she and Mkhize received a message that they don’t vote and she left the building to check the message. She said when she returned, the doors were closed.

She doesn’t regret not voting as she “will not support anything dictatorial”. Asked whether she would’ve voted “Yes” to adopt the report, she said she would’ve repeated what she did in the caucus meeting.

“The hype around Nkandla was almost out of this world. And here we have something out of this world happening and the hype is not at the same level because there are people who are beholden to the president,” Sisulu said.

She said when ANC MP Mervyn Dirks called for Ramaphosa to account, he was thrown out of Parliament. She was referring to his suspension from January this year.

>>17912749

>Mantashe says load-shedding worse than state capture

>>17949547

>“Several laws have been broken. I must say this about Comrade Cyril: I think his first instinct was to say ‘let me walk away’. It’s the people around him, I believe, who are dependent on his patronage, who said, ‘but Mr President, what about us?’

>Sisulu said a decision cooked outside ANC processes saw Mantashe tell MPs to toe the party line.

“Calls for Gwede Mantashe ‘to be fired’, amid money laundering allegations”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/what-money-laundering-gwede-mantashe-accusations/

24-01-2021 14:50

The DA believe Gwede Mantashe ‘must be removed’ from his positions of power, after the minister was accused of taking part in a money laundering operation.

Gwede Mantashe‘s alleged links to a money laundering venture have been slammed by the DA on Sunday. Shadow Minister Kevin Mileham, whose portfolio includes mining and energy, believes that President Ramaphosa ‘would be doing South Africa a great service’ if he were to remove his ANC colleague from office.

GWEDE MANTASHE ACCUSED OF ‘MONEY LAUNDERING’

Media reports on Sunday state that the Gwede Mantashe Foundation has been complicit in a scheme involving several subsidiary companies. The minister’s wife is also thought to be benefiting irregularly from a government contract. The fresh allegations weave a rich tapestry of intrigue and financial misgivings:

• Bidvest subsidiary, Voltex, allegedly made a number of dubious payments to Ntlokholo Investments .

• Chief Operating Officer of the Gwede Mantashe Foundation, Caswell Mokoena, was a director at Ntlokholo.

• One of the payments, for an amount of R935 000, was quietly intended as a donation to the Foundation.

• Payments to Mokoena were allegedly related to the National Solar Water Heating Programme. But Ntlokholo isn’t involved in the NSW heating tender.

• The project itself is administered by Mr. Mantashe’s own department, raising further serious questions

• Meanwhile, Gwede Mantashe’s wife – Nolwandle Mantashe – was a director of Royal Mnandi. They are the beneficiary of a catering contract in excess of R600 million, to feed workers constructing the Medupi and Khusile power stations.

DA LOBBY FOR MINISTER’S REMOVAL

Mileham is calling for a full investigation into the conduct of the ANC veteran.

“Reports that the Gwede Mantashe Foundation may be involved in money laundering must be fully investigated and the Minister’s role in this scandal clarified. All of these coincidences raise serious questions about the man in whose orbit all these dodgy deals keep happening: Minister Gwede Mantashe himself.”

“With this in mind, President Ramaphosa would be doing the country a great service by removing him from any position, including that of Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, where he can influence tenders or where his involvement in any way calls into question the legality and ethical management of government funds.”

Kevin Mileham

>>17949590

“SA energy mafia? Accusations against Gwede Mantashe are serious and could hurt entire South Africa”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-02-sa-energy-mafia-accusations-against-gwede-mantashe-are-serious-and-could-hurt-entire-south-africa/

02 May 2021

On Friday it emerged that the Mineral Resources and Energy Minister and ANC Chair, Gwede Mantashe, and his wife, Nolwandle Mantashe, had been implicated by a losing bidder in the project to provide “emergency” power generation. The consequences of this could be immense, both for South Africa’s continuous energy failure and the ANC’s future balance of power.

The publication of the claims in legal papers by amaBhungane in Daily Maverick suggests that the decision to provide Karpowership SA (which uses ships that produce power using liquefied natural gas) with the contracts to generate electricity as an independent power producer was corrupt. The claims point to a “close associate” of the minister.

It is not just that the ANC has failed to solve the power crisis which saw load shedding starting in late 2007, despite the first warning that the lights would go out being sounded as early as 1998.

It is that at almost every step in the process there has been corruption.

The ANC’s investment vehicle, Chancellor House, benefited from contracts with Hitachi, which had R38.5-billion in contracts with Eskom to provide boilers for the Medupi and Kusile power stations, and which ultimately paid a $19-million fine to US regulators for breaching the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The boilers were not properly designed — costing South Africa an untold amount of money — and are unlikely to ever reach peak performance.

The political nature of these interests cannot be ignored.

The situation was described by Professor Anthony Butler in Business Day in this way:

“The Eskom coal supply chain, and the associated trucking industry, offers a roll-call of influential ANC donors. Many of these entrepreneurs are at the centre of the historic process of building a significant black business class in SA.”

The detail is hugely important and includes the claim that Mbalati was invited to a restaurant, where he and the group he was meeting were the only people there, and that the following was said to him:

“The one thing you must understand is that there is a system in this country and if you don’t work in accordance with that system you will fail, even if your project is the best, and I suspect that your project will be the best but that means you must be part of the system.”

In his papers, Mbalati says he is not naming the “close associate” of the minister because he is laying a criminal complaint against this person, and he has been advised not to name them at this stage.

It has still not been explained by the department why this “emergency” contract would be signed for a period of 20 years. This would mean that even if all of South Africa’s electricity problems were solved in the next decade (which may seem like science fiction now, but the price of solar energy and innovations in the storage of energy are moving very quickly), we would be locked into these contracts for a decade after that.

All of this leads to questions about Mantashe.

During his time as secretary-general of the ANC, Mantashe was sometimes seen as the “centre of gravity” in the party — the person who held it together. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-13-analysis-in-the-centre-of-the-ancs-gravity-field-gwede-mantashe/

Since then, however, (and since becoming minister) he has admitted to lying to a journalist in a bid to try to get them not to publish a story about him and a younger woman. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-11-05-gwede-mantashes-unforced-errors-dangerous-moves/

He has also been accused of not acting to resolve South Africa’s power crisis, of inaction when the last thing that a locked-down country in a pandemic crisis needs is another spate of blackouts (aka load shedding).

While South Africa needs action to resolve this long-running crisis, it is a complex situation with many pitfalls. The politicised interests in this space make any decision-making difficult. Any decision can be challenged in court (and possibly using political means as well), which makes swift action sometimes impossible.

Within the ANC there are other serious considerations.

Mantashe has been a strong supporter of President Cyril Ramaphosa and his agenda of renewal. He has publicly backed the resolution that those implicated in corruption must “step aside”. His support is vital to Ramaphosa in the apparent battle with ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule.

For Mantashe now to be tarnished by this kind of claim could damage this agenda.

It will allow Magashule’s allies to say that if Mantashe is corrupt, he too must resign.

“Land scam witness Khanyisile Mashego beheaded”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/land-scam-witness-khanyisile-mashego-beheaded-22dc190e-8090-46e4-8d20-ef9f7a05f619

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022

Cape Town - The body of Khanyisile Mashego, 50, who was reported missing, was found beheaded at a Brakpan morgue on Thursday.

Before she disappeared Mashego received a call from someone who kept on insisting to see her. She went missing after she left in her silver BMW 3 Series.

Her head was reportedly found in Zonkizizwe following her disappearance from Dalpark 1 estate on December 10.

According to the Ward Patroller Association’s Monde Ntebe, there were claims that Mashego was a high profile witness in a land scam case allegedly involving Centre of Excellence employees. [How ironic]

“We wish to escalate the matter to both the Hawks and the NPA to ensure that the matter is investigated and the remaining witnesses are moved into the witness protection programme urgently.”

Ntebe said the docket initially went missing, meaning there were irregularities in the investigation of the case.

“So we call on the the Ipid director to launch an investigation into the case.

“We would appreciate it if the president and the SIU launched an investigation into this land scam and ascertain to what extent did this reach into the workforce of the metro and politicians.

“The family spoke about land parcels in over three areas in Ekurhuleni that were being fraudulently sold.”

Ntebe said the Investigative officer told the family that he received calls from people claiming ransom money and saying the deceased had been human trafficked to Kenya.

Nkebe said a case of murder had been opened at Brakpan police station.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Gauteng’s MMC for Community Safety Khathutshelo Rasilingwane and EMPD chief of police Isaac Mapiyeye visited the Mashego family in Dalpark to offer support before the reports that her body had been found.

>>17910156

>>>17774475 Black people can NEVER be racist’, Vishoek High learners told (mp4)

“‘Black people can NEVER be racist’, Vishoek High learners told”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/black-people-can-never-be-racist-vishoek-high-learners-told/

08-11-2022 14:20

Vishoek High pupils were left distressed by some of the claims made in a ‘diversity training course’ last week.

Mystery still surrounds the now-infamous ‘diversity course’ that was delivered to students at Vishoek High last week. After a single session, the lesson was ultimately dropped by school officials – due to numerous allegations of ‘bullying and exclusion’.

However, a few bombshells have since come to light…

VISHOEK HIGH DIVERSITY COURSE: WHAT WAS IT THAT TRAUMATISED CHILDREN?

Some parents report that their children ‘were left traumatised’ by the session, which allegedly focused on skin colour and racial issues. The diversity course has been suspended entirely, but what content actually featured in these lesson plans?

A number of accounts have been made public in the past week or so, but specific details were lacking. The diversity trainer herself, however, has since broken her silence. Asanda Ngoasheng, who led the course, explained what exactly featured in her controversial presentation.

• A poem that addressed racism and ‘attacked Christianity’ caused a wave of outrage. The religion was also criticised for alleged ‘homophobia’.

• It is said that homophobic bullying was a major issue at the school, hence why the poem was chosen.

• Racism in South Africa and ‘the legacy of apartheid’ were also discussed, in a forthright manner.

• Some accuse the teacher of ‘demonising’ students based on their skin colour, likening the exchanges to ‘bullying’.

• Teachers and all other adults were excluded from the session, and kids were forbidden from recording the content.

• A clutch of learners were also forbidden from walking out of the hall, after becoming distressed by the content.

WATCH: DIVERSITY TRAINER SAYS ‘BLACK PEOPLE CAN NEVER BE RACIST’

A video clip of the session has since been leaked online. Ngoasheng can be heard telling the pupils that black people ‘can never be racist’ towards white people, because they don’t have a history of oppression. Students can be heard audibly gasping, and some immediately ask to leave.

“[Black people] can be nasty and cruel, but they cannot be racist towards white people. When a black person is the perpetrator, it is never considered racism. We cannot call it that. Racism requires power. There’d need to be 400 years of oppression first.” | Asanda Ngoasheng www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1465692080574894

>>17981373

>“[Black people] can be nasty and cruel, but they cannot be racist towards white people. When a black person is the perpetrator, it is never considered racism. We cannot call it that. Racism requires power. There’d need to be 400 years of oppression first.” | Asanda Ngoasheng

>>17912578

>“There is amazing story about an online market place OLX which is actually owned by Naspers which is a South African company. It was selling material around Janus Walusz; scarves, flags that sort of thing for football fans.”

About Asanda Ngoasheng

https://asandangoasheng.com/about/

Asanda Ngoasheng is an award winning speaker, political analyst, academic, and diversity trainer.

Speaker: I speak on various topics which focus on identity including race, class and gender. I have spoken and facilitated panels, dialogues and conferences across the world.

Academic: I am a curriculum developer and have written academic journal articles on curriculum development at Universities of Technology (UoTs) and universities. I have also written a chapter in a book used in the Post Graduate Diploma in Education at Rhodes University. I developed an apartheid spatial planning curriculum intervention, which included a two-day tour of different communities in Cape Town for the architecture department at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). I also lecture in a ‘Co-creating Across Difference’ course under the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC), which includes Stellenbosch, UCT, CPUT and UWC academics and students in their courses.

Political Analyst: I was one of the official political analysts for the 2019 Local Government elections on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). I have also done live political analysis on the State of the Nation for enca and News24 (Naspers).

Career Highlights: Eskom Book Bursary (2003), Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (2004), Clive Menell Media Fellowship, Duke University, North Carolina, USA (2007), PRISA PRISM Bronze Awards (2011), Rising Star Finalist in Entrepreneurship Category (2014), British Council Researcher Links UK-SA workshop participant (2017), Austrian Leadership Programme (ALPS) (2018), and the CPUT Riftal Research Grant (2018).

“Eskom’s request of a 32% increase will be the death knell for several farmers in the country”

https://southafricatoday.net/south-africa-news/eskoms-request-of-a-32-increase-will-be-the-death-knell-for-several-farmers-in-the-country/

December 23, 2022

Nersa’s possible acceptance of Eskom’s request of a 32% increase in the price of electricity is one increase too far for agriculture in South Africa.

TLU SA believes that this increase will be the death knell for several farmers in the country.

“We realise the urgency of the situation and for that reason we are going to write to the minister of energy affairs and the treasurer. We cannot just accept it and leave it like it is,” says TLU SA President, Mr Henry Geldenhuys.

“The reality is agriculture cannot afford the increase. Farmers already must deal with increased prices of diesel and fertiliser (the price has increased by 150% in certain cases) to name just two. As things stand now, the situation is already bad and for some too bad. Then I’m not even talking about the impact of load shedding. This hinders farmers’ ability to perform their daily tasks.”

It is necessary for the government to intervene.

Agricultural processes are negatively affected and due to profitability, several farmers are now being forced out of the production process.

Mr Geldenhuys adds: “The importance of food security cannot and must not be underestimated by the government. Farmers must be kept in production. The government will have to find a way to help the agricultural sector to overcome the situation through subsidies or special tariffs.”

“Current ANC NEC composition favours Ramaphosa, gives him room to act decisively – political analyst”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/current-anc-nec-composition-favours-ramaphosa-gives-him-room-to-act-decisively-political-analyst-d60a805e-93ec-421c-be6a-994b732541fa

Dec 22, 2022

Durban – The newly elected national executive committee (NEC) of the ANC favours the newly re-elected President Cyril Ramaphosa, a political analyst believes.

The NEC is the highest decision-making body of the ANC between conferences. It ratifies or rejects recommendations from the national working committee (NWC).

Makhosini Mgitywa, an independent political analyst, says this new NEC will give Ramaphosa the space to act decisively.

The new NEC which consists of 80 members as well as seven officials (the Top 7) was announced on Wednesday and it saw a number of Ramaphosa backers making the cut.

However, in the process, Ramaphosa lost key members like Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Ngqakula, the Speaker of Parliament who recently shielded him during the tabling of the Section 89 report on Phala Phala, and Jeff Radebe, a former minister.

He also lost Derek Hanekom, one of the fiercest campaigners behind the CR22 campaign, who made himself unavailable for the contest, saying he wants to “open the dance floor” to others.

Also not making a comeback was Blade Nzimande, a long-serving member of the NEC, and Thulas Nxesi, Labour Minister in the current Cabinet of Ramaphosa.

Nzimande was among those who recently voted against the adoption of the Phala Phala report, which could have paved the way for Ramaphosa to be impeached.

On the side of his opponents, the likes of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who recently voted for the adoption of the Phala Phala report by Parliament; Dr Zweli Mkhize, who contested for the position of president; and Bathabile Dlamini, who backed Mkhize, seemed to raise eyebrows in some quarters.

However, Ramaphosa was boosted when the likes of Zizi Kodwa and Mondli Gungubele made it to the decision-making body.

The two had been vocal in shielding Ramaphosa ever since the Phala Phala scandal came to the fore after former spy boss Arthur Fraser lifted the lid.

But Mgitywa said this NEC favours Ramaphosa and it will give him space to breathe.

“He’s in a much better position than he was in 2017. He would also have learnt that he has to govern and make unpopular decisions. There’s no time for Mr Nice Guy,” Mgitywa said.

>>17949508

>Africa may be the next Ukraine

Will South Africa become key when a full blown war breaks out and the Suez Canal closes? This Russia/Ukraine conflict was planned in advance.

“ANGELA MERKEL ADMITS THAT THE MINSK AGREEMENTS WERE ONLY SIGNED TO GIVE UKRAINE TIME”

https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/12/10/angela-merkel-admits-that-the-minsk-agreements-were-only-signed-to-give-ukraine-time/

10/12/2022

Six months after former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in an interview that there was never any question of implementing the Minsk agreements, and that they were just a way for Ukraine to buy time, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the same thing in an interview with the Zeit, thus finishing off what little credibility Western countries have.

In June 2022, in an interview with several Western media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko publicly admitted that there had never been any question of implementing the Minsk agreements, and that they had only been intended to give Ukraine time.

But where it becomes shocking is when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel says exactly the same thing, on 7 December 2022, in an interview with the Zeit (available in full here). https://archive.ph/OY5cG

Translation:

“I considered the 2008 discussion on the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO to be a mistake. These countries did not have the necessary conditions for it, and the consequences of such a decision had not been fully considered, both in terms of Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and for NATO and its rules of assistance. And the 2014 Minsk agreements were an attempt to give Ukraine time.”

I would remind you that Germany was the guarantor of the Minsk agreements, and especially of their implementation by Ukraine! Clearly, from the start Angela Merkel, and therefore also François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, knew perfectly well that not only would Ukraine not apply the Minsk agreements, but that this would leave Kiev just enough time to prepare for a resolution of the conflict by force! Moreover, the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron that took place four days before the launch of the Russian special military operation, and which was leaked by the French President, clearly showed that the latter knew that Ukraine was going to attack, since he asked the Russian President not to react to Ukrainian provocations (in other words not to intervene to defend the Donbass).

The Russian authorities of course reacted strongly to Angela Merkel’s statement, starting with Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who said that this interview gave Russia proof of what she had been saying for years about the lack of will on the part of the West to push Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements. Above all, the purpose of the agreements was to serve as a diversion while NATO countries pumped arms into Ukraine and then reignited the conflict.

But above all, for the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Angela Merkel’s statement proves that the West does not shy away from any lie, and sits on international law when it suits it, regardless of the consequences for innocent civilians.

“What has been said now only proves that we made the right choice in launching the special military operation. Why did we do it? Because it turns out that nobody was going to implement the Minsk agreements. The Ukrainian leadership, in the words of former President Poroshenko, who also said it: he signed them, but he was not going to implement them. But I still hoped that the other participants in this process were sincere with us. It turns out that they were also deceiving us. It was only a question of showering Ukraine with weapons and preparing it for military action,” the Russian President added.

Vladimir Putin then said that in view of Angela Merkel’s statement, perhaps Russia should have intervened earlier. But what Angela Merkel failed to realize in making this thunderous statement is that she has definitely undermined any trust that Russia might have placed in Western governments, which means future diplomatic problems.

Angela Merkel’s statement on the Minsk agreements has not only deprived Kiev of a diplomatic way out of the ongoing conflict (since, in Vladimir Putin’s words, the question is “whether there is anyone to negotiate with“), It also offered proof of the legitimacy of the Russian intervention in the Donbass (by throwing out the Western narrative of poor Ukraine wanting peace), but as a bonus, it also torpedoed relations between Russia and Germany for good.

>>17918335

“Defence Minister Thandi Modise's media briefing on the benefits of military” - https://youtu.be/LV00g1ycRoI

Dec 22, 2022

24:08 – “I do not want to comment on the contents of this vessel… we do know however that whatever contents this vessel was getting were ordered long before COVID started and therefore the reason you are interested and America is interested in that vessel coming into our shores is actually because American threatens the rest of Africa, not just South Africa, of having anything that is even smelling of Russia. So as far as they’re concerned, we must consume all the Russia vodka quickly and if it is depleted you will be found wanting for drinking the Russian vodka… The issues of this vessel relate to the defense and the defense mandate and the defense industry.”

“State Defence, SANDF silent in face of speculation Lady R was shipping Russian weaponry” – Part 1

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-12-16-defence-department-sandf-remain-silent-in-face-of-speculation-lady-r-was-transporting-russian-weaponry/

16 Dec 2022

A week after Lady R snuck out of Simon’s Town Navy Base at dawn on Friday, 9 December, officials from the Department of Defence and its arms procurement agency have not denied the acquisition of arms from the Russian cargo vessel, which has been sanctioned by the US.

The mysterious, and as yet, unexplained arrival of the Russian Ro-Ro (roll-on/roll-off) cargo ship, Lady R was the talk of the town when it docked in Simon’s Town Navy Base between 8pm and 10pm on Tuesday, 6 December. The town was under the cover of rolling blackout darkness when the ship sailed into the harbour with its automatic identification system (AIS) offline.

Additionally, the US Embassy spokesperson in Pretoria, David S Feldmann told Daily Maverick that the Embassy has “no reason to believe that Lady R was, in fact, in distress.” Feldmann explained that since 8 May 2022, Lady R and its parent company, Transmorflot LLC, had been sanctioned under US law because the ship “is part of Russia’s military export-import business.”

The US Embassy had previously alerted the South African government that Lady R was planning to stop in the country, and “cautioned that entities supporting the vessel could run afoul of US sanctions,” he said.

Lady R’s departure from Simon’s Town on Friday morning, 9 December, followed three nights of frenzied activity, as mysterious — and as yet — undisclosed cargo was loaded and unloaded from the ship in the presence of armed officials. The highly-guarded operations quickly promoted suspicions about the nature of the cargo, and whether these midnight transactions were ‘above board’.

Additionally, the fact that these operations occurred in the dead of night during rolling power cuts only swelled speculation over whether Lady R was loading South African arms for Russia — perhaps to use in its war against Ukraine — or whether South Africa was acquiring foreign arms.

“The complete silence of the SANDF and the Minister of Defence, Thandi Modise, supports the suspicion that something illegal happened with the unwelcome visit of the Russian cargo ship, the Lady-R. It also supports the inferences that weapons were unloaded and transported by trucks,” said Marais in a statement.

The suspicion has been further reinforced by Modise’s past refusal to say, in response to parliamentary questions from DA leader John Steenhuisen, whether South Africa is selling arms to Russia.

>>18017078

“State Defence, SANDF silent in face of speculation Lady R was shipping Russian weaponry” – Part 2

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-12-16-defence-department-sandf-remain-silent-in-face-of-speculation-lady-r-was-transporting-russian-weaponry/

16 Dec 2022

On 23 October, Modise replied saying foreign arms contracts are often classified and protected by confidentiality clauses “as it relates to security information where unauthorised disclosure may cause serious implications to national security.

Armscor CEO Advocate Solomzi Mbada, told Daily Maverick on Wednesday that “there was no illegality about the cargo.”

In response to detailed questions on Thursday, 15 December, Advocate Mbaba crucially, did not deny the agency’s involvement in transporting or acquiring arms from Lady R, saying:

“The Armaments Corporation of South Africa SOC LTD (Armscor) is a Public Entity listed in Schedule 2 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). Section 4 of the Armscor Act demands that Armscor acquire such defence materiel on behalf of the Department of Defence as the Department may require.

“In the execution of its mandate, Armscor complies with applicable international law as well as the provisions of all relevant South African legislation such as the National Conventional Arms Control Act, the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, and the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

“In meeting the defence materiel requirements of the Department, Armscor contracts with various suppliers and or service providers. Agreements of such nature are normally classified and protected by confidentiality clauses, as it relates to security information where unauthorised disclosure may cause serious implications to national security. Armscor has however not engaged in any illegal activity in either the transportation or acquisition of defence materiel as late as 15 December 2022.

Additionally, the information that Marais had received was that AB Logistics — Armscor’s logistics company — was responsible for contracting the truckers for the transport freight. Marais told Daily Maverick that the intel he had received was that the unloaded cargo was “an old, outstanding order for ammunition used by the Special Forces.”

When asked by Daily Maverick if he could confirm that Armscor had purchased arms on behalf of the Department of Defence, department spokesperson, Siphiwe Dlamini responded: “I can confirm that Armscor is by law the contracting and acquisition agency of the Department of Defence and specifically the SANDF.

“If nothing was done irregularly or illegally, why not disclose this to us?” Marais asked.

When asked by Daily Maverick if Armscor received approval from the NCACC [National Conventional Arms Control Committee] for the acquisition of defence material from Lady R, senior manager at Armscor Legal Services, Willem Roberts, indicated that Armscor had NCACC clearance but it is classified.

https://radarr.africa/sanctioned-russian-ship-in-south-africa-with-mystery-cargo-raises-suspicion-of-secret-arms-supply/

Significantly, Russia has strengthened its ties across the African continent over the years through investments in mining, oil and gas production, finance, agriculture and nuclear technology. Moreover, Moscow is reportedly one of the largest exporters of arms to African countries from 2017 to 2021.

>>18017083

>“The Armaments Corporation of South Africa SOC LTD (Armscor) is a Public Entity listed in Schedule 2 of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). Section 4 of the Armscor Act demands that Armscor acquire such defence materiel on behalf of the Department of Defence as the Department may require.

>“In the execution of its mandate, Armscor complies with applicable international law as well as the provisions of all relevant South African legislation such as the National Conventional Arms Control Act, the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, and the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

>“In meeting the defence materiel requirements of the Department, Armscor contracts with various suppliers and or service providers. Agreements of such nature are normally classified and protected by confidentiality clauses, as it relates to security information where unauthorised disclosure may cause serious implications to national security. Armscor has however not engaged in any illegal activity in either the transportation or acquisition of defence materiel as late as 15 December 2022.

Lindiwe raises valid questions.

https://mg.co.za/opinion/2022-01-08-lindiwe-sisulu-whose-law-is-it-anyway/

Apartheid was “legal”. Jim Crow laws in the US were “legal”. Colonialism was “legal”. Even the Nazis were “legal”. So, what does it mean to have the rule of law? And whose law is it anyway?

>>17913252

“Substation damaged at West Acres in Mbombela”

https://lowvelder.co.za/809472/substation-damaged-at-west-acres-in-mbombela/

December 26, 2022

West Acres residents need to be prepared for an undetermined number of days without electricity due to serious damage to the substation.

December 26, 2022

Residents of West Acres and The Rest have been informed that the substation supplying these areas has lost critical infrastructure related to damage to the breakers.

Estimated downtime cannot be given at this stage as technicians are still assessing the extent of the damage and also awaiting specialists from out of town.

The municipality will keep the residents updated as it uncovers the extent of the damages.

The municipality apologises for this inconvenience as the outage was unplanned.

A credible source told Lowvelder that it might take few days to repair the damages.

“Residents must expect being in the dark because at the moment the municipality does not have the equipment in store,” said the source.

This is a developing story Lowvelder will update its readers once more information becomes available.

>>18017078

>>18017083

>>18017112

>>18007718

>>18007726

>>18007738

>>18004483

Armscor, Rheinmetall, Nazi Ties

https://www.opensecrets.org.za/report-profiting-from-misery-south-africas-complicity-in-war-crimes-in-yemen/

March 3, 2021

In September 1994, the government of Nelson Mandela was rocked by media reports that a large consignment of South African weapons had been sold by state-owned arms company Armscor to war-torn Yemen.

The recommendations of the Commission ultimately informed new government policy which was meant to end the practice of ‘freewheeling and subterfuge’ favoured by Armscor during apartheid. This led to the creation of new laws and a new institution – the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) – meant to ensure that the sale of weapons would align with the values enshrined in the Constitution.

As the negotiations to end apartheid gathered pace in the early 1990s, Armscor was divided into an acquisitions arm and a sales division. The latter became the state-owned arms company Denel. At about the same time, a massive privatisation process unfolded which lasted into the 2000s and saw a number of large European arms companies procure assets in South Africa or enter into joint ventures. While Armscor and Denel today are shadows of the behemoth they once were under apartheid, the legacy of their cultures of practice has not been erased despite a quarter-century of constitutional democracy.

It is known that Armscor worked closely with private companies, including Defendant Rheinmetall Group AG.

The case also referenced a German tribunal from the mid-1980s that found Rheinmetall had gone to great lengths to obscure their dealings with the apartheid state. They created fictitious firms in countries abroad to conceal their relationship with apartheid security forces and submitted falsified end-user declarations.

For many years, the South African government, under Thabo Mbeki’s presidency, publicly opposed the lawsuit. But in 2009, Jacob Zuma’s new administration changed its tune and announced support for the case.25 Unfortunately, the protracted legal battle was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2013, a US court dismissed the case on a technicality, saying it did not have jurisdiction to hear the matter.26 This effectively meant the end of the road for efforts to use the US court to hold Rheinmetall to account for aiding and abetting a crime against humanity.

While Khulumani’s legal battle moved through the US court system, Rheinmetall had already set up new roots in South Africa. On 1 September 2008 Rheinmetall Denel Munition (Pty) Ltd was established when four divisions of South Africa’s state-owned industrial group Denel became part of the Rheinmetall Defence Group.27 Today RDM is jointly owned by Rheinmetall subsidiary Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH (51%) and the South African state through its arms company Denel (49%).

To the outsider, RDM may seem to be a young gun in the South African arms industry – proudly homegrown with only a hint of German influence in the appointment of successive German CEOs. However, to understand the company it is necessary to step back and look at the German arms behemoth Rheinmetall.

By 1936 when Hitler’s Nazi Party was in full control of the German economy, Rheinmetall merged with one of the most important train and engine manufacturers in fascist Germany, August Borsig GmbH, to become Rheinmetall-Borsig AG. Just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, all German arms factories – including Rheinmetall-Borsig – were brought under the direct control of the armed forces of Nazi Germany.4 During the six-year long war Rheinmetall-Borsig was the second biggest supplier of weapons to Hitler’s war machine.5

Between 1939 and 1945, Rheinmetall used the German concentration camp system to exploit prisoners. Through slave labour inmates were forced to manufacture weapons, set up underground arms production facilities and supplement other Rheinmetall factories.

Rheinmetall also had close ties to the SS, Hitler’s paramilitary organisation, and was involved in the exploitation of prisoners in Auschwitz, where nearly 1.1 million people were murdered as part of the Holocaust.

>>18017344

>Rheinmetall also had close ties to the SS, Hitler’s paramilitary organisation, and was involved in the exploitation of prisoners in Auschwitz, where nearly 1.1 million people were murdered as part of the Holocaust.

Is it coincidence that Volodymyr Zelensky has been named the most influencial Jew for 2022 by the Jerusalem Post, Person of the Year by the Time Magazine and is in charge of the Azov Batallion?

“I would like to note, however, that today the Azov Battalion is part of the National Guard, of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, that is, professional soldiers who are defending Mariupol. On the contrary, it is the Russians who are behaving like Nazis.” https://www.greekcitytimes.com/2022/05/02/zelensky-i-will-visit-athens/

“Do Jews Control The World?” - Volodymyr Zelensky named most influential Jew for 2022 (JP) and Person of the Year (Time Magazine)

https://rense.com/general78/jcontrol.htm

By Henry Makow PhD

10-10-7

This question is the proverbial elephant in the room, the dysfunction that members of the human family dare not mention.

So when Richard Dawkins recently remarked that the Israel Lobby controls American foreign policy, Daniel Finkelstein, a Jewish editor of the London Times "Comments" section heard Nazi storm troopers banging on his door.

"So Dawkins, a liberal hero, believes, er, that Jews control world power." Finkelstein sighed. "And, judging from the Guardian, it is now a part of mainstream debate to say so. Perhaps you think I am over-reacting, but I am a little bit frightened. All I can manage is, Oh My God."

Finkelstein's outburst is ironic. Here is a Jewish opinion gatekeeper, employed by a Jewish press magnate (Rupert Murdoch), shocked at the mention of Jewish power, persuading the public that the very suggestion is in bad taste. He cannot be accused of objectivity.

The Times is not just any newspaper. It has been the voice of the British establishment for more than 100 years. Along with Chatham House (the RIIA) and Tavistock, it is a principal instrument of the cabal that governs England and most of the world. That cabal consists of Jewish central bankers and British (European and American) aristocracy united by money, marriage and a belief in the occult (Freemasonry.)

I represent that silent majority of average Jews, who have assimilated, and support the national interest. Rich Jews will want ordinary Jews to take the fall when opposition grows to their predatory agenda and anti-Semitism increases.

Anti-Semitism never made any headway in Europe in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century until rich Jews decided to sponsor it. There is no way Hitler would have come to power without the backing of world finance. Hitler was Time Magazine "Man of the Year" in 1938. Stalin, another Freemason created by the Money Power, took the honor in 1939. Hey let's have a war between the two!

The central bankers owned I.G. Farben, the backbone of the Nazi war machine. Max Warburg was a Director until 1938. In March 1941 the Warburg family and employees were spirited out of Nazi Europe by the SS. Hitler so hated the Jewish bankers that he had them escorted to safety in a private train.

Assimilated and religious Jews who did not serve the bankers' interests were the main victims of Nazi persecution. Zionists, on the other hand, were spared. These same Zionists put ordinary Jews on trains to Auschwitz telling them they were being "resettled."

If the past is a guide, in an economic or social breakdown, the bankers will focus blame on their pawns, Zionists or neo nons, or preferably Jews in general. This is why patriotic Jews must disassociate from the bankers and their minions now.

>>18017293

“Mbombela residents band together to regain access to electricity”

https://lowvelder.co.za/809478/mbombela-residents-band-together-to-regain-access-to-electricity/

December 26, 2022

Various security companies ensured the safety of affected residents and volunteers while they assisted municipal workers at the damaged substation.

In what can only be described as a selfless act, members of the community banded together until the early hours of Tuesday to regain access to electricity that had been off for 27 hours.

The outage was caused by the damaged substation in West Acres.

Lending a hand to the municipal technicians on site, residents decided to make their own hands dirty by digging trenches to access the damaged cables.

One of the community members, Pippa Botha, said local contractors and suppliers also came on board to give advice and assistance to municipal electricians, while most of Mbombela’s security companies patrolled all areas that were out of power.

i’langa Mall provided affected residents with the means to charge their electrical devices, and community members with solar systems offered to charge the residents’ phones. Some brought food and drinks to those working with the municipal officials.

Botha said challenges people are facing include extra food for the holiday season which needs to be refrigerated. Also, safety is always a concern when the power is off and those with small babies need power to prepare formula. The rain also hindered operations.

“We also have elderly people who depend on electricity for oxygen. The affected areas were switched on at midnight and we are hoping that the remaining areas will be switched on before 10:00 today.”

According to the spokesperson for the City of Mbombela, Joseph Ngala, the homes in West Acres which were reconnected by midnight was only a temporary arrangement. The municipality urged residents to only use necessary equipment. The 132/11KV transformer is currently stable and fine.

The areas still without electricity will be attended to this morning as the municipality still has to replace more than 140m of cable. Teams were already on site at 07:00

https://lowvelder.co.za/809480/some-areas-of-mbombela-will-be-without-electricity-due-to-damaged-substation/

West Acres residents are currently on the scene assisting municipal officials in digging up the burned-out cables since it is working on the skeleton staff due to the festive season.

>>17981044

“Ransom kidnappings on the rise in South African crimes”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/south-africa/ransom-kidnappings-on-the-rise-in-south-african-crimes-breaking-28-december-2022/

28-12-2022 11:55

From an eight-year-old snatched on her way to school to a wealthy businessman who was abducted and murdered, South Africa is experiencing a surge in kidnappings for money.

From an eight-year-old snatched on her way to school to a wealthy businessman who was abducted and murdered, South Africa is experiencing a surge in kidnappings for money.

During the festive season, police have been warning parents to be vigilant around beaches and shopping malls — potential hotspots for child abduction.

“They should take extra care of their children,” said Robert Netshiunda, police spokesman in the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

“Children go missing and a crime of kidnapping is a reality,” he told AFP, https://news.afp.com/#/c/main/actu/articles?id=newsml.afp.com.20221228T060701Z.doc-32yx7zy&type=news.

South Africa has long had a reputation for violent crime and is often described as one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside a war zone.

But kidnapping for ransom or extortion “is comparatively new”, noted Jean-Pierre Smith, a Cape Town municipal security councillor.

The phenomenon started to rise in 2016 and is now experiencing explosive growth, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), a non-profit.

Police recorded more than 4,000 cases between July and September, a two-fold increase on the same period last year.

The number of kidnappings today are “the highest ever in the history of South Africa,” anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee told AFP.

“It has become an established and lucrative criminal practice,” GI-TOC said in a report in September, https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/held-to-ransom-sa-risks-being-branded-a-kidnapping-country-20221121.

Last month, the country was stunned when eight-year-old Abirah Dekhta was kidnapped on her way to school near Cape Town by five gunmen in two cars.

Missing-person posters showed a thin girl wearing a pink dress and matching headscarf.

She was freed during a spectacular police raid following a tip-off.

Dekhta had been held in a shack in the impoverished township of Khayelitsha, one of the largest in the country, guarded by seven men, police said. Her captors recently appeared in court, seeking bail.

Most cases of kidnapping in South Africa are a side-effect of carjacking, robberies and rapes.

But, say crime experts, an increasing number of victims are now being targeted directly.

In one of the most high-profile cases, four sons of a South African businessman, aged between six and 15 years, were kidnapped Hollywood-manner while on their way to school.

In such cases, ransom demands can run into the millions of rand (tens of thousands of dollars).

Kidnappers sometimes brazenly demand that the ransom [http://www.homesecuritysa.com/article.aspx?pklarticleid=2443] be paid into “foreign bank accounts via Bitcoin or via money exchanges in Dubai,” said Abramjee.

But in other cases, the victim is simply killed after his bank account has been emptied.

One such fatality was Kevin Soal, a businessman in his late 60s with a passion for horse racing.

On November 23, at a press conference where he unveiled the country’s dismal crime figures for 2022, Police Minister Bheki Cele singled out kidnapping for special action, https://youtu.be/E15cRtEZYbY [embedded].

Sporting a fedora hat almost echoing the fashion style of 1920s US crimebuster Eliot Ness, Cele ordered his force to “deal decisively with these most feared crimes”.

FOREIGN GANGS

Analysts say kidnappings have fuelled by the involvement of foreign crime groups suspected to be operating from Mozambique and Pakistan, among others countries.

Indian business people, Pakistani, Somalians and Ethiopians are among those increasingly being targeted, according to Abramjee.

A Somalian businessman was recently snatched from a Johannesburg hotel lobby, he said.

Muslim families of Indian origin, who are rumoured to hold large funds abroad, are especially at risk, said a police source.

Police last year set up a special unit and officials recently said they were “closing in on several syndicates” responsible for kidnapping for ransom cases.

“Phoenix community left high and dry due to no water and power”

https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/phoenix-community-left-high-and-dry-due-to-no-water-and-power-5ed2bb59-4737-422e-bc46-453bb44d8ce8

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2022

Durban — Phoenix residents on Tuesday took to the streets waving placards and voicing their concerns over prolonged poor service delivery of water and electricity.

Parts of Phoenix did not have a power supply for five days. There were also problems with the water supply.

Alice Govender, a community activist, said two different organisations held gatherings in Phoenix.

Govender said that in recent months Phoenix has been the poster child of poor service delivery in respect of refuse removal, load shedding and water rationing.

“eThekwini Municipality has much to answer for regarding the dismal, shameful service delivery to Phoenix. The City has been very vocal on promises to fix damaged infrastructure caused by the floods and lack of maintenance on infrastructure prior to the floods. However, the City has fallen short on its promises,” she said.

Govender said residents were diligently paying for water, electricity and refuse removal and not getting the service. “The community of Phoenix has now reached the tipping point of anger and frustration,” she said.

Phoenix Crime Community assistant administrator, Edwin Donovan, said: “It was heartbreaking to see an uncle on crutches and a cancer-stricken aunt standing up for Phoenix’s struggle for water and electricity.

“It was refreshing to see that this protest was not organised under a political banner. Our hope is that this will draw attention to the service delivery issue in Phoenix.”

Phoenix resident Charleen Jagroop said they usually have water shedding in Eastbury between 7pm and 5am but daily the water has been going off at 10am and coming back the next day. Jagroop said load shedding makes the problem worse.

“We come home from work with no water. They make our lives hell. It’s tiring to keep refilling water. We must still pay the bill for all the extra water we use. For months, we suffered with water shedding. They reduce the pressure so drastically that we are lucky to have a decent shower. It is a curse to live in Phoenix. Nowhere else has this problem,” Jagroop said.

DA constituency head for Phoenix, MPL Bradley Singh, said 23 substations had malfunctioned, which left most of Phoenix off the grid. Councillors should not shoulder the blame because they have been pushing for electricians to carry out the work, Singh said.

The torrential rainfall caused electricity substations to “blow up”.

Singh said the municipality did not have the human resources to repair these substations. He said the City was aware that when it rains the substations give in.

“We are putting pressure on the municipality to have teams on standby to avert prolonged outages; and also to prevent damage to the circuit and overloading power supply. Some substations have to be replaced.

“The Phoenix depot does not have the manpower and resources to conduct the repairs speedily. Some workers who were on holiday had to be called in to assist,” Singh said.

With regards to the water, Singh said, there were no water tankers assigned to the area. Singh said the councillors were flooded with calls because the eThekwini call centre was a nightmare to get through.

eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said there was an interruption of water supply to some parts of Phoenix, Ntuzuma and Verulam, due to water rationing implemented because of a reduced water supply from Umgeni Water’s Durban Heights Water Treatment Plant to these reservoirs. The reduced water supply is a result of extensive damage to two raw water pipelines caused by the April floods.

Mayisela said the ongoing rationing was introduced to deal with the water supply challenge. A work schedule provided to Umgeni Water by the appointed contractor said repairs to the damaged pipes were expected to be completed by June 2023.

“KFC forced to shut outlets in South Africa thanks to load shedding”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/kfc-to-shut-outlets-south-africa-thanks-to-load-shedding-eskom-breaking-28-december-2022/

28-12-2022 13:55

KFC is temporarily closing some of its fried-chicken outlets in South Africa due to power cuts imposed by power utility Eskom.

KFC is temporarily closing some of its fried-chicken outlets in South Africa due to power cuts imposed by power utility Eskom.

The Yum! Brands Inc. chain made the decision after the number of blackout days passed 200 this year, an ‘unwanted’ record – as reported by The South African website, https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/south-africa-passes-200-days-power-cuts-in-2022-more-to-follow-breaking-28-december-2022/.

According to Bloomberg, Eskom supplies more than 90% of South Africa’s electricity and has implemented nationwide power cuts, known locally as load shedding, to prevent the grid from total collapse.

KFC OUTLETS HAVE GENERATORS

The decision came as KFC struggles with supplier problems.

While many of the KFC outlets have generators, its suppliers are not able to provide products due to the power outages.

“The current constraints are due to load shedding impacting some of our suppliers. We are working hard to sort out all the constraints with our suppliers, and we’ll be open as soon as possible,” the company said in a tweet on Wednesday.

Yum!, based in Kentucky in the United States, owns and franchises more than 25 000 KFC outlets worldwide, around 750 of which are in South Africa.

>>18017293

>>18023107

“Cable theft the reason for West Acres Substation damage and breakdown” - Mbombela

https://lowvelder.co.za/809510/cable-theft-the-reason-for-west-acres-substation-damage-and-breakdown/

December 27, 2022

There are more cable faults being detected on the line and the repair team is experiencing difficulties in some areas that are inaccessible due to thick bushes.

The problem of the power outage in West Acres was caused by cable theft in the bush area behind the damaged substation.

A metal plate was put above ground over the underground cables and set on fire.

The heat melted the cables together creating a short, enabling the perpetrators to dig them up.

This caused a chain reaction, severely damaging the 140m cable leading to the substation, and also damaging the transformer and breakers.

Some critical equipment has to be replaced but in the short term, the 132/11KV transformer has been stabilised to allow residents to use essential equipment.

DA ward councillor, Sanley van der Merwe, said some areas are still affected due to the long stretch of cable that needs replaced.

“It was just too dark and wet last night to finish the work. Excavators could not be used at that would cause further damage to the cables. The technical team has been on site since 07:00 this morning and we hope power will be restored shortly,” she said

“I must give credit to Mbombela’s Jaco Landsberg, senior technical manager at the energy department. The team really worked under very difficult circumstances. A private electrical engineer, Chris Coenoffered his expertise and community members assisted with the digging. This is very heartwarming,” Van der Merwe said.

“The City of Mbombela said there are more cable faults being detected on the line. The team is trying to locate and address them but is having difficulty with some areas that are inaccessible due to thick bushes. As soon as they’ve been located and fixed we hope to connect everyone.”

“WATCH | Khayelitsha man dragged naked from shack, seeks justice” - https://youtu.be/EaHDA9oniBM

“A high court judgment that invites more land invasions”

https://dailyfriend.co.za/2022/12/28/a-high-court-judgment-that-invites-more-land-invasions-2/

DEC 28, 2022

A flawed judgment handed down last week by a full bench of the Western Cape high court has further undermined the property rights of all South Africans. It has also invited many more illegal land invasions by imposing unwise and unwarranted limits on the common law remedy of counter spoliation.

The criminal syndicates engaged in the hijacking of buildings – both in city centres and more recently in residential suburbs too – will doubtless take note of the ruling and seek to turn it to their advantage. And people who cannot afford litigation to reclaim their homes or other property are likely to be left with no remedy at all.

Counter spoliation

Counter spoliation is a well-established common law rule which allows people to take back their property while the process of dispossession is still under way. They must act quickly, however, and before those busy taking their property have completed or ‘perfected’ their unlawful possession.

The City of Cape Town – which had already lost about 360 hectares (200 football fields) to land invaders in two years and faced more than 100 well-organised and often violent land invasions in mid-2020 – took the view that counter-spoliation could be used for some 48 hours after an invasion, or until such time as land invaders had occupied their shacks and thereby turned them into homes.

Once this had occurred, as the City acknowledged, the land invaders qualified as unlawful occupiers under the Protection of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (the PIE Act) and could not be evicted without a prior court order. They were also then protected by Section 26(3) of the Constitution, which says that ‘no one may be evicted from their home’ without a court order authorising this.

The high court rejected the City’s perspective. According to its judgment, the City may indeed use counter spoliation to turn land invaders away from municipal land which they are still ‘seeking to unlawfully occupy’. But once the invaders have ‘gained access to the land unlawfully and are in the process of erecting structures’ on it, it all depends on how far their construction has got.

If they are ‘merely putting pegs in the ground’, their possession is not yet perfected. But if they are ‘putting on the last wall and/or roof’, then the taking of possession has been completed and counter spoliation is no longer available.

Said the court: ‘Where structures are completed and unoccupied and it took some time and effort to transport the building materials to the land and to commence construction of the informal structures, it would prima facie appear that the possession has been perfected and that the City…cannot rely upon counter spoliation.’

The high court went on to reiterate that counter spoliation is valid and constitutional in ‘narrow’ circumstances. However, as the court stressed, it can never be used to evict land invaders or to demolish their informal structures, whether these are occupied at the time or not.

How the case began

The case arose in July 2020, when Bulelani Qolani was evicted from the Ethembeni informal settlement in Khayelitsha by the City’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit (ALIU). What made his eviction particularly contentious was his decision – made when he saw ALIU members approaching – to undress for a bath and then stand naked outside his shack, asking to be allowed to finish his bath. When he went inside again for this purpose, the ALIU dragged him naked from his shack, pepper-sprayed him, and pinned him down while demolishing his shack.

The City said Qolani’s dwelling had been erected only the day before and was still unoccupied at the time. Moreover, it had been Qolani’s own choice to stand naked outside his shack. This was in keeping with ‘the latest trend, whereby people undressed themselves’ as a strategy to avoid eviction.

Video footage of a naked Qolani being dragged out of his shack went viral around the world and was ‘reminiscent of the brutal forced removals under apartheid’, the high court commented. The City argued that there were disputes of fact still needing to be resolved, but the judges took the view that the City’s own video footage ‘confirmed how the incident had unfolded’.

>>18023107

>>18030109

>>18017293

“Parts of Mbombela’s West Acres still without power”

https://lowvelder.co.za/809553/parts-of-mbombelas-west-acres-still-without-power/

December 29. 2022

The elderly residents of Macadamia Care Home were Trojans during a 48-hour blackout.

As of this morning, December 29, two existing cable faults have been identified in West Acres in Mbombela with the remaining four mini substations still being worked on. The substations were expected to be completed by 13:00 today.

About 140m of cable still needs to be replaced and work resumed at 07:00.

The 132/11 KV transformer is now stable and working.

Although about 80% of West Acres’ electricity has been restored to full power, certain parts have still not been.

Areas still without power include the section between Laerskool Laeveld and Percy Fitzpatrick Drive and along Banket Avenue.

The area up to Macadamia Care Home (MCH) has been restored.

The care manager of MCH, Audrey Browning, said, “We are back to normal load-shedding, but were without power for 48 hours. We have gas and emergency lights, so at least we could serve a hot meal and not be plunged into total darkness.”

Residents of Macadamia include Elisabeth Hoogkamer. She turned 100 during the two-day blackout.

“All our residents and staff were absolute Trojans. No one complained and our employees were amazing, doing the laundry and all the washing by hand,” said Browning.

“Eskom’s load shedding just got WORSE – here’s the latest schedule”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/eskom-load-shedding-got-worse-the-latest-schedule-breaking-28-december-2022/

28-12-2022 17:23

Eskom has announced that load shedding will be pushed to Stage 4 on Wednesday, following the breakdown of more units at its power stations.

Stage 4 load shedding will now be implemented with immediate effect until 05:00 on Thursday.

Stage 3 load shedding will then be in effect from 05:00 until 16:00 daily with Stage 4 load shedding in place daily between 16:00 until 05:00.

This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice.

ESKOM LOAD SHEDDING PLAN

Wednesday, 28 December

• Stage 4: until 00h00

Thursday, 29 December

• Stage 4: 00h00 to 05h00

• Stage 3: 05h00 to 16h00

• Stage 4: 16h00 to 00h00

Friday, 30 December

• Stage 4: 00h00 to 05h00

• Stage 3: 05h00 to 16h00

• Stage 4: 16h00 to 00h00

The escalation comes after the breakdown of four generating units and delays in returning some units to service, Eskom said.

More than half of 2022 has seen days with load shedding, with South Africa hitting the 200 day mark on Tuesday (27 December) -and things are only expected to get worse in 2023.

In a tweet, Eskom posted: “Due to the breakdown of four generating units and delays in returning some units to service, Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented with immediate effect until 05:00 in the morning. Stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented from 05:00 until 16:00 daily.

“Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented daily at 16:00-05:00. This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice.”

>>18036658

“Day 5 and still no electricity in Mbombela’s West Acres”

https://lowvelder.co.za/809577/day-5-and-still-no-electricity-in-mbombelas-west-acres/

Parts of West Acres are still without power as calls for new government grow.

Certain areas of West Acres in Mbombela are still without electricity, five days after the disastrous power crisis facing the City of Mbombela (CoM) and Eskom began. This has caused some irate citizens to consider switching their political allegiances.

CoM workers restarted work early this morning, December 30, in the western part of the neighbourhood between Laerskool Laeveld, the R40 and Dr Enos Mabuza Drive.

The executive mayor, Cllr Sibongile Makhushe-Mazibuko, was on-site with the municipal manager, Wiseman Khumalo, and the main contractor this morning.

At the time of being published, no workers were present at the Asbestos Street substation. They were focused on restoring electricity to the neighbourhood instead.

Princess Vilane lives at Sandy Villas in Banket Avenue where full power was restored last night, December 29.

“We had four very difficult days and nights and had to move all our groceries, especially the meat, to friends who made space for us in their fridges. We still lost a lot of food due to no refrigeration and it has been a nerve-racking time,” Vilane said.

“We need a change of government. Why are the people in power not doing their job and maintaining the cables? We no longer believe in the ANC,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Langenhoven Crescent WhatsApp group in West Acres posted that online electricity is currently offline due to the uninterruptible power supply being replaced. After successful replacement, electricity purchase online will be available 24/7.

>>18058690

>>18103225

>Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel are two more top-ranked golfers amongst the many that Rupert is close to. He has known them since they were teenagers. Other golfers include Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Tom Brady.

“Louis Oosthuizen plays 18 holes with NFL GOAT Tom Brady – PICTURE” and Johann Rupert

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/sport/golf/louis-oosthuizen-plays-18-holes-with-nfl-goat-tom-brady-johann-rupert-christiaan-bezuidenhout-picture-image-view-latest-golf-news-exclusive-breaking/

01-03-2022 08:24

South Africa’s top-ranked golfer, Louis Oosthuizen, has played 18 holes with NFL legend Tom Brady – and here’s the picture to prove it!

Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champion and current 13th-ranked golfer in the world, was joined by South Africa’s second-best player in the latest rankings, 59th-ranked Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

You may also recognise the fourth and final member of the fourball, Johann Rupert.

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN WILL TURN 40 IN OCTOBER

Oosthuizen, the pride of Mossel Bay on the Garden Route, finished in a tie for 30th at his most recent PGA Tour event, last week’s Honda Classic.

Bezuidenhout fared slightly better at the same tournament, finishing tied for 25th.

Brady, 44, is a record seven-time winner with the New England Patriots (six) and the Tamp Bay Buccaneers (once).

He announced his retirement at the end of the 2021 season, but reports suggest we may not have seen the last of the GOAT of quarterbacks.

Rupert, meanwhile, is an avid golfer and South Africa’s richest man with an estimated fortune in the region of $10 billion according to Forbes magazine.

https://www.gq.com/story/tom-brady-iwc-watch-collection-interview

July 9, 2020

Tom Brady: I actually have a great collection now. I've got a few different pilot watches—the Father and Son. I have a special-edition Big Pilots that my friend Johann Rupert, the chairman of Richemont, sent me as a gift for winning the Super Bowl a few years ago.

“International watchdog contracted to validate Eskom’s turnaround plans for load shedding”

https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/international-watchdog-contracted-to-validate-eskoms-turnaround-plans-for-load-shedding-1c9e91e5-70f2-4ec3-b222-e11d04b74858

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2023

Cape Town - The increased public and expert scrutiny of Eskom’s operations in recent months has struck a nerve with the utility as Eskom board chairperson Mpho Makwana revealed that the power utility was seeking to increase its credibility with the public by contracting an international consultancy to validate the execution of its turnaround plans.

This was shared during a meeting between the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) and Eskom on Tuesday where the board and executives of the power utility faced off with the MPs over the utility’s umpteenth plan to bring the country out of darkness.

Scopa questioned how this plan was different to previous plans it had heard from Eskom, why yet another oversight service was needed for this, and why it was being outsourced to an international consultancy when Eskom was already in financial distress and had the necessary engineers and experts to perform these duties.

They had done this before…

“How Deloitte, McKinsey, the Guptas and SAP Ripped Off Eskom”

https://www.brightworkresearch.com/how-deloitte-mckinsey-the-guptas-and-sap-ripped-off-eskom/

November 5, 2019

Executive Summary

• The South African energy utility, Eskom, has been in long term decline.

• As it has been mismanaged, it has been systematically pilfered by several entities ranging from Deloitte, McKinsey, the Guptas, and SAP, among other.

Introduction

Eskom’s decline began around the changed in government to the ANC. Eskom has been living off its infrastructure from a bygone era and is set up for significant future problems. The story of its decline is intertwined with some underhanded firms pushing the utility further to the brink through their parasitism.

So Deloitte had an “inside man” at Eskom, which was Prish Govender. This not only gave Deloitte a distinct advantage in their tender but allowed them to plagiarize work from McKinsey. So when Deloitte submitted its adjusted tender, it would have been able to neutralize the impact of McKinsey’s tender.

Furthermore, Deloitte is an international partner with SAP and recommended SAP solutions to Eskom that would worsened Eskom’s situation, like HANA, the Brightwork Research & Analysis has extensively analyzed. Deloitte would not have informed Eskom of HANA’s indirect access liabilities, which we covered in the article HANA Police Indirect Access Charges, https://www.brightworkresearch.com/saphana/2017/02/07/hana-police-indirect-access-charges/. Internationally, Deloitte lies to companies about SAP, and inaccuracies about SAP to prospects, while pretending to be impartial advisors to firms like Eskom.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-24-global-firm-to-validate-eskom-stats-as-rolling-blackouts-remain-reality-for-next-24-months-scopa-hears/

While using consultants is commonplace internationally, further questions arise as to why no domestic experts are engaged, particularly given the role of global consultancies in State Capture, and the prevailing circumstances that facilitated such moves, which also emerged before the Zondo commission of inquiry — be that McKinseys, Bains or T-Systems.

“Eskom wants to get rid of another 500 white maintenance staff, says trade union Solidarity”

https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/energy/eskom-wants-to-get-rid-of-another-500-white-maintenance-staff-says-trade-union-solidarity-388f7589-0d9d-4376-97f9-bef90553d611

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2023

In the midst of South Africa’s worst energy crisis in history, trade union Solidarity says ailing state power utility Eskom, wants to to get rid of another 500 white males by 2025, mainly persons who are responsible for maintenance work.

The union said in a statement on Thursday this was according to Eskom’s latest race plan for 2023 to 2025.

In a letter issued by Solidarity's legal team addressed to Eskom, it said it asked for a moratorium on race-based appointments at Eskom as a measure to help address the power crisis.

Solidarity said it pointed out that there was an urgent need in South Africa for the deployment of best skills in jobs, regardless of race.

“There are competent black and white artisans at Eskom and out there and those are the people Eskom should recruit based on their ability to help solve the power crisis and without looking at the colour of their skin. Solidarity also reserves the right to go to court should Eskom continue with the implementation of its race targets,” the union said in a statement.

“We do not see in the plan that Eskom is making plans to address its skills challenges. This plan is all about skin colour at the various job levels,” Solidarity Chief Executive Dr Dirk Hermann, said.

“Eskom has just announced a huge tariff increase but instead of addressing its skills problem, Eskom is only paying attention to race targets.

“These absurd race targets come amid the fact that power station maintenance is one of Eskom’s major challenges. Eskom should now focus on one thing only, and that is not race, but power. South Africans do not need race targets but light in their homes and power for their businesses,” Hermann explained.

“Targets such as these discourage existing staff members and also imply that competent white persons cannot apply for jobs to help solve the crisis. Also, it makes it nearly impossible to appoint some of the hundreds of experts who have offered their services to assist Eskom because they have the wrong skin colour.”

Solidarity further said Eskom had a long history of having an aggressive race policy.

Between 1994 and 2002, 10 207 whites left Eskom.

From about 2000 Eskom has paid R1.8 billion in terms of current rand value for packages to get rid of white people.

This rapid loss of skills led to a huge loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

“Eskom has learnt nothing from this. It is still pursuing its race programme, even in the dark,” Hermann said.

Solidarity is also preparing for a court case to get Eskom exempted from black economic empowerment requirements.

According to Solidarity, black economic empowerment is costing Eskom billions and a tariff increase would not have been necessary if Eskom did not have to meet all the racial requirements involved in procurement.

“Eskom’s rolling blackouts — 26 years of ANC meddling, manipulation and vested interests” – Part 1

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-26-eskoms-rolling-blackouts-26-years-of-anc-meddling-manipulation-and-vested-interests/

26 Jan 2023

Below are excerpts

When President Cyril Ramaphosa tells the ANC faithful at the Free State elective conference he’s asked Eskom to suspend the statutorily approved 18.65% electricity price hike, he continues the political interference that’s marked the governing party’s relationship with Eskom in particular, and with state-owned enterprises in general.

It’s a toxic swirl of blurring the lines between party and state, vested interests and electoral populism, now with a firm eye on the 2024 elections when rotational power cuts are set to be a central electioneering tool. That churn has continued regardless of expert advice, presidential committees’ and others’ recommendations and more.

It all goes back more than two decades — to late 1996 when the governing ANC first looked at Eskom with a view to bringing the power utility — which had served apartheid white South Africa and the mining and manufacturing industries — firmly under state control.

“Eskom is not vested within the government. Therefore, legislation is necessary to place the entity under government control and this should happen early next year,” the then public enterprises minister, Stella Sigcau, was quoted as saying in the Mail & Guardian in late 1996.

The 1998 Eskom Amendment Act was followed by the 2001 Eskom Conversion Act, which made the power utility the public entity it is today, Eskom Holdings Limited, with the public enterprises minister in a shareholder compact with this state-owned enterprise (SOE).

That properly ended the power utility’s status as a self-financing entity funded from debt and accumulated reserves and, according to its 1992 Annual Report, with 44,142 employees. By 1995 the Eskom reserves stood at R18.8-billion, with assets of R43-billion and debt at R27.2-billion, according to the power utility’s Statistical Report then.

All this came on the back of a politically sussed Eskom that had read the changing political winds; from late 1994 it had integrated the former TBVC (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, Ciskei) Bantustans’ power grids, and announced a mass electrification programme targeting 700,000 black households by 1997. Meanwhile, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1996 set a target of electrifying 2.5 million households by 1999.

By the time the Eskom Conversion Act became effective, new investment should have been made in the electricity and energy supply side, according to the wide-ranging — and widely well-received — December 1998 Energy White Paper, the government’s official policy statement approved by Cabinet.

The unbundling plan

Talking about affordable energy, improved governance and tighter regulation and diverse supply, including independent power producers, this document proposed that Eskom be unbundled into transmission, generation and distribution entities — “initial exploratory steps will include the unbundling of Eskom’s generation and transmission groups”.

Such a plan re-emerged in the October 2019 Eskom Roadmap released by now Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. This plan is now running many months behind schedule; while the transmission division is established as a separate entity, its board has still to be appointed.

Movement on the other roadmap’s milestones remains sticky, as Eskom’s debt stubbornly hovers around R400-billion. In July 2018, the then ANC treasurer, Paul Mashatile, said there were discussions about an Eskom debt-for-equity swap of some R120-billion, possibly with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), the government’s manager of R2.5-trillion in employee pensions and social savings.

“It’s top of the agenda at Luthuli House. We have to get the economy right and be able to create the necessary employment, particularly for young people,” Mashatile told the Cape Town Press Club then, followed by various officials signalling for a debt-equity swap.

>>18229675

“Eskom’s rolling blackouts — 26 years of ANC meddling, manipulation and vested interests” – Part 2

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-26-eskoms-rolling-blackouts-26-years-of-anc-meddling-manipulation-and-vested-interests/

26 Jan 2023

It didn’t happen. Instead, Budget 2019 provided Eskom with an amortised R250-billion bailout in annual instalments over a decade. Another bailout — or in the preferred government jargon, cash injection — for Eskom’s stubborn R400-billion debt, is expected in Budget 2023.

Back to the 1998 White Paper that the governing ANC left in limbo after protests from, among others, its alliance partner, the labour federation Cosatu. Ditto, the ANC stalling on SOEs’ role in the developmental state — from the August 2000 Cabinet-approved policy framework on “accelerated agenda towards the restructuring of SOEs” to the 2012 presidential SOE review committee. Recommendations of rationalisation, better governance and adequate funding were repeated across all.

Instead, what unfolded in the early 2000s was the ANC’s establishment of its investment arm, Chancellor House, with interests in energy, mining and IT. Named after the Joburg downtown law offices of Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, its establishment was wrapped up in 2003 under the term of then ANC treasurer Mendi Msimang.

It took until November 2006 for Chancellor House to hit the headlines. Then the Mail & Guardian exposed its targeting of sectors where the government was readying to allow large-scale procurement.

On the energy front, Chancellor House secured a 25% shareholding in the local subsidiary of Hitachi Power Africa. That came at a time when moves were under way in the government to finally catch up on the much-ignored and delayed action to bring on additional energy and electricity supply.

With the 1998 White Paper 2000 deadline for extra, diverse and affordable energy supplies ignored, by 2004 Eskom, and others, including then public enterprises minister Alec Erwin, told Parliament in public, and no doubt Cabinet in private, that new sources of energy were urgently needed because capacity was running out.

Kusile and Medupi

In 2006, Kusile and Medupi, the largest new-build power stations in South Africa, designed to bring on board a total of 9,600MW, were loading. By 2007, when construction began, it emerged that Hitachi Power Africa got the largest contract on this new build — as did its 25% shareholder, Chancellor House.

A total of $5-million was paid in dividends to Chancellor House, effectively the ANC, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission charges against the Japanese Hitachi parent company for the “inaccurately recorded improper payments to South Africa’s ruling political party in connection with contracts to build two multibillion-dollar power plants”.

In September 2015, Hitachi paid $19-million “to settle” charges the US Securities and Exchange Commission brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for the arrangement that “gave the front company and the ANC the ability to share in the profits from any power station contracts that Hitachi secured”, according to the commission’s statement at the time.

>>18229675

>>18229678

“Eskom’s rolling blackouts — 26 years of ANC meddling, manipulation and vested interests” – Part 3

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-26-eskoms-rolling-blackouts-26-years-of-anc-meddling-manipulation-and-vested-interests/

26 Jan 2023

Today, Medupi and Kusile are almost a decade behind the 2014 completion schedule, and each is tens of billions of rands over budget, with design faults continuing to bedevil timelines and budgets.

In 2007, widespread rolling blackouts hit South Africa — and have continued to do so ever since. Today’s rotational power cuts that hit every day so far this year — and over 200 days in 2022 — have left South Africans going for up to 12 hours a day without power. Small businesses are buckling, and hospitals, courts and home affairs offices struggle with enforced downtime, while the citizenry’s health is jeopardised as water and sewage treatment fail.

Jacob Zuma’s presidency

The Thabo Mbeki presidency pretty much ignored calls for energy and electricity investment until the last innings as Mbeki was recalled by the ANC in September 2008. The governing ANC had long been roiling internally ahead of the 2007 Polokwane conference where ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma was elected as party president, ready for the Union Buildings.

The Jacob Zuma presidency facilitated Eskom’s looting, as at other SOEs, through a series of deals, middlemen and facilitation fees — mainly, but not solely, by the Gupta brothers and their business partners. International consultancies and auditing firms stepped into State Capture, giving the prevailing dynamics that facilitated making money hand over fist.

Eskom became a revolving door of executives and board members, key interventions that are the sole prerogative of the government, which since 1994 has been the ANC. A crucial moment was the appointment of the 2014 board, and the subsequent suspension of then Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona, a veteran public servant, alongside three senior executives in Lynne Brown’s stint as public enterprises minister.

The Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture ultimately bore testimony to how Eskom, and other SOEs, were hollowed out and the institutional cultures twisted. As Eskom CEO Jabu Mabuza testified in early 2019: “I learnt that the name is corruption but the game is procurement.”

Today little seems to have changed.

Talk of sabotage

“The criminality is quite well organised and well embedded,” Eskom CEO André de Ruyter told MPs on 24 January 2023. Aside from rocks and metal bits regularly found in coal headed to mills to trigger urgent maintenance call-outs, he recounted how three procurement officials recommended a R430-million contract to an individual who after due diligence was found operating from a Germiston suburban home, with a default judgment for falling behind with bond payments and a repossessed car. All procurement officials were suspended, and one left within 24 hours.

Talk of sabotage within Eskom seems to have receded as talk of sabotage by Eskom is upped by politicians. Whether that’s Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe describing how rotational power cuts are “agitating society against the state” and the ANC, or International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor likening the rolling blackouts to “oppositional attacks”.

It’s blame-shifting. It’s another twist in ideological navel-gazing; SOEs were meant to be the drivers against poverty and joblessness as part of the developmental state. And it’s a turn to victimhood to cover a possible election defeat in 2024, or to galvanise voters to ensure another governing ANC victory.

“We have committees to look at what can be done to cushion where we can. As soon as we have found the mechanism of easing the pain, we will go back to our shareholder [the public enterprise minister] and Necom [National Energy Crisis Committee]…”

Right now, this signals how political interference in Eskom stays put, without much pushback. It seems a case of the more things change, they stay the same. Lest we forget. DM

“Rolling blackouts pose a national security risk in South Africa: ISS” - https://youtu.be/zLkRIgEN_3A

“Eskom load shedding poses security threat to South Africans”

https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/eskom-load-shedding-poses-security-threat-to-south-africans-say-experts-48a93266-4584-484a-8db3-3f37e047aff0

Published Jan 25, 2023

Pretoria -The intermittent load shedding imposed by Eskom could potentially pose security threats in South Africa.

This was the concern expressed by experts who were part of the discussions organised by the National Press Club in Pretoria yesterday.

Panel members discussed and assessed the risk posed by load shedding and the electricity tariff hike to national security in the country.

Gareth Newham, head of governance, crime and justice division at the Institute of Security Studies, said some insurance figures had shown an increase in claims because of house burglaries taking place during load shedding and experienced mostly on weekends.

“Load shedding is a very worrying factor that piles on to a number of other factors that weaken public security situation,” he said.

He said load shedding came at a precarious time in South Africa’s recent history. For example, he said that the statistics showed that murders had grown by 54% from 1994 to 2012.

In addition, he said the ability of the police to solve murders dropped by 55% in 2012 and last year they could only solve 14% of crime.

He said the consequence of the police’s ability was seen in July 2021 during riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

Newham said there had not been any improvement in the recent five years in the current administration in terms of the ability to solve various crimes such as armed robberies.

He, however, said there had been improvement in organisations such as the NPA and Special Investigating Unit.

Lunga Dweba, director of Geopolitical Intelligence Advisory, remarked that the situation of load shedding posed a security threat.

“The actions that followed after Nersa’s tariff increase are the ones that concern us; not necessarily the protest actions or court applications but the violent action that follow based on the decision that was made by Nersa,” he said.

He said during protest actions there may be sporadic action of violence.

What was more concerning to him was the growing appetite for lawlessness.

“An example is the unrest in July 2021 where the trace of those that planned it are not known, except the few that were arrested, who are not the planners. Of concern are acts that are planned and executed without trace.”

Grant Clark from Cash-in-Transit Association of South Africa, said load shedding was extremely concerning for the cash distribution industry.

He explained that in South Africa the disruption of cash distribution adversely affect the economy.

“It costs a lot of money to put the generation systems and we see those costs going up all the time,” Clark said.

He said that the possibility of a total blackout, as some experts have warned, would be disastrous for the country, and collaborative work was being done to put contingency plans in place to deal with a possible total shutdown.

South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s Nischal Mewalall said load shedding had a specific focus for the banking industry.

“We have been taking steps to evaluate and identify the type of scenarios that could develop as load shedding begins to pan out,” he said.

One of the scenarios, he said, had been the impact of State 8, and the potential of what could happen if there was a total collapse.

He said the banking industry had looked at load shedding impact to banks’ operations and function as well as the crime and security associated with it. “At the end of the day, our plans don’t solve load shedding rather we tend to solve business continuity.”

He said the banking industry had not observed any disruption arising out of the protest actions.

Load shedding, he said, was already disrupting the ability for use of online services or telephone banking.

“In the event where we have Stage 8 load shedding, he said, people would find it difficult to communicate.”

>>18254097

“NFP to back the ANC and EFF alliance in hung municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal”

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/nfp-to-back-the-anc-and-eff-alliance-in-hung-municipalities-in-kwazulu-natal-8a0916bb-8332-4ef9-8c10-1e5d192abca6

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2023

Durban - The National Freedom Party, a splinter party of the IFP which was formed in 2011 by the late former deputy minister Zanele KaMagwaza Msibi, says it has resolved to work with the ANC and the EFF in hung municipalities.

The NFP said the IFP’s style of governance “inspires no confidence” and all municipalities their opponent governs have “collapsed”.

On Wednesday, the party held an impromptu press conference in Durban to take a position after the fallout between the IFP and the EFF meant that there would be a change of leadership in some municipalities.

The party’s secretary-general, Canaan Mdletshe, said the people could be better served by the ANC-EFF-NFP alliance as opposed to the IFP.

The NFP has several councillors in a number of municipalities. However, some of them are openly defying their leadership and voting with the IFP.

“Glaring corruption at Fort Hare University uncovered”; Sakhela Buhlungu interview - https://youtu.be/5pUeD9xt77M

0:37 – “Something to do with the corruption that’s been uncovered there from procurement to fake qualifications allegedly to connected high-profile individuals.”

“[University of] Fort Hare press on with anticorruption plan, despite killings”

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2023-01-31-fort-hare-press-on-with-anticorruption-plan-despite-killings/

31 January 2023 - 15:52

The murders of bodyguard Mboneli Vesele and fleet manager Petrus Roets are linked to corruption investigations at the university

Despite University of Fort Hare (UFH) management staff increasingly being intimidated and threatened with violence, the corruption clean-up project will not be halted, says the institution's council.

That was after two staff members were killed.

UFH council chair Bishop Ivan Abrahams said the killings of vice-chancellor Prof Sakhela Buhlungu’s bodyguard, Mboneli Vesele, and fleet manager Petrus Roets could be “inextricably” linked to corruption investigations at the university. Roets was gunned down in a suspected hit in May 2022.

President Cyril Ramaphosa previously authorised the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to look into allegations of corruption and maladministration at UFH.

SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the investigations concerned maladministration in the awarding of honours degrees, mismanagement of funds and a probe into four 2012 tenders. These included cleaning and gardening contracts, student accommodation tenders, maintenance and repair of air conditioning tenders and collusion.

Abrahams said Vesele’s murder was a direct threat to Buhlungu. He said the council would support management despite the attacks, against the backdrop of internal investigations and the SIU’s probe.

“Executive management and senior staff are increasingly being intimidated and threatened with violence. We have had to bear witness to the loss of two lives. Yet it is our view that it is exactly the success of the renewal project that underpins this terror campaign,” said Abrahams.

“Therefore, the council is resolute in backing the management executive committee and the vice-chancellor in the clean-up campaign and the rebuilding of the university. As a council, we call on all law-enforcement agencies to ensure arrests are made and the renewal project at the University of Fort Hare is secured.”

At Vesele’s funeral, higher education and training minister Blade Nzimande said he strongly suspected that as a result of corruption and criminality, Vesele was assassinated and Buhlungu and other university employees continuously threatened.

“As various stakeholders — the University of Fort Hare, our department, our law-enforcement agencies — we have to ensure we ramp up our efforts to ensure the safety of this university community,” he said.

“We dare not allow instances of corruption and lawlessness to rob the future generations an opportunity to study in this institution, which largely caters for the dependents of the working class and the poor.”

The police ministry said a multidisciplinary team was established to investigate threats on the lives of the institution's staff members, but no arrests had yet been made.

They seem to use the word ‘reimagining’ across the board for their agenda as the following posts will demonstrate.

“What does ‘reimagining’ policing mean?”

https://youtu.be/4a321QbMEJ0

Jan 31, 2023

3:48 – “The left creates all the conditions for the crisis to flourish and then the left says, “oh, we have the answers.”

>>18269902

“Re-imagining mining to improve people’s lives” – Anglo American

https://www.angloamerican.com/en

>>18269902

>>18269908

“Reimagining energy: Our 2030 plans - two minute version” – BP

https://youtu.be/rktLF-WRhcY

Aug 20, 2020

Key statements

0:00 - “We’re turning our ambition into action by 2030, we’re aiming to be a very different kind of energy company.”

1:34 – “Accelerating the global revolution in mobility”.

1:47 – “Intergrating energy systems.”

1:50 – “Partnering with countries, cities and industries.”

1:54 – “Innovating with a strong focus on digital.”

https://www.producer.com/opinion/unreliable-renewable-energy-is-costly/

Further, Gifford’s article says, the transportation costs of the inputs for solar photovoltaic module manufacturing and delivery have also been rising dramatically.

“Container shipment costs are eight times higher from Shanghai to ports in the United States and Europe in 2021 than they were in 2020, according to several sources.”

For module shipments, Rystad, the solar photovoltaic producer quoted above, concludes that shipping prices have increased 500 percent from September 2019 to October 2021.

The idea that society could windmill and solar panel its way out of fossil fuels and into a carbon-neutral future that is both affordable and can produce sufficient energy to maintain a prosperity-generating economy is, and always has been, based on highly flawed thinking.

When considering input costs for energy production, switching to energy generation that requires a multitude of scarce material inputs of highly variable price is not a recipe for a lower-cost energy future.

On the contrary, prices for goods based largely on scarce materials and highly variable input costs are likely to grow over time.

If Canada continues on the path of phasing out reliable, affordable fossil-fuel energy for scarce, expensive and unreliable “renewables” such as wind and solar power, Canadians can look forward to enduring or adapting to whatever climate change may be in store with less wealth, and less power to weather the changes.

>>18269902

>>18269908

>>18269912

>>18155828

>I feel this is my political responsibilities as a white person, the complete rejection of the meritocracy.

>>18204970

>it’s not become excellent in a particular domain, work your way up through a meritocracy and workout how to run Eskom or Transnet.

“Reimagining Corporate Impact - Joseph Kenner at World Economic Forum 2023”

https://youtu.be/SDj4rRcNjKQ

Jan 31, 2023

Segment from "Frontier Partnerships Reimagining Corporate Impact" at World Economic Forum 2023. Hosted by Daniel Nowack, Head of Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum.

“So the next speaker Joe Kenner who leads the Greyston Social Entrepreneur Enterprise which has piloted a practice that abolishes discrimination in the hiring process because the way that they do it is they just let people in. No CVs, no background checks, you just show up for a job and you start to work.”

>>18269929

>>18269912

>>18269908

>>18269902

“ UNESCO Futures of Education Report: Reimagining our futures together”

https://youtu.be/j8aXSTN71MY

Jan 4, 2022

UNESCO’s futures of education initiative is catalyzing a global debate on how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet. A new report from the International Commission on the Futures of education, in preparation for 2 years, and based on the inputs and engagement of over a million people, presents a vision for forging a new social contract for education.

>>18269936

>a vision for forging a new social contract for education

“A Social Contract for the New World Order”

https://youtu.be/juh09XdLUtQ

Jun 30, 2022

New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 13 Klaus Schwab is the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, which openly seeks to remake the world and its economies into a "stakeholder" model of his own creation. In his 2022 book, 'The Great Narrative for a Better Future' (https://amzn.to/3QvkcrU), Schwab explains that the existing "shareholder"-based social contract has expired, and it's time for a new one. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay walks you through a few paragraphs of The Great Narrative in which Schwab details what a new social contract would entail and where it might come from.

2:38 – “Klaus does it for us, so we’ll just continue reading a few paragraphs down. He says, “Rising concerns about inequality and profound sentiment of dissatisfaction if not anger that it provokes, will prompt many societies around the world to redefine the terms of their social contract.” Now imagine if you will that you have an organization that funds a lot of woke Marxism. A lot of this identity politics that makes people angry and makes them perceive inequality and injustice, like the World Economic Forum and all of its various partners. Then that same organization happens to point out, look how angry people are, look how dissatisfied people are because of the inequality that we are actually stoking. What if that same organization was creating gigantic wealth inequality by creating policies say through Covid 19 that funnel tons and tons of money to the big corporations like Amazon that did wonderfully well through the pandemic while all of the smaller things get squashed and destroyed. So you’re creating social inequality, you’re creating wealth inequality and then you’re saying look how much inequality there is. This demands a complete redefinition of our social contract. We need an entirely new society under the leftist terms.”

7:01 – “Your own leftist policies which don’t work, aren’t working and it causes people to be dissatisfied but you’re going to say it’s somebody else’s fault. Again the same classic Marxist deflection of responsibility and demand for more ability to keep doing what they’re doing. This is where bloody revolutions, like the Bolshevik Revolution and the French Revolution ultimately come from. Not just these failures of policy but also deflecting the blame onto some scapegoat.”

7:56 – “In some countries, this widespread exasperation has taken the form of both peaceful and violent demonstrations and others it has led to electoral victories for populist and extremist parties.”

“Ditsobotla Municipality| ANC will vote for Patriotic Alliance for mayor: Gayton mckenzie” - https://youtu.be/W1_AixWemSo

“Patriotic Alliance secures second mayoral position”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/patriotic-alliance-second-mayoral-position-9-january-2023/

09-01-2023 22:12

Patriotic Alliance has today, Monday, 9 January, secured a second mayoral position in the history of the party’s politics.

PATRIOTIC ALLIANCE HAS A NEW AYOR IN THE NORTH WEST

Member of the Patriotic Alliance Itumeleng Elizabeth Lethoko was elected as the new mayor of Ditsobotla Local Municipality following a special sitting earlier.

The special sitting took place at Ngaka Moderi Molema District Municipality Chambers in Mahikeng.

HOW MAYOR ITUMELENG LETHOKO WON

According to the SABC North West, her nomination was supported by the ANC and Forum For Service Delivery. The ANC received 16 seats following Dec 14th by-elections, while the opposition parties had 23, combined. This led to coalition talks, which saw the ANC, F4SD and Patriotic Alliance agreeing to their coalition conditions.

Through this coalition, Fikile Jakeni of the ANC was elected the Speaker of the Municipality. He received 20 votes while his opponent Letlamoreng Mosiane from the Save Ditsobotla Movement secured 17 votes.

“Congratulations are in order to Itumeleng Elizabeth Lethoko of Patriotic Alliance South Africa for her election as the mayor of Ditsobotla Local Municipality.”

Bonginkosi Khanyile

CONGRATULATORY NOTES FOR NEW MAYOR

“The council is [currently] taking place at Mahikeng, at the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality chamber. And I can confirm it is led by the PA Mayor. Salute President Gayton Mckenzie you led us well. This is WAR!” Khanyile updated earlier.

“A Mayor from the Patriotic Alliance will lead the Ditsobotla Municipality. The people of Ditsobotla can be assured of service delivery. Where the PA lead, service delivery is paramount. Ons baiza nie. Salute!!! Well done my President Gayton McKenzie!!! Salute Itumeleng Lethoko Salute!!!” Patriotic Alliance Bronville Ward 11.

The first mayoral position was secured by party president Gayton McKenzie in the Central Karoo District Municipality in the Western Cape where he has proved to be a leader to be reckoned with.

>>18301902

>Salute President Gayton Mckenzie you led us well. This is WAR!” Khanyile updated earlier.

Then comes the coalition shenanigans.

“Patriotic Alliance on Ditsobotla mayor's resignation” hours after she was elected

https://youtu.be/nK8RRxd6mtM

Jan 10, 2023

The mayor of Ditsobotla Municipality in the North West resigned hours after she was elected. Elizabeth Lethoko says her decision was triggered by the ANC's proposal to appoint the administrator as municipal manager. Her party, the Patriotic Alliance has rallied behind her. Patriotic Alliance's deputy president Kenny Kunene speaks to Xoli Mngambi.

6:54 – “In the same principal of clean governance, why was it prudent to you as a party to put forward the name of Elizabeth Lethoko? This was someone who convicted for fraud and this was in breach of the municipal Finance Management Act 2015 when she attempted to influence the finance chief of the municipality for funds to be channeled towards a birthday party… We are a political party of 2nd chances… Myself and the president have been given 2nd chance.”

>>18301916

>>18301902

“U-turn – Patriotic Alliance’s Elizabeth Lethoko withdraws resignation as mayor of troubled Ditsobotla municipality”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-12-patriotic-alliances-elizabeth-lethoko-does-u-turn-withdraws-resignation-as-ditsobotla-mayor/

12 Jan 2023

The mayor of the ailing Ditsobotla Local Municipality in North West has withdrawn her resignation following meetings between ANC and PA leaders. Her resignation had not been processed yet and the Speaker accepted her withdrawal. The municipality has had 14 municipal managers, four mayors and four Speakers in six years, resulting in a total collapse of governance.

P atriotic Alliance (PA) councillor Elizabeth Lethoko has withdrawn her resignation as mayor of the troubled Ditsobotla Local Municipality in North West.

Speaking to Daily Maverick on Wednesday evening, PA Deputy President Kenny Kunene said they had talks with their coalition partners, which include the ANC, and reached an agreement that the mayor must withdraw her resignation.

“The Speaker has indicated that the letter was not yet processed, so the withdrawal is accepted and therefore the mayor of the PA will lead that municipality.”

He added that they also spoke with the African Heart Congress, which is part of the coalition.

“Their president accepted our input and said they are also on board. The ANC will go to speak to Forum 4 Service Delivery. On Friday, all the coalition partners are meeting to map a way forward for the councillors.”

Commenting on the vacant municipal manager post, Kunene said the council would meet and decide as a collective whether they would accept the proposal of someone being deployed by the provincial Department of Cooperative Governance or whether the council would appoint someone directly while the post is advertised.

Meanwhile, another coalition partner, Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD), said it rejected the PA’s attempt to withdraw the resignation of the mayor.

“We are wondering what has changed and what enticed them [the PA] to attempt to withdraw the resignation,” said F4SD National Working Committee member Thapelo Makgale.

“In all the shenanigans by the PA, coalition partners were never consulted; instead we established through the media that Lethoko has resigned,” added Makgale.

Last year, the Ditsobotla Local Municipality was dissolved by Parliament, following massive non-compliance breaches and reports of maladministration.

The municipality has had 14 municipal managers, four mayors and four Speakers in six years, resulting in a total collapse of governance.

Last year, dairy group Clover closed its cheese factory in Lichtenburg, the company’s biggest, due to the ailing service delivery in North West.

Before the by-elections, Daily Maverick visited the municipality and saw total decay, with townships full of exposed sewage while the streets, which are mostly not tarred, were full of litter.

In the subsequent by-elections, the ANC lost its majority for the first time since the dawn of democracy in SA, going from 51% to 39%.

The ANC then entered into a coalition with the PA, F4SD and African Heart Congress, which gave it 21 seats in the 39-seat council.

We should keep an eye on them.

“Gayton McKenzie, Hersov’s ’Prez”, explains PA’s switch: ‘DA had to be taught a lesson’ ahead of 2024”

https://youtu.be/wf2qaG1r-gA

Oct 20, 2022

In this no-holds-barred interview Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie opens a window into what South Africans can expect from coalition rule after the 2024 National Election. At the very least, it promises to be exciting. The PA’s co-founder says his ‘kingmaking’ moves that reinstated power for the ANC in Johannesburg and Knysna, are deliberate lessons for erstwhile allies – especially the Democratic Alliance whose leader he again meets with tomorrow. Arguing the end justifies his means, McKenzie maintains if allowed to continue, current bickering between anti-ANC parties threatens to snatch defeat from the jaws of 2024’s probable victory. He maintains the PA’s switching sides will prove the point that coalitions must be run as true partnerships – and is confirmation he will always follow through on what he promises. In this interview with Alec Hogg of BizNews, McKenzie also explains the reasons why the PA rejected formal offers of funding from ‘my friend’ Rob Hersov and like-minded tycoons. At BNC#4, in Hersov’s suggested post-2024 cabinet he proposed McKenzie as SA’s President.

29:59 – “One thing he did right for his country, it’s a gift that Rob Hersov gave to this country. He has shown business people… he is the Harry Oppenheimer of our time.”

“‘I will run for President in 2024’, Central Karoo Mayor Gayton McKenzie says after 100 days in office”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-24-i-will-run-for-president-in-2024-central-karoo-mayor-gayton-mckenzie-says-after-100-days-in-office/

24 Jul 2022

Gayton McKenzie gave himself 12/10 for his achievements as mayor of the Central Karoo District in his first 100 days — even though he was light on the details. He announced he would run for President in 2024, and offered his services (free of charge) ‘to fix Eskom’.

McKenzie, who was jailed as a teenager for a failed bank robbery decades ago, went on to become a motivational speaker, author and businessperson. He founded the Patriotic Alliance (PA) in 2013 with his friend Kenny Kunene – with the pair acting as president and deputy president, respectively.

During a council sitting to elect a mayor after Mitchell Smith resigned, only McKenzie was nominated — no opposition candidate was put forward.

Friday’s celebration was attended by coalition partners and about 1,000 PA supporters from across the country. Also in attendance were McKenzie’s friends and investors — such as billionaire Rob Hersov, Karoo politics strongman and former Beaufort West mayor Truman Prince, and, of course, Kunene.

He praised Kunene and Hersov, specifically for their role in creating employment and fixing basic needs, including the eradication of bucket toilets and repairing potholes.

“There will be fracking happening in the Central Karoo. We will mine uranium in the Central Karoo — Johannesburg had nothing, they mined and today they have everything… Why can’t Central Karoo have everything?”

“I, Gayton McKenzie, will be running for President in 2024,” he said.

McKenzie also made renewed comments on expelling foreign nationals: “Foreigners will go home if I became the President.” And: “When you are a foreigner legally here you must come with a special skill — you can’t do a job that can be done by a South African.”

McKenzie said he was offering his services as Eskom CEO as incumbent André de Ruyter was unable to deal with the “mafias” who operate in the diesel, petrol and transportation sectors and the unions.

Addressing President Cyril Ramaphosa directly, he said: “I am volunteering without a salary to fix Eskom for you… I have fixed the Central Karoo, I will deal with the mafias.”

>>18301934

“#StraightTalk: PA leader Gayton McKenzie tells about plots to #KillZuma on his new book [Kill Zuma by any Means Necessary]” – 1 of 3

https://youtu.be/QLJg22JmaKs

Dec 12, 2017

2:12 – “I think the most important story for me in the book is the… con of CODESA.”

2:50 – “When PW Botha regime made contact with President Oliver Thambo regime and the 2 of them and people are not aware of this info. The 2 of them decide to send 2 of their best men to start preliminary talks. It did not start with De Klerk. Mike Louw and [Maritz] Spaarwater were sent, #1 and #4 of the National Intelligence Agency from South Africa. Tambo sent [Thabo] Mbeki and [Jacob] Zuma. They met at the hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland. [https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/chronology-meetings-between-south-africans-and-anc-exile-1983-2000-michael-savage]… When they gave a report back, they gave 2 reports. Report #1 is the ANC is willing to talk. Report #2, we never heard of and that’s the report we have, is that whatever you do, you gotta get Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma removed from the negotiations. They’re unmovable when it comes to the land issue and the aspirations of the black people. You got to put somebody there that is plyable.”

4:14 – “Fast forward, the military intelligence together with 3 foreign intelligence; CIA, Mossad and MI6 came up with the operation called Operation Scrum. Operation Scrum had one thing in mind, to make sure that these 2 gentlemen Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma does not sit at the negotiating table… President Zuma makes a call to President Mandela. Mandela scolds President Zuma, “there’s no such a thing, you cannot be removed. I’m the only one who can remove you and I have not removed you.” Long story short, when they landed [in London] they found out that they’ve been removed and replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa.”

6:25 – “You look at the guy, DD [David] Mabuza, a star of the ANC. The biggest threat to the enemies of the ANC in the ANC. They poisoned him.”

7:08 – “I committed hideous crimes in my life. I did the most despicable things that I’m usually embarrassed about but 15 years ago I made a vow and a promise I’ll never commit a crime in my life again… there’s no ex-prisoner in the world that has spoken to 2.3 million school children to tell them crime does not pay. I will do that until the end of my life.”

7:58 – “Test the information I have in the book. What I am saying to you is that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was put there in that position through extremely clandestine means. If it was forthright, why do you wait for Mandela to leave? Why do you wait for Mbeki to leave?… The Menell family is one of the biggest family in mining. I’m in mining, so know the families. Menell paid for [Ramaphosa’s] schooling through the Urban Foundation. He gave them money to start NUM. The National Union of Mineworkers was started by money from from Menell, Oppenheimer and Rupert. He {Ramaphosa] has always been their boy… He is the fingerman of white monopoly capital. Everytime black people are about to rise and stand up, he’s coming up with a new deal… Secondly, which is the most important question, ask anybody that went to war against Apartheid regime. Is this what they fought for? The outcome we got. You’ll not find one that says this is not. We have no land, we have no money. In fact we have people that controls our daily lives.”

>>18301942

“#StraightTalk: PA leader Gayton McKenzie tells about plots to #KillZuma on his new book [Kill Zuma by any Means Necessary]” – 2 of 3

https://youtu.be/QLJg22JmaKs

Dec 12, 2017

12:10 – “The ANC top 6, there was a mission to destroy BRICS and in order to destroy our participation in BRICS… It was decided that you just need to change the ANC because any incoming government will withdraw from BRICS. They had a three point plan how to destroy the ANC.”

14:02 – “Who are they the ones that poisoned President Jacob Zuma, [?], DD Mabuza?… Foreign agencies that’s against our participation in BRICS. That is them. These people went to South African hospitals and all three of them couldn’t be healed. They all end up in the Russian hospitals.”

14:30 – “In this country we must be honest, black people have nothing. We are being controlled by the Stellenbosch mafia… Anton Rupert told Minister Fikile Mbalula, go and tell your President Zuma (He sent him to President Zuma. It is in the book.) that I will make South Africa look worse than Zimbabwe if you can remove by boy, Pravin [Gordhan] and Mcebisi Jonas.”

15:39 – “Bidvest got each and every government. They own the airport… Everything there is Bidvest. Who’s these people that got evergreen contracts, Bidvest… Evergreen contract is a contract that is doesn’t have a date when it’s ending… R10 billion is the jet fuel at SAA. 5 companies for the past 80 years has been sharing that… Eskom, 75% of their coal has been locked in for 75 year contracts by a certain families but we just hear about the Gupta family. The biggest mistake the Guptas did, they did nothing different that white monopoly capital did, they just didn’t have the cover that white monopoly got.“

17:11 – “Not only Bidvest, all this long term evergreen contracts… In our country, you have the Ruperts, the Menells and you have the Oppenheimers that controls these people. Look at Trevor Manuel. His wife [Maria Ramos] gave the whole book of Transnet over to the Oppenheimers and still got married on a farm… People were complaining that comrade Ace Magashule and them went to the Gupta wedding… Now just imagine if Ace Magashule got married at the Guptas’s compound.”

17:59 – “I’ve got the proof. I’m not talking about people that are dead. I’m talking about people who can talk for themselves.”

18:06 – “I don’t care who’s the President. Whether he wins or whether he loses but people must know, they’ve been warned. If this man [Ramaphosa] wins this conference, white people will rejoice and how can white people rejoice that is against radical economic transformation? You know I watched this movie, “Godfather”, last night and Michael Corleone in Godfather II – I think. He goes there and sit in the front row was the brother of the guy that’s about to testify against him. He didn’t talk to that guy but the message was very clear, don’t go off script. Here’s your brother. What happened in Soweto? The 4 captains of white monopoly capital go to an ANC meeting where Cyril was introducing a new deal.”

>>18301942

>>18301949

“#StraightTalk: PA leader Gayton McKenzie tells about plots to #KillZuma on his new book [Kill Zuma by any Means Necessary]” – 3 of 3

https://youtu.be/QLJg22JmaKs

Dec 12, 2017

21:23 – “In this country, black people have been taken for a ride by some blacks that has been given a few shares here and there. They’ve given me a few shares here and there thinking I will not talk. I’m not that type of guy. I’m saying to you that we are the only people in the world that has won a revolution and we don’t have land. Now people blame Afrikaners, the farmers. That is the biggest lie that has been told in this country… It’s not Afrikaners. Agriculture is around 3-5% of our land. The white farmers have been blamed for nothing here. Let me tell you who’s the culprit, the culprit is the mining houses… It is not the farmers holding onto the land. You are blaming the wrong people. It is the mining magnets that are holding onto this land. The media is protecting comrades Cyril. This man has got money in the Paris Papers. His company’s name is there but you don’t read about it.”

25:18 – “I receive it from over-the-road, the files. So President Zuma does not have jurisdiction over these files. The Intelligence Minister does not have jurisdiction of these files. These files were not even given to me in this country. So these are my files. How I got it is none of their business… I take instructions from my party, the Patriotic Alliance leadership. The ANC cannot tell me what to do with the files. In the book, I’ve already unmasked one senior person as a spy… We have a situation in MK where people killed. One of the survivors with tears in his eyes told me thank you for being brave to ask me this question because I asked him, “who sold you out.” With tears in his eyes, he said I was sold out by comrade Siphiwe Nyanda… Siphiwe Nyanda is a spy.”

26:30 – “If you read the book, you will get that I’m ready, let them come. Let them send me summons if I’m lying. They know the reason why black people have nothing is because of CODESA and of what happened in CODESA. Our Constitution was written… under the supervision of Menell, Oppenheimer and Rupert. 200 students got together. Now they were never in the picture, those students.”

27:00 – “Here we are at this extraordinary house and you’re leveling damning allegations against people who are powerful, some of the most powerful individuals in this country, are you not concerned about your safety Mr. McKenzie? Post this discussion, post this interview… I’m from the streets my brother. That’s all about to say to you. Whoever’s looking for me, I shall be looking for them too.”

>>18301942

>>18301949

>>18301956

Remember the attached pdf which was posted in one of the previous SA breads. “Dr.” Zweli Mkhize was part of an international team to ‘fight’ Covid.

“Gayton McKenzie: Zweli Mkhize attempted to poison Jacob Zuma”

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/gayton-mckenzie-zweli-mkhize-attempted-to-poison-jacob-zuma/

8 Feb 2018

Gayton McKenzie, the author of ‘Kill Zuma by Any Means Necessary’, has reacted to a letter written by a faction of the MKMVA claiming ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa attempted to poison President Jacob Zuma.

In a letter addressed to ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, the ‘Concerned Umkhonto weSizwe veterans’ wrote: “We also demand that the leadership of the ANC who were there when poisoned liver was placed before the president, Jacob Zuma, be revealed to the membership of the ANC and the nation. How can the organisation’s top leaders sit on such information?”

“Where did the liver come from, who prepared it and who wanted the president to eat it and die. Without the leadership telling us, we conclude it is Cyril Ramaphosa,” the faction of the MKMVA said.

MKMVA spokesperson Carl Niehaus has said the members of this faction were not speaking for the organisation.

McKenzie has since responded to the assertions in a statement published on AfricaNews24-7, as well as his own Twitter account.

“My sources have confirmed that there was a plot to kill President Jacob Zuma. The plot involved feeding Zuma a piece of liver, or according to another version, a plate of vegetables,” McKenzie stated and disclosed the culprit was Dr Zweli Mkhize.

“The liver or the vegetables had been poisoned and brought to the table from outside of Luthuli House to be served to the president.

“I at no point said that Ramaphosa recommended the food in question to President Zuma. In the book, it is only stated that it was a member of the top six who suggested the president should try the food,” McKenzie clarified.

“By not naming the person, I realise now that I created needless speculation, and everyone has simply concluded the person was Ramaphosa. This calls upon me to now set the record straight and be clear that it was the then treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, who was accused of recommending the food to President Zuma.

“The president confronted him about it afterwards, whereupon I understand Mkhize claimed not to remember anything about the incident. Hopefully, this clarification will set the record straight. Future editions of the book will also feature an edit to ensure this unintended confusion is removed,” the statement reads.

Taher Mather, Dr Mkhize’s spokesperson, was unable to get a comment from the former premier of KwaZulu-Natal, as he is currently in Cape Town.

Mather explained that by the time Pule Mabe, new ANC spokesperson, announced the postponement of the special NEC meeting scheduled for today to February 17 and 18, Mkhize and most other NEC members had already flown to Cape Town in preparation of the gathering of the party’ decision-making structure in between conferences.

Former Prasa chief executive Lucky Montana implicated Mkhize in state capture corruption during his submission to the parliamentary inquiry into Eskom maladministration. City Press reported that in a letter Mkhize sent to Zukiswa Rantho, chairperson of the public enterprises committee, he said he was exploring his legal recourse on the allegations.

>>18058673

>Former finance minister Trevor Manuel and business executive Maria Ramos exchanged nuptials on the Rupert family farm of L’Ormarins Wine Estate in 2008. Manuel is close friends with Fred Robertson, Brimstone chairman.

>>18067136

>The document implicates President Cyril Ramaphosa, Thuli Madonsela, Maria Ramos and Transnet board members from 2006/7, Trevor Manuel, Pravin Gordhan, Gill Marcus, Moira Moses, Mafika Mkhwanazi, the late Don Mkhwanazi and SA Shipyards, Doris Tshepe, Brian Joffe and the 2006/7 Bidvest board, Sybrand Pretorious, Pradeep Maharaj, and Chris Wells.

>>18301949

>In our country, you have the Ruperts, the Menells and you have the Oppenheimers that controls these people. Look at Trevor Manuel. His wife [Maria Ramos] gave the whole book of Transnet over to the Oppenheimers and still got married on a farm

>>18067803

>>18067697

>Trevor Manuel is codenamed as the King of Leaves and Maria Ramos as the Queen of Leaves.

“Trevor and Maria strike love deal”

https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2008-12-29-trevor-and-maria-strike-love-deal-/

29 December 2008 - 02:00

It's been a long time coming but Trevor Manuel and Maria Ramos finally tied the knot on Saturday.

Finance Minister Manuel and Ramos, his former director-general and the new chief executive of Absa, wed in front of a handful of VIPs, family and friends outside Cape Town on Saturday.

Security guards patrolled the exclusive L'Ormarins estate in Franschoek on quad bikes to keep out the media and potential gatecrashers.

Private security and local police officers guarded the entrance to the wine estate, owned by the Rupert family, and the National Intelligence Agency was also reportedly called in to help with security.

Word got out last week that the couple was planning "a secret wedding" in front of a small group of people. A few days later they released a statement asking the media to respect their privacy and not to attend the wedding.

Though the newlyweds released their wedding photos to the media on Saturday night, Manuel's spokesman, Thoraya Pandy, declined to disclose the guest list, saying "it was a private ceremony so we are not releasing any details about who was there and who did not attend".

Congress of the People staffers could not confirm if deputy president Mbhazima Shilowa had attended the wedding but said Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota was present.

Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, former education minister Kader Asmal and former tourism and environmental affairs minister Valli Moosa were seen arriving for the elite occasion.

Manuel, 52, and Ramos, 49, met in 1996 when they worked together in the ministry of finance.

Manuel and his wife at the time, Lynne Matthews, separated five years later in 2001 and began divorce proceedings that were finalised last year.

Named bytheFinancial Mail in 2006 as "the twin engines of the South African economy", the two have always refused to discuss their relationship with the media.

>>18301956

>We have a situation in MK where people killed. One of the survivors with tears in his eyes told me thank you for being brave to ask me this question because I asked him, “who sold you out.” With tears in his eyes, he said I was sold out by comrade Siphiwe Nyanda… Siphiwe Nyanda is a spy.”

“SOUTH AFRICA: FORMER GUERRILLA LEADER [Siphiwe Nyanda] TO BECOME MILITARY CHIEF” (30 Apr 1998) - https://youtu.be/EA1mp3SnDpE

“Siphiwe Nyanda: Profiling the alleged apartheid spy” – Part 1

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/who-is-siphiwe-nyanda-profiling-alleged-apartheid-spy/

5-07-2019 18:59

The former president claims that Nyanda’s spy name was ‘Ralph’.

Former president Jacob Zuma made startling revelations on his first day at the state capture inquiry. None was more shocking than the accusation he made about former SANDF General Siphiwe Nyanda.

Zuma stated that he has been the target of a character assassination plot that has been active since 1990.

He alluded to the presence of dark forces deployed by three intelligence agencies — two from foreign governments and one established by the apartheid regime — whose agenda was to neutralise him.

Claiming that this was his last bid to redeem what’s left of his struggle legacy before these ‘dark forces’ succeed in killing him, the former president went on to make bold accusations against Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Fikile Mbalula and Ngoako Ramatlhodi.

The name that flew under the radar, partially due to the celebrity of the aforementioned figures, was Siphiwe Nyanda.

Probably the most shocking accusation he has made so far, Zuma alleged that Nyanda was recruited by the apartheid government to infiltrate the structures of the ANC’s struggle movement.

WHO IS SIPHIWE NYANDA?

Nyanda is a 69-year-old high-ranking government official, considered by many as an icon of the liberation struggle. Much of his early roles in the fight against apartheid were with the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) military wing in the 1970s.

He joined the party’s military in 1974, and within a span of ten years, he rose up the ranks and became a field commander, playing a key role in directing coordinated operations against the apartheid government in the 1980s.

Nyanda’s work with MK and 1994’s Transitional Executive Council earned him the position within the SANDF as the Chief of Defence Force Staff of the country’s military.

The General served the SANDF in different positions until 2005. Four years later, he was moved to the Ministry of Communications, ironically serving under the administration of Zuma’s first term as the head of state.

He would only spend 18 months in this role, after facing mounting pressure about tender irregularities and accusations that he personally benefitted from state funds.

Nyanda would go under the radar for eight years, before returning to the fore of public service as a board member of Denel, South Africa’s embattled arms manufacturer.

>>18302048

“State Capture | Spies, lies and conspiracies” - https://youtu.be/Y8qHegeeog0

3:05 – “The war today is fought at intelligence level. No longer at guns etc..”

“Siphiwe Nyanda: Profiling the alleged apartheid spy” – Part 2

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/who-is-siphiwe-nyanda-profiling-alleged-apartheid-spy/

15-07-2019 18:59

ZUMA’S INTEL ON NYANDA’S DAYS AS A SPY

While Zuma, during his testimony, recognised Nyanda’s achievements, he alleged that the General’s struggle history was tainted. Zuma told the commission of an apartheid spy named Ralph whose mission was to infiltrate the ranks of the ANC.

As the ANC’s intelligence operative, Zuma revealed that he always had the advantage of receiving leaked information. One of this included Nyanda, who he alleged was in cahoots with the Swazi government and the apartheid regime under the alias ‘Ralph’.

Zuma brought Nyanda’s arrest in Swaziland to question, where he alleged that an orchestrated attack on the prison that held him was part of the ploy to maintain the integrity of the undercover operation and to not compromise his identity.

Zuma revealed that upon their release from prison, he had received intelligence that the mole in the movement was given an instruction to hug a certain operative as an indication that he was not compromised.

As it turns out, it was allegedly Nyanda who was hugged by the operative, confirming, based on his intelligence, that the former Minister of Communications was an apartheid spy.

>>18302048

>>18302057

“Nyanda will not seek legal action against Zuma” – Was he concerned that the truth would come out?

https://youtu.be/Cdw_AOjkuMw

Jul 16, 2019

Former SANDF head, Siphiwe Nyanda, claims former president, Jacob Zuma, is a bitter man.

>>18301934

>McKenzie also explains the reasons why the PA rejected formal offers of funding from ‘my friend’ Rob Hersov and like-minded tycoons.

>One thing he did right for his country, it’s a gift that Rob Hersov gave to this country. He has shown business people… he is the Harry Oppenheimer of our time.

>>18301942

>The Menell family is one of the biggest family in mining. I’m in mining, so know the families. Menell paid for [Ramaphosa’s] schooling through the Urban Foundation. He gave them money to start NUM. The National Union of Mineworkers was started by money from from Menell, Oppenheimer and Rupert.

>>18301949

>In our country, you have the Ruperts, the Menells and you have the Oppenheimers that controls these people.

>>18301956

>They know the reason why black people have nothing is because of CODESA and of what happened in CODESA. Our Constitution was written… under the supervision of Menell, Oppenheimer and Rupert.

Is history in the process of repeating itself?

“Who’s Rob Hersov: An Intricate Look” – Part 1

https://blackopinion.co.za/2022/02/20/whos-rob-hersov-an-intricate-look-2/

February 20, 2022

Who’s Rob Hersov, the man who holds the details of the meeting between British Lord Robin Renwick & EFF’s Julius Malema in London? Malema & Renwick having met under the Chatham House protocols of sworn secrecy, so who’s Rob to have privileged third party information? Chatham House is the 3rd most powerful society & what is said there stays there- you speak you die.

It’s well established that Rob Hersov is the son of Basil Hersov. Basil Hersov is former chairperson & shareholder in the former Anglo Vaal mining company, co-owned with the Menell families. In essence Rob Hersov is the heir to the Hersov family wealth, however keen to make his own mark- Rob left abroad.

Having worked as an executive for such companies as Wall Street listed Morgan Stanley bank, & Italian based pay-tv company Telepui owned by Richemont of Johann Rupert, Rob used his contacts to raise capital to form a company called Sportal in 1998 of which was a sports website development company, & secured contracts with various elite sports entities across Europe & even the South African rugby team.

With Rob as CEO, by May of 2000 Sportal was worth £270 million. However by March 2001 Rob admits the company is falling as investors start to pull out- Rob resigns as CEO, & in November 2001 Sportal is sold for £1, yes one pound. 2002 Rob Hersov founded the executive jet service Marquis Jet Europe of which was a successful venture of which he sold it to rival Netjets, controlled by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2004 & Rob remained as the vice-chairman of Netjets Europe.

Fresh & jubilant from this success- Rob Hersov financially backed German businessman Lars Windhorst to launch an investment firm called Sapinda with Windhorst as CEO & Hersov as board chair, & was again wildly successful building up a balance sheet of more than £900million. However the financial sector global crisis of 2007 dragged Sapinda down as Sapinda was shored up by debt.

German prosecutors however investigated Windhorst’s management of Sapinda & eventually brought 35 charges of fraud, embezzlement and breach of trust, but Windhorst entered into a plea bargain & was fined £850 000 & admitted a breach of trust offence, for which he was given a one-year probation period & with a criminal record after Sapinda had left it’s investors with £60 million in debts.

Hersov & Windhorst were also jointly accused by Alki Partners an American hedge fund- of fraudulent market manipulation. In 2008 a company called Vatas was sentenced by the Berlin Court to pay €29m to Audley Capital a British hegde fund. In 2009 German Bank NORD/LB sued Vatas for €150 million. Vatas filed for insolvency after this. Vatas was owned by Hersov with Windhorst as CEO. There’s also a link of $35 million investment by Sapinda into USA tech company Azubu TV, of which was subsequently embroiled in a $9 billion money laundering ring.

>>18302094

“Who’s Rob Hersov: An Intricate Look” – Part 2

https://blackopinion.co.za/2022/02/20/whos-rob-hersov-an-intricate-look-2/

February 20, 2022

Rob Hersov’s track record of questionable to downright shady business dealings & direct association with a convicted fraudster with a criminal record irks.

Rob Hersov is now back in South Africa, & the domestic media reports him as a “Successful Billionaire On A Mission To Save South Africa”.

In his short stint back, he’s again in the spotlight.

Basil Hersov & the Menell family founded the Anglovaal mining company in 1933. It was unbundled & sold off in the late 1990s, but it’s subsidiary companies live on such as food processor AVI, glass maker Consol , & African Rainbow Minerals(ARM) of Patrice Motsepe. Hersov’s brother, James Hersov is a non-executive director of AVI. Rick Menell is ARM’s non-executive deputy chairman.

It must be noted that the Mennel family formed the Urban Foundation NGO with the Oppenheimers & Rupert families. The Urban Foundation payed for Ramaphosa’s law degree studies & Ramaphosa went on to work for the Urban Foundation from 1985 to 1990.

Further note that Lord Worked on the board of Rupert’s company Richemont from 1995 to 2020. The same Richemont that employed Rob Hersov under it’s subsidiary Telepui before Hersov established Sportal, so it’s still the same old order of influence.

Why are EFF’s Julius Malema & Nhlanhla Lux of Operation Dudula holding clandestine meetings with Rob Hersov. What’s interesting though is that Rupert’s employees are the ones holding meetings with Malema & Lux, but at least Rupert meets personally with Ramaphosa which shows a certain level of courtesy- although Rob Hersov recently publicly call Ramaphosa a “moron” & told Ramaphosa to lift the curfews of which Ramaphosa instantly complied.

>>18221625

>In his ‘special plea’ challenging the right of prosecutor Billy Downer to try him for Arms Deal-related corruption and racketeering, Zuma claimed he had ‘come across information’ that former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy was an operative for America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was handled by an agent called André Pienaar.

>He said Pienaar, who he said was code-named Luciano, was responsible for getting McCarthy his job at the World Bank.

>>18494133 - Puppets abound in their collaboration towards the demise of South Africa. Don’t forget the former South African Scorpion boss, Leonard McCarthy, was supposed to investigate corruption in Eskom when he worked for the World Bank [https://www.news24.com/News24/DA-complaint-on-Hitachi-to-land-on-ex-Scorpions-boss-McCarthys-desk-20151001]. They create the problems and then provide solutions to the problems they created. Clearly “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” [https://ia600100.us.archive.org/5/items/SilentWeaponsForQuietWarsOriginalDocumentCopy/Silent%20Weapons%20for%20Quiet%20Wars%20Original%20Document%20Copy.pdf] is playing out infront of us.

“00DEZZ - How Cyril Ramaphosa was bought by UK and EU money.”

https://youtu.be/U2UFoBRCgOs

Mar 14, 2023

11:42 – “Yes of course. Our friends in Europe have not always served this country well. Let us got to the original sin of the ANC, which was the arms deal. Europe basically bribed South African decision makers to agree to purchase systems that were totally unsuitable to our environment and that are now unserviceable. Of the 3 frigates, only 1 can run. Of the 3 submarines, none are serviceable… We carried on with the energy transition while about 60% of the global warming goes on the account of the United States and Europe and our contribution here in South Africa is a mere 2%. We were forced, we were pushed. Our politicians were basically bribed with enormous promises and large amounts of money to switch off perfectly well functioning power stations and to throw this country into an energy emergency. This was actually not our making. So, yes, the interests of Europe and the interests of the United States aren’t always coinciding with the need for South Africans to see progress and to develop and to have better opportunities.”

14:26 – “I would be naturally skeptical, once again, if the European leaders like they did with Cyril Ramaphosa in 2017, come up and say well we now endorse Paul Mashatile because then we have to ask how much money are they raising for him in order to influence him in order to take certain decisions in their best interest once more?”

Original Video Source;

Ramaphosa has reached a dead end in his presidency: Prof Andre Thomashausen

https://youtu.be/Fbq8LEZYL54

>>18302094

>Who’s Rob Hersov, the man who holds the details of the meeting between British Lord Robin Renwick & EFF’s Julius Malema in London? Malema & Renwick having met under the Chatham House protocols of sworn secrecy, so who’s Rob to have privileged third party information? Chatham House is the 3rd most powerful society & what is said there stays there- you speak you die.

>>18302100

>Why are EFF’s Julius Malema & Nhlanhla Lux of Operation Dudula holding clandestine meetings with Rob Hersov. What’s interesting though is that Rupert’s employees are the ones holding meetings with Malema & Lux

>>18505945

“00DEZZ - EFF Calls for National Shutdown 20 March 2023.”

https://youtu.be/E_1JE0QpG-o

31:45 – “In the past, we built our own power stations. We were going to build our own nuclear power stations and I am not talking about the pebble-bed modular reactor. I have spoken to my members about where these sites have been prepared where we were going to build our own nucleur power stations. Pressurized water reactors like Koeberg and all of these things were just stopped. They were stopped because of overseas influence.”

33:19 – “You need to understand at this stage, the EFF is obviously changing gears here. Julius Malema formed the EFF on the back of the visit to the United Kingdom and maybe the EFF is going to be used for new things in the future. They’ve been used to pacify the left for a very long time. They’ve been very effective at doing that but if that step change happens and the plan is actually to destablise this government by 2025 so that a United Nations interim government can step in to ‘stabilise’ the country under their law and order, under their regulations. We are in for a tough ride. This is certainly the plan globally”

Sources;

‘EFF will bring SA to a standstill on March 20’

Published Feb 13, 2023

https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/eff-will-bring-sa-to-a-standstill-on-march-20-732abfdd-ef82-40fc-b32e-fe3d2d6d02ff

“Fighters, the militancy and protest character of the EFF, the fearless character, the ground forces of the EFF, your determination to liberate the people of South Africa is going to be seen on March 20 when you bring South Africa to a standstill,” he told the members.

Malema told the province’s delegates that they should identify which road, shopping complex and city they would occupy on that day.

‘Streets are calling’: EFF urges citizens to occupy streets during national shutdown

13 Mar 2023

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/eff-national-shutdown-march-2023/

EFF warns businesses to close on day of planned shutdown or face being looted

9 March 2023

https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/political-parties/eff-warns-businesses-to-close-on-day-of-planned-shutdown-or-face-being-looted-20230309

In a video seen this week, party members were captured announcing the shutdown on the back of a bakkie via a loudspeaker.

The speaker is heard saying: "We are saying to you close down all your businesses to avoid the looting. Close down all your shops to avoid the looting. Close down all your factories to avoid the lootings.

"Close down everything; nothing will be operating on that day; we are avoiding the looting. So, we are saying to you, come and join the march, my brother; come and join the march, my sister."

EFF spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said the party had travelled door to door, handed pamphlets, and mobilised on the back of bakkies throughout the country to "effectively gather people for the national shutdown".

Thambo said the SA Federation of Trade Unions' involvement would see more than 700 000 of its members taking part in the shutdown and ensure workers would not be victimised for joining.

Its general-secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, announced the trade unions' participation in the shutdown at a media briefing last week.

>>18505972

>Thambo said the SA Federation of Trade Unions' involvement would see more than 700 000 of its members taking part in the shutdown and ensure workers would not be victimised for joining.

>Its general-secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, announced the trade unions' participation in the shutdown at a media briefing last week.

SA Federation of Trade Unions [Saftu] Affiliates

https://saftu.org.za/affiliates/

“The EFF Accidentally Leaks Shutdown Plan | South Africa (2023)”

https://youtu.be/At20DHHykQ0

The EFF accidentally exposed their plan of burning tyres and closing roads on the planned National Shutdown on the 20th of March. Be sure to inform your security companies et al. of the new plan they have.

It is interesting that taxis associations will not be joining the EFF to shutdown the country. History they are very successful to shutdown South Africa by blocking roads.

National Shutdown: Here are 13 things you need to know so far

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/national-shutdown-here-are-13-things-you-need-know-breaking-news-18-march-2023-latest-julius-malema-eff/

18-03-2023 04:41

Here is everything you need to know so far about the planned National Shutdown scheduled for Monday, 20 March.

The National Shutdown is planned for Monday. Here are 13 things that you need to know so far.

HERE ARE 13 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW – NATIONAL SHUTDOWN:

EFF leader Julius Malema said that there would be no starting or end point for the demonstration.

• Clinics and hospitals will be accessible

• No starting or ending point

• This is a protest, NOT a march.

• No permit was granted for National Shutdown

• Businesses warned NOT to open on Monday.

• Promises of no violence -‘This is a peaceful protest’.

• Various sectors of society, including SANTACO, the National Taxi Association, the local Taxi Association, the Road Freight Association and organised structures within communities, have rejected the call to shutdown.

• All Government services will be available as normal.

• Law enforcement officers will be out in their numbers

• PUTCO bus services is suspended for Monday.

• Roads will be empty and strategic routes leading to Midrand and Sandton will be CLOSED on Monday.

• The SANDF elements will be deployed under “Operation PROSPER” as from March 17 to April 17, 2023.

• Security will also be heightened at all South Africa’s ports on entry to ensure travel in and out of the country is not disturbed.

“Eskom Is Just Plain EVIL.”

https://youtu.be/Eq6OPawljbE

Apr 11, 2023

“Eskom fights to block town from using its own solar power”

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/486307-eskom-fights-to-block-town-from-using-its-own-solar-power.html

2 April 2023

Eskom and representatives from the Free State town Frankfort are set to meet in the Johannesburg High Court this week over a dispute about load-shedding schedules, reports Rapport.

Mafube municipality’s business forum and private power distributor Rural Maintenance approached the court to preserve the status quo until the dispute can be resolved with energy regulator Nersa.

At the heart of the dispute is that Eskom threatens to block Rural Maintenance from setting reduced load-shedding schedules, despite procuring additional solar power for Frankfort.

Rural Maintenance buys electricity from four solar farms in the area at a lower tariff than Eskom charges and supplies it to the Mafube municipality.

According to the report, Rural Maintenance holds a 50% stake in the community-run solar farms. The rest is owned by twenty farmers and businesses in the area.

Although the dispute with Eskom is over whether Rural Maintenance can implement its own load-shedding schedule, the outcome will determine whether the solar farms are fully used.

Rural Maintenance chief executive officer Chris Bosch told Rapport that they would have to switch off parts of the solar farms while people in the town sit without power.

Adjustments to Frankfort’s load-shedding schedule that keeps water pumps and sewage works running could also be halted.

Bosch says if Eskom is allowed to follow through on its threat, no one will invest in alternative energy.

If people are prevented from gaining the full benefit from their investment, what’s the point?

This is not the first time Eskom has tried to block a private power distributor from taking over its functions.

Last year, the state-owned power utility opposed Greenstone Energy’s application to privately supply a section of the Linbro Park suburb near Sandton in Johannesburg.

Linbro Park’s residents and businesses wanted to ditch Eskom after suffering 66 days of power outages on top of their typical load-shedding schedule.

Greenstone Energy asked the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to supply the area with electricity using gas-powered plants.

Crucially, it would also replace Eskom’s transmission and distribution network.

It would serve 1,781 households, three offices, two schools, two churches, a hotel, and a conference centre.

Eskom opposed the application, claiming the area “only” suffered 29 days without electricity — excluding load-shedding.

It also said having multiple power distributors’ cables in the same road reserve would create a dangerous situation.

Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality is also at loggerheads with Eskom over the rights to distribute power to the planned Mooikloof Mega City on the outskirts of Pretoria East.

The R84-billion development’s electricity supply deal would generate an estimated R1.5 billion in revenue annually.

“Land Crash - Zimbabwe Beyond Title Deeds”

https://youtu.be/E0gyHiVkz78

Mar 14, 2023

"Land Crash - Zimbabwe Beyond Title Deeds" is a powerful and poignant examination of the ongoing struggle for justice and the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe.

Throughout history, the story of land grabs, always ends the same: at the end, the dispossessed need to be compensated. Zimbabwe is no exception, and various offers led to agreements with both BIPA protected investors and local farmers, but the Zimbabwean government failed to perform. Farmers are sceptical about the latest offers for payments in bonds.

Help Saai to assist those Zimbabwean farmers, who seek justice, compensation, restitution and healing in this fertile country.

“BNC#5: Crime-fighter Ian Cameron on how criminals captured SAPS, but there is hope for the future”

https://youtu.be/TICNnWD1-aA

Mar 20, 2023

Here is the recording of crimefighting activist Ian Cameron's keynote, the most powerful of all presentations at the fifth BizNews Conference. That's saying something, given the impressive lineup. Cameron, who is at the NGO Action Society, uses official data and personal experience to detail how leadership at South Africa's police service was hijacked by criminal elements, resulting in a mere 15% conviction rate for murder and 3% for reported rapes. He details how the law enforcement agency was systematically captured but concludes there is hope - highlighting early but significant successes achieved through often abrogated devolution of responsibility by provincial structures.

TIMESTAMPS.

00:00 Alec Hogg's introduction of Ian Cameron

00:27 Ian Cameron on Action Society

01:15 On his confrontation with Bheki Cele

11:03 On Gayton McKenzie and Herman Mashaba's BNC#5 presentations

12:49 On the case for the prosecution

13:22 An overview of SAPS over the last 20-25 years

15:33 On the millions of illicit firearms in circulation

16:11 On the SAPS having been hijacked by criminals

17:52 Overview of crime statistics in SA [84 murders per day, 14.5% solved]

23:47 Rape cases reported and GBV statistics in SA

25:48 Child murder statistics in SA

27:05 On overburdened detectives

27:48 On good cops who make good arrests have targets on their backs

28:45 On the loss of reservists

29:37 On the new DNA Act signed by the President

30:05 On George Fivaz

30:34 On Jackie Selebi

32:02 On Nhlanhla Mkwanazi

32:53 On Bheki Cele

33:47 On Riah Phiyega

34:58 On Khomotso Phahlane

36:02 On Khehla Sitole

36:52 On Fannie Masemola

>>18519488

>We must rather seek our solutions in the devolution of power

“Interview with Former President PW Botha 4of6”

https://youtu.be/xc4rHzVenLg

0:31 – “I had in mind, broadly speaking, to gradually bring in a system of government on the basis of confederation. And I said so. I said so in parliament. I advocated a system of confederation in South Africa and confederal cooperation in Southern Africa.”

4:53 – “Why was the country the country then forced into that road of one man one vote?… That was actually after I left. I withstood it. I said so in parliament that I’m not in favour of one man, one vote. But under the confederal system you can accept the principle of one man, one vote for that community or that special part of the confederation.”

5:30 – “Well then, why did Mr de Klerk and company decide on a one man, one vote election?… I had a personal discussion with him on this matter and it was taped in this very house. I told him that he became weak as against the forces trying to break South Africa. I looked on the television where he addressed a press conference in Washington and the previous President Bush, the father of the present President Bush, stood next to him and there he announced that he would stand for irreversible policy. That very night I looked at television and I said to people sitting with me, “there is the beginning of the end.””

7:30 – “At two National Party meetings in 1980, PW Botha was emphatic about his visions for South Africa. “We must find a solution not only in constellation of states, but eventually in a form of a confederation of independent states, as far as our neighbours are concerned. For as long as I am leader of the National Party, there will not be one man, one vote in Parliament, and there will not be one man, one vote in a federal parliament. I do not believe that that would be in the interests of the Whites, nor do I believe that it would be in the interests of the Blacks, for from such a situation blood and strife in South Africa will surely flow… It did not work anywhere else in Africa. You either got a dictatorship, or you got a one-party state, or you got the destruction of people.””

8:42 – “I think it’s [affirmative action/Black Economic Empowerment/transformation] a bad form of Apartheid.”

>>18678705

>Reading through my old school’s anniversary edition, 1953 – 1978, I came across the Afrikaner’s struggle for Afrikaans schools in Durban. That is a subject for another day but found it ironic that a decade and a half later – 1976 - we imported and forced Afrikaans into Soweto Schools, like the British did with us after the Anglo-Boer War. In 1976 this fact exploded in our faces and once again the “poor” police bore the brunt of the people’s anger! The Soweto Riots gave such an impetus to the struggle and the revolutionary war that the SACP-ANC Alliance could hardly believe their luck! This action was planned by clever Afrikaner people but it just proves that nobody learns from history!

“Afrikaans-only schools allegedly ‘under threat’ from new DBE proposals”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/afrikaans-only-schools-new-langauge-proposals-schools-under-threat/

15-03-2021 16:43

‘First universities, now schools’: Some Afrikaans-speaking institutions fear that new proposals from the DBE are deliberately attacking the language.

AfriForum is on a collision course with the Department of Basic Education this week, after they submitted their vehement views on the ministry’s newly proposed admission policy. The lobby group believes there is a concrete effort to erase ‘Afrikaans-only schools’ in South Africa – fearing that the draft legislation could have ‘far-reaching consequences’.

‘AFRIKAANS-ONLY VENUES MUST NOT BECOME ANGLICISED’ – VENTER

Natasha Venter is AfriForum’s Manager for Education Affairs. She branded the proposals as a ‘deliberate attack’ on Afrikaans-speaking educational institutions. The representative also rallied against ‘the anglicisation’ of schools whose primary language of instruction differs from the majority…

“Learners have the constitutional right to receive instruction in the language of their choice and it is the duty of the Department of Basic Education to ensure that there are enough institutions to ensure that this right is implemented.”

“Simply forcing single-medium Afrikaans venues that already serve enough Afrikaans-speaking children to accept children who are not fluent in the language is therefore not the solution. History proves that where English is enforced on Afrikaans schools, it ultimately results in these schools being completely anglicised. ”

The irony is…

Three-quarters of coloured people speak Afrikaans… Sixty percent of white people speak Afrikaans. https://southafrica-info.com/infographics/languages-black-coloured-indian-white-south-africans-speak/

>>18683248

>The irony is…

>Three-quarters of coloured people speak Afrikaans… Sixty percent of white people speak Afrikaans.

“Is this the end for Afrikaans in public schools?” - Court Case

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/does-concourt-judgement-signal-end-for-afrikaans-i

26 November 2019

The dust has settled a bit regarding the Constitutional Court's ruling in the Gelyke Kanse (GK) case on Stellenbosch University's (SU) Language Policy (read the full analysis of the case here, https://www.fwdeklerk.org/index.php/en/latest/news/946-article-the-constitutional-court-and-gelyke-kanse-what-happened). The implications of this ruling are relevant for SU and the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU Potch); and perhaps most importantly of all, for Afrikaans as a language of instruction in public schools.

As far as SU is concerned, one must remember that many years ago, management and Council themselves introduced as English as a language of instruction and that they themselves recently decided to “scale down” Afrikaans. So, they initially made SU bilingual and now - in effect - monolingual.

Therefore, it is expected that the ruling will facilitate the application of the 2016 Language Policy and that it will “scale down” Afrikaans even more (and perhaps faster). In paragraph 5 of the Constitutional Court judgment, Judge Cameron states that an important consideration in the judgment is that “Afrikaans classes are offered at undergraduate level on a large scale” and, in particular, that “all first-year classes are still offered in Afrikaans”.

However, as GK has proved with affidavits, this is no longer the case. But these statements were not allowed because the case was about the principle of language policy and not its application. SU will therefore continue and completely eliminate Afrikaans (probably within two to three years). The result will be exactly what even the Constitutional Court has not foreseen, namely that Afrikaans will be “extinguished” academically (paragraph 38).

The irony is that the mostly Afrikaans leadership of the schools (and universities) that decided to move to parallel-medium education with noble motives (but greater naivety), saw their decision ultimately bring the end of Afrikaans as a language of instruction at those institutions. The Constitution Court ruling finally confirmed that in a parallel-medium education environment, section 29(2) of the Constitution was largely disempowered by the courts and specifically the Constitutional Court.

The weight (and legal force) given to the feelings, subjective experiences and prejudices of non-Afrikaans-speaking students simply trumps the language rights of Afrikaans-speaking students. There is no possibility of a compromise of equal language rights. The shadow of racial transformation and political correctness hangs like a cloud over this situation.

Judge Froneman (in paragraph 75) acknowledges this himself and then (out of desperation?) criticises the Constitutional Court, before lamenting the loss (paragraph 88):

One does not need international studies, of which there are many, to realise that this state of affairs entrenches English as the dominant language not only in tertiary education, but also, as we will see, from primary through secondary school to university. Opinions may differ on whether this is a good or bad thing, but it seems strange for this Court, the ultimate protector of minority language rights under the Constitution, to give its blessing to this result.

Without your own language, culture is lost, a sense of self is lost. And once that happens, diversity is lost. We will lose the belief set out in the Preamble of the Constitution “that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity”.

>>18519498

>I have a specific question I would like to put to the media in South Africa: How do they explain the fact that they are always present, with cameras et cetera, at places where violences takes place? Are there people from the revolutionaty elements who inform them to be ready? Or are there perhaps respresentatives of the reactionary groups in the ranks of certain media? [Like when AWB members were gunned down infront of an entourage of media personnel in Bophuthatswana a month before the 1994 elections, https://youtu.be/FC7UyAN-jrY embedded (Was it a suicide?)

This incident was to intimidate the Boer folk. Take note, they had video footage and photographs of how the AWB members were murdered but none showing that they “fired indiscriminately at people on street corners, killing and wounding many” [3:47] as they left Bophuthatswana.

“Death of Apartheid: The Whites' Last Stand. 4/6”

https://youtu.be/PPvuAVO2-NI

6:20 – “Three of them were shot like dogs in the glaring publicity of television lights and cameras. That had an enormous effect on the right-wing willingness to resist the elections further by means of violence and terrorism.” [Johann Kriegler; Judge, Chairman of the Electoral Commission (who stated that the 1994 elections we ‘free and fair’), Oppenheimer stooge >>18023731]

6:39 – “I think mothers, wives, parents for the first time realised that this talk of fighting it for a Boere Staat (Boer State) meant that their sons and daughters would be killed no matter how tough they talked.” [Mac Maharaj; ANC]

6:52 – “The events were sad but it did have the effect that you cannot play with a peace process in this country and this country is simply not up for grabs.” [Leon Wessels; Cabinet Minister]

7:06 – “Now you held me responsible. At least the AWB tried to help and what is more interesting is. At least on record it stands now that we were willingly to die for black people, for an independent black state, Bophuthatswana. How can I feel myself responsible? I my friend, I have to answer myself and the voices in me, the voice of my people.” [Eugene Terreblanche; AWB]

>>>18678683

>>>18678698

>>>18678705

>>18519466

>It appears that South Africa’s demise started with PW Botha’s Rubicon Speech [1985]

>>18519471

>>18519482

>>18519484

>>18519488

>>18519498

>>18519501

>>18519509

>>18683153

>>18693531

See any similarities concerning Trump’s situation?

“South Africa – [PW] Botha trial” – “they want to destroy the image of my people and they want to destroy my image and through me to humiliate my people”

https://youtu.be/Urw9FZMor48

(16 Apr 1998) T/I: 10:56:09

Former South African President PW Botha on Thursday (16/4) attacked the decision by magistrate Victor Lugaju to postpone his trial until June 1. Botha is charged with contempt of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) after ignoring a subpoena to appear before the truth panel at a public hearing in December.

SHOWS:

GEORGE, SOUTH AFRICA 16/04

Security outside court;

Botha leaving court;

Botha walking out of house;

SOT Botha in English: "This country is in confusion. Go and ask the citizens of this country and they will tell you that they are not satisfied with what is going on at all levels of government. And it is a lovely country full of hope. And I hope that sense and justice will prevail. I am the accused and I have the right to be protected by the court .. but untested accusations have been made by a witness without being cross examined. While his untested evidence was distributed right through the world. I saw it on television. Now I say it is my right as a citizen of South Africa that my law advisers shall continue to cross examine the witness as well as the chairman of the [TRC] commission Bishop Tutu and that he shall also appear before court to be cross examined. I had an opportunity in my office to tell [Mr] Mandela, but apparently he is a captive of the cabal and a captive of interests [from] which he cannot escape. He is a decoy dove, We all know what a decoy dove is. That is what he is. …[Why do you think that they picked on you, Sir?]… because they want to destroy the image [of my people] and [they want to destroy my image and] through me to humiliate my people."

Botha walking away;

2.59

>>18693537

>https://youtu.be/Urw9FZMor48

Embedded

>>18519501

“The ANC Method Violence 1986 [documentary]”, “There is a war going on, not against Apartheid, but against South Africa itself.” – Part 1

https://youtu.be/HMb3tEJZzg8

Peter Worthington

3:31 – “Again with [] propaganda, the selective acts are used to project that the government in power is unable to govern. That the industry isn’t working. That nothing works in fact. Indeed, what the terrorists try to do with armed agitation for instance is cause the public authorities to overreact. Then they can say that they’re conducting a self-defense, people’s war in self-defense. They’re conducting armed struggle to liberate themselves from these oppressive governments.”

4:02 – “We hear those leaders of the African National Congress that are abroad preaching about the struggle, particularly the armed struggle against South Africa. One would ask the question, can we say really these gentlemen have the mandate of of the people of South Africa, in particular the black people of South Africa to carry on with the armed struggle against South Africa?” [Bartholomew Hlapani; gave testimony in front of the US Congress and was murdered by the ANC]

4:42 – “In 1986 South Africa’s top black and white singers came together to create a song which reflected their hopes and aspirations for the future. Because the South African government backed the project it was automatically rejected by the media both in South Africa and the world. This despite the fact that it gave voice to the feelings of millions of South Africans desperately trying to find a peaceful solution to the problem of South Africa. Like Bartholomew Hlapane’s cry for peace – it was a message ignored by the media of the world. It is not the message of the ANC.”

7:02 – “There is a war going on, not against Apartheid, but against South Africa itself. I’m afraid, I’m convinced that the western media, western politicians and academics and all too many church figures are not so much interested in a peaceful solution to South Africa’s problems but want bloodshed and an overthow of the system at any price and the installation of another form of government, even if it ends up being a Marxist regime.”

11:31 – “The ANC fully came under the control of the Communist Party as a result, they could not do what they wanted or what they wished unless they consulted first with the Communist Party and got permission from the Communist Party.” [Bartholomew Hlapani]

20:16 – “Anyone who has seen the confiscated videotapes of necklacing has first-hand evidence of what children can do and it’s horrifying, but anger about South Africa should be directed at those who encourage children to murder and mutilate and stand on the smoldering bodies and dance their savagery before the TV cameras.”

22;30 – “These people [ANC] are using them [Americans] to achieve their own objectives which has nothing to do with bring about change in South Africa but which have something to do with setting up a socialist or even a Marxist state in this country.”

>>18693622

>>18519466

>It appears that South Africa’s demise started with PW Botha’s Rubicon Speech [1985]

>>18519471

>>18519482

>>18519484

>>18519488

>>18519498

>>18519501

>>18519509

>>18683153

>>17930770

>To the ANC's left, the CIA directed money to the ultra-black nationalist Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) which had organized the demonstration, from which the ANC abstained, that led to the Sharpeville massacre in the spring of 1960.

>>18678662

>>18678666

>>18678683

>>18678698

>>18678705

This portion of the video is especially noteworthy. The whites and blacks were working together in South Africa but the ANC and their puppet masters did not like that. The ANC escalated violence in the country to create a division and, with the help of the media, justified their actions.

“The ANC Method Violence 1986 [documentary]”, There is a war going on, not against Apartheid, but against South Africa itself.” – Part 2

https://youtu.be/HMb3tEJZzg8

Peter Worthington

25:32 – “The Zionist Christian Church is basically apolitical and the world was puzzled and confused in 1985 when Mrs Winnie Mandela was telling the world, “the government has completely lost control of the present political situation. The government would like to conceal from the rest of the world the real truth about what is happening in South Africa. That the country has been rendered almost ungovernable and that in fact we in a military situation here. The government has declared war on the oppressed people of this country and the media has been the voice of the people because the people have no other platform.” And yet in the same year South African President PW Botha was invited to attend a mass ceremony of Zionist Christians and over a million blacks enthusiastically welcomed him. “We are grateful to share this occasion of goodwill with you. I am also highly honoured to accept your aware of the Freedom of Moria City of Peace and Love.” It was a one day wonder and quickly dismissed and conveniently forgotten by the world media.Take for example the fact that our State President PW Botha went for a walk, not an armored cavalcade, but for a walk through the crowds of black residents in the town or the community… which includes the township of Sharpeville. And everybody who knows anything about South Africa’s history, knows that Sharpeville symbolizes the single worst incident of conflict between black and white in South Africa. Perhaps the beginning of the current conflicts that we’re seeing in South Africa. But the State President, despite everything the ANC claims, was able to walk through the crowds in that Township as a symbol of reconciliation between the white government of South Africa and the black people of South Africa.“

28:09 – “But for a variety of reasons, the outside world is not getting an accurate impression of what is going on inside South Africa and this applies to Europe, the United States and even my own country, Canada. The attitude today is vastly different from what it was in the past where the policy of Apartheid was once supported and backed by most whites. Today there is widespread feeling among virtually every faction of the white community that Apartheid is archaic, obsolete, morally wrong and must be dismantled. The main topic of debate is timing, when and how to do it. What we in the West should be doing and the media should be noting is looking at the direction South Africa is heading. It is the only country in the continent of Africa that is moving towards more democracy for all its people and improving the lot of all its citizens. Virtually all the other countries of the continent and all South Africa’s neighbours are moving away from democracy and away from human rights and away from prosperity for the majority. Those who oppose sanctions against South Africa or who insist South Africa is not the world’s most repressive regime, tended to be branded as bigots or reactionaries or incipient fascists or racists or Uncle Toms or apologists for Apartheid.”

“Eskom implemented Stage 8 load shedding – and YOU didn’t know”

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/breaking-eskom-stage-8-load-shedding-latest-16-april-2023/

16-04-2023 10:29

The implementation of Stage 8 load shedding comes after Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientso Ramokgopa visited 18 power stations

Despite supposed measures by government to address load shedding, the current energy crisis is showing no signs of improving as it has been learnt that Eskom essentially implemented Stage 8 load shedding on Thursday evening, 13 April 2023, Sunday Times reports.

HOW DO WE KNOW IT WAS STAGE 8 LOAD SHEDDING?

According to the publication, Eskom’s energy availability (at the time Stage 8 load shedding was implemented) was sitting at 23,771MW against the power demand of 30,747MW. This means it had to shed 7,072MW of electricity, according to its energy generation update.

Eskom has been implementing Stage 6 load shedding this week. Stage 8 load shedding requires between 7,001MW and 8,000MW of electricity being shed.

WHY WAS ESKOM QUIET ABOUT THIS?

Sunday Times reports that Eskom’s spokesperson Daphne Mokwena confirmed the utility had shed beyond the 6,000MW, but denied implementing Stage 8 load shedding.

“Basically, we curtailed 1,353MW from those customers on load curtailment and reduced 5,719MW from all other customers, which made up the 7,072MW load,” Mokwena is quoted as having told the publication.

“We refrain from using terminology because the public becomes confused and things we are talking about load reduction that we normally implement when not load-shedding to prevent failing of equipment due to overload,” she added.

Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientso Ramokgopa visited 18 power stations across the country to get an overall picture of the current electricity situation in the country.

[February 10, 2023 - President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that he will be appointing a Minister of Electricity has Mzansi tickled. Ramaphosa said the new minister will assume full responsibility for dealing with the electricity crisis, leaving many confused. Since his announcement, social media users believe that a Minister of Potholes post should also be created. https://briefly.co.za/politics/152930-sona-2023-south-africans-call-minister-potholes-following-president-cyril-ramaphosas-address/]

“Load shedding at 40: The performance of power stations in South Africa vs the United States”

https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/646503/load-shedding-at-40-the-performance-of-power-stations-in-south-africa-vs-the-united-states/

25 November 2022

South Africa is experiencing its worst year of load-shedding because of poor power station performance and Eskom’s declining energy availability factor (EAF).

According to the load-shedding app EskomSePush, there have been 2,900 hours of load shedding so far this year. It translates to 121 days of load-shedding, more than double last year’s 48 days.

Eskom often blames ageing infrastructure for the poor performance of its generation fleet and the low EAF.

In 2020, Eskom’s generation executive Rhulani Mathebula said Eskom’s increased failure rate is not due to a lack of skills but because of unreliable and ageing infrastructure.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has also blamed ageing infrastructure for load-shedding, saying the older power plants are susceptible to failures and breakdowns.

However, an analysis by Daily Investor showed that the age of a power station does not automatically result in higher breakdown rates and a lower EAF.

To test Eskom’s claims, we compared the performance of Eskom’s Tutuka and Duvha power stations with two US-based coal power stations – Wansley and Scherer.

• The Duvah power station was first commissioned in 1980, with the final unit completed in 1984 (38-42 years old).

• The Wansley power plant in Georgia was first commissioned in 1976 (46 years old).

• Tutuka was first commissioned in 1985, with the final unit going online in 1990 (32-37 years old).

• The Scherer power plant was commissioned in 1982 and is of a similar age to Tutuka (40 years old).

If Eskom’s claim of ageing infrastructure causing a significant deterioration in performance is true, the US and South African power stations should show similar trends.

A significant difference in performance points to other factors, like poor maintenance, mismanagement, and a lack of skills.

We used the energy availability factor (EAF) – the percentage of time the power station was available for use when it was needed – as a measure of performance.

From 2009 to 2021, Eskom’s Tutuka and Duvha had an average EAF of 64% and 56%, respectively. It means that since 2009 they were only available for 64% and 56% of the time they were needed.

In 2021, Tutuka and Duvha had average EAF of 37% and 44%, respectively. It is expected to be much worse in 2022.

Wansley and Scherer, in comparison, had an average EAF of 90% and 89%, respectively, over the same period. They were, therefore, available for 90% and 89% of the time they were needed.

An interesting observation is that Scherer and Wansley had an upward trend in their EAF figures as time progressed.

The large differential suggests that ageing infrastructure can still be reliable. With regular maintenance and using the latest technology, their performance can even improve.

In Eskom’s case, poor skills, mismanagement, and a lack of maintenance are the likely culprits for breakdowns and the low EAF – not ageing infrastructure.

The chart below shows the performance over time of the two power stations in the United States compared with Eskom’s Tutuka and Duvha.

>>18715672

>South Africa and was a wholly owned subsidiary of SABMiller until its interests were sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev on 10 October 2016.

“SABMiller agrees AB Inbev takeover deal of £68bn”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/13/sabmiller-agrees-ab-inbev-takeover-68bn

Tue 13 Oct 2015 09.04 BST

London-listed brewer of Peroni and Grolsch accepts improved terms from larger rival in Britain’s biggest takeover

SABMiller has agreed to sell itself to Anheuser-Busch InBev for $104bn (£68bn) in a deal that will be the biggest takeover of a British company and create the world’s first global brewer.

The takeover, one of the top five deals in corporate history, will create a brewing empire making about a third of the world’s beer. AB InBev is already the world’s biggest brewer, and SABMiller is its closest rival.

The boards of the two companies said they had reached agreement in principle on the key terms of a “possible recommended offer” after SABMiller rejected repeated approaches by AB InBev over the past month.

SAB’s top managers will share a potential $2.1bn payout of shares and options if the deal is completed, according to analysts at Bernstein. Alan Clark, SABMiller’s chief executive, is likely to receive more than £80m.

The deal would create a company generating more than $70bn of annual revenue from brewing 80bn litres of beer a year. The giant corporation will have big operations in Europe, north America, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region, and will give AB InBev, the brewer of the US’s favourite beer, Bud Light, access to the fast-growing African beer market.

London-listed SABMiller said AB InBev – which brews Budweiser and Stella Artois – proposed to pay £44 a share in cash. It also proposed a partial share payment for the 41% of the company owned by SABMiller’s two biggest shareholders, Altria, the maker of Philip Morris cigarettes, and BevCo, owned by Colombia’s billionaire Santo Domingo brewing family.

The £44 cash offer values SABMiller, the maker of Peroni and Grolsch, at about 50% more than its value on 14 September, before news of AB InBev’s interest leaked. If all the shares were sold for that price it would value SABMiller at £71bn, but the £39.03 part-share alternative, devised for tax reasons, brings the valuation down to about £68bn.

If completed, the takeover will secure AB InBev a target it has long coveted. Backed by Brazil’s richest man, the financier Jorge Paulo Lemann, the Belgian-Brazilian brewer has expanded aggressively through big deals including combining with Interbrew, the maker of Stella Artois, in 2004 and buying the US Budweiser brewer, Anheuser-Busch, four years later.

Brito said AB InBev decided to make a move after carrying out research on Africa, where SABMiller, founded in Johannesburg in 1895, is the dominant brewer. The charity ActionAid has criticised SABMiller for paying low taxes on its profits in Africa, including in Ghana.

Adrian Tierney-Jones, the secretary of the British Guild of Beer Writers, said SABMiller had preserved the character of beers it had bought such as Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic. But he said creating a megabrewer raised concerns, especially as both companies have been buying craft beer producers.

“I don’t think it’s good for beer. The more things get bigger, the more you lose touch with what’s happening on the ground. The bottom line for these guys is profit,” he said.

>>18715797

> [Meyer] Kahn-led South African Breweries aggressively expanded outside its home country starting in 1993.

>>18750048

“Meyer Kahn: the “boytjie from Brits” who became a business legend” passed away – “former chief executive and chairperson of SA Breweries (SAB)”

https://www.sajr.co.za/meyer-kahn-the-boytjie-from-brits-who-became-a-business-legend/

Jun 9, 2022

A week before business icon and the former chief executive and chairperson of SA Breweries (SAB), Meyer Kahn, passed away on 2 June, he imparted one of his classic, true-to-form one-liners, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. But wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad.”

Humble in life and in death, it was his wish to be buried near his parents resting place in the Pretoria Jewish Cemetery, surrounded by his closest family and friends, without fanfare or fuss. This is in spite of being offered a well-deserved spot in the section reserved for those who have displayed exceptional commitment to the community and humanity at Westpark Cemetery.

“He was a simple man who loved simple pleasures, an ordinary boy from Brits who went on to do extraordinary things,” said Rabbi David Masinter, who regarded him as a mentor and studied with him every Friday afternoon on Zoom.

“I’ve never met anyone who happily rubbed shoulders with everybody. He drank whiskey with presidents and kings, and beer from polystyrene cups with the person on the street. He had no airs and graces,” said Masinter this week.

Born on 29 June 1939, Jacob Meyer Kahn and his late brother, Raymond, grew up in Brits. He was arguably best known as the head of SABMiller (formerly SAB).

Kahn obtained a Bachelor of Law degree and MBA from the University of Pretoria, and an honorary doctorate in commerce from the University of the Witwatersrand. In 2000, he was presented with the South African Police Star for Outstanding Service.

He entered the business world as a junior manager with OK Bazaars, and steadily worked his way through the ranks becoming chief executive of OK Group.

He joined SAB in 1966, spending 46 years there, and was instrumental in the company’s global expansion. Together with an expert local team, he created the most successful industrial company ever to go beyond South Africa’s borders, said experts this week.

Kahn served on the boards of 16 listed companies and as trustee of numerous organisations.

At the pinnacle of his career and at the behest of the late President Nelson Mandela, he commenced a two-year sabbatical secondment to the South African Police Service as its chief executive in 1997. He reportedly donated his entire police salary to the police widows and orphan fund.

It was widely joked that if he saw anyone drinking a non-SAB brand of beer at the golf club or in business circles, he would deliberately drop his car keys into the glass of beer, apologetically, but happily ordering the drinker a replacement SAB beer, said close friend Michael “Motty” Sacks, the chairperson of Capital Appreciation Limited.

Kahn received numerous prestigious business awards throughout his career, including the Jewish Achievers Lifetime Achievement Award.

He served on the board of Netcare for 17 years. Fellow Netcare board member and friend, advocate Kgomotso Moroka said, “I got to know Meyer as a university student through my parents who were anti-apartheid activists. He was committed to fighting apartheid in the most practical way possible through upliftment and training. More than anything, he was forthright and spoke his mind, and was impassioned about what he believed in,” Moroka said.

Dr Richard Friedland, group chief executive of Netcare and a close friend of Kahn said, “He was my mentor, and a rock to me.

Sacks, who was also the co-founder and executive chairperson of the Netcare Hospital Group, said, “I first met Meyer during our December summer holiday in 1985 at the Beacon Isle Hotel in Plettenberg Bay. This was a regular holiday destination for both our families.”

Together, Sacks and Kahn acquired a cash shell on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), and initiated the acquisition of Medscheme, which today is the largest medical administrator in South Africa.

“In 2015, as the first JSE-listed special purpose acquisition company, Meyer was the automatic choice for non-executive director for Capital Appreciation Limited. His contribution to the company, through his strategic thinking, marketing skills, sound direction, guidance, and advice, was typically Meyer, always superior and creatively instructive,” Sacks said.

Masinter approached Kahn in 1988 when Chabad was going through financial turbulence. “Chabad was fighting for its survival, and Kahn immediately rose to the challenge,” Masinter said.

So began the Chabad Miracle Drive with Kahn as its chairperson, a charity that continues to help the Jewish community and communities at large.

>>18750048

>>18750069

>>18715587

>Despite the oppressive regime, he managed to get a license from South African Breweries (SAB) to sell the distribute liquor.

“Meyer Kahn Speech” - https://youtu.be/Zi0Tcx_vSLk

11:15 – “Now let me also tell you that we invested in America long before you people know. We owned a brand Rolling Rock and Sunny Delights… And then we owed the bank $3 million, then R5 million, and the banks called the loan because of sanctions. Nobody would help us… But through some heavy drinking, deception and a lot of luck, we managed to burgle $3 million. Whatever we got out of the selling of Sunny Delights ad Rolling Rock was actually the start of our European expansion.”

13:20 – “Then we were always unloved in South Africa. It’s amazing. I mean everybody adored us outside of South Africa but the South African government, whether it was white or whether it was black, just had the needle to us. We were the Oppenheimers. We stolen the beer industry as if 45 million South Africans then hadn’t voted with their wallets and their throats for our beer.”

“Lifetime Acheivement Award in honour of Helen Suzman”: Winner Meyer Kahn

14-jaa-winner-meyer-kahn.pdf (sajr.co.za)

Jacob Meyer Kahn, BA (Law), MBA (UP), DCom (hc), SOE, served as Group MD of SABMiller PLC (formerly SA Breweries) from 1981 to 2012 and as Executive Chairman from 1990 to 2012.

Kahn joined the SAB group in 1966 and occupied executive positions in a number of their retail interests. In 1977, he was CEO of the OK Group. Among his notable business awards are: one of SA’s five Top Businessmen (1983); Marketing Man of the Year (1987); Business Manager of the Year (1990); Wits Award for Business Excellence (1991); Professor Extraordinaire, Pretoria University (1989); The SA Police Star for Outstanding Service (SOE) (2000); and MBA (honorary doctorate in Commerce), Wits, (1990).

At the pinnacle of his career, and at the behest of then-President Nelson Mandela, Meyer Kahn commenced a two-year sabbatical secondment to the SA Police Service as its CEO in 1997.

In April 2012, SABMiller Plc announced with regret that after 46 years of service Kahn would retire as Chairman, effective from the year’s AGM in July, and would be succeeded by then-CEO Graham Mackay.

John Manser, who was Senior Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee at the time (and who subsequently added Deputy Chairman of the board to his duties), said at the time that “The senior management team at SABMiller has been one of the most stable and consistent in the FTSE 100, with the Chairman and Chief Executive being amongst the longest serving in their respective posts. Under Meyer Kahn’s extraordinary leadership, both as group managing director and latterly as Chairman, the Group has grown from its South African roots to become one of the world’s largest and most respected brewers. The Group and its shareholders owe a huge debt to Meyer and to the executives whom he has developed and who have worked so closely with him over his years at the helm.”

Chabad’s Miracle Drive was born – with Kahn as its chair. “He’d get involved to fix the machine and give direction, he said he would put his name to it, here was the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in SA,” says Masinter, “his name gave it status.” From the inception of the first Miracle Drive in 1989, Kahn was its Honorary Chairman, until 1997 when he took his sabbatical as SAPS CEO. Thereafter he returned as President, a position he still holds.

SOUTH AFRICA: Kahn’s sabbatical as CEO of SAPS -0 putting his name on the line for the police - is detailed above. “That’s how he is,” says Masinter. “He supports all South African causes in this way. He can’t say no.”

ISRAEL: While Kahn’s unrelenting personal support for Israel is the stuff of legend, financially, nobody knows, says Masinter. That’s the sort of Kahn is, he says: “Generosity of spirit, not a boastful person, being able to save a life, save a world, that is what matters to him.

“He is just the ordinary boy from Brits, he cares deeply about people, a humble man who is observant and deeply traditional,” says Rabbi Masinter of his mentor.

>>18524289

>“Plot For Peace [Coup] Official Trailer”

“Ivor Ichikowitz on his documenatry titled "Plot for Peace"”

https://youtu.be/dElNk_SdoX0

Sep 27, 2014

It has won no less than eight awards including Best International Feature Documentary at the 25th Galway Film Festival and the Special Jury Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. That's Award winning documentary PLOT FOR PEACE which premieres on SABC 2. To tell us more about Plot for Peace we are joined by South African Industrialist and Philanthropist Ivor Ichikowitz.

1:55 – “I think, “Plot for Peace”, resonates with people all over the world. I mean it’s about to go to China. Now you would wonder, why the Chinese would be in any way interested in what is really a South African story? But it’s not a South African story, it’s an international story.”

“Ivor Ichikowitz, the worldwide connections of the South African arms magnate”

https://www.intelligenceonline.com/insiders/africa_central-asia_middle-east/2016/09/07/ivor-ichikowitz-the-worldwide-connections-of-the-south-african-arms-magnate/108179801-beg

Published on 07/09/2016 at 08:00 GMT

Exerpts

Favourite courtier of African presidents Jacob Zuma, Ali Bongo and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, South African Ivor Ichikowitz is little by little making his mark in Central Asia. Alongside such influential regional businessmen as Kenges Rakichev in Kazakhstan and Fuad Seyidaliyev in Azerbaijan, the head of the Paramount arms group is trying to establish himself there, while still maintaining his positions in Africa.

A long-standing supporter of the African National Congress (ANC), the party which has been in power in South Africa since 1994, Ichikowitz was able to move into the arms business on a grand scale after the end of apartheid. A close associate of Winnie Mandela, wife of Nelson Mandela, and a business partner of Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of South Africa's second post- apartheid president, Thabo Mbeki, he quickly benefited from the connections of the country's new masters and from the aura they enjoyed on the African continent. He also has links with influential businessmen close to the ANC like Tokyo Sexwale and Robert Gumede. But it was his links with the ANC's former treasurer general, businessman Mathews Phosa, a close collaborator of Jacob Zuma, which enabled his business activities to really take off after Zuma became head of state.

Ichikowitz did not by any means seek to limit his activities to the Rainbow Nation but quickly extended them to the rest of Africa, notably Gabon, Congo and Libya, as well as to Central Asia, notably Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and the Near East. His friends include Frenchman Jean-Yves Ollivier, who has connections at the highest level in West Africa, and Souheil Rached, a former collaborator of Moussa Koussa, head of the Libyan security services during the Muammar Gaddafi era.

>>18750098

“Jewish [Absa (member of Barclays)] Business [Achiever] Awards Ivor Ichikowitz [Unlisted Winner]”

https://youtu.be/GvFsTNMcAZ4

2:55 – “For many years I’ve been an advocate of the fact that the Jewish community in this country are inextricably woven into the web into the fabric that makes South Africa what it is today. We have played a very incredibly important role in our liberation. We’ve played a role in our politics. We’ve played an incredibly important role developing the economic fabric of this country and we’ve played a role through our philanthropy in changing the social fabric of this country. We’ve played a role way beyond what our numbers dictate and I believe that as a community we need to spend more time celebrating our successes than bemoaning our challenges. I want to dedicate this award to the people that have made me what I am, the Springs Jewish community. A community that allowed me to be brought up in a Jewish shtetl or be it a South African shtetl, a shtetl nevertheless.” [The [Jewish Museum in Cape Town] museum’s basement is dominated by a village environment (shtetl) from the late 1800s. A few houses are reconstructed in full scale, and you can clearly see how people lived and co-existed at the time. The village is called Riteve. It was recreated in the museum on the basis of entries made in the 1990s by a group of experts who went from South Africa to Lithuania to find traces of the family of the museum's founder, Mendel Kaplan. “90% of all Jews in South Africa are Litvaks”, https://vilnews.com/2011-01-litvaks-in-south-africa]

https://www.sajr.co.za/wp-content/uploads/attachments/14-jaa-unlisted-winner.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Ivor Ichikowitz is an industrialist and philanthropist. Over the last 20 years Ivor has built successful businesses across oil and gas, defence and aerospace manufacturing, property, retail, tourism, mining, agriculture and sustainable development across Africa.

Ivor is the Executive Chairman of the Paramount Group, which he founded in 1994. Under his leadership the business has grown into Africa’s largest privately-owned defence and aerospace business.

As Executive Chairman of private equity group TransAfrica Capital (Pty) Limited, Ivor directs investments in scientific research and development projects, producing innovative solutions for industry and commerce.

On the philanthropic front, Ivor founded the Ichikowitz Family Foundation which supports educational and developmental programmes that empower Africa’s young people to seize the new century’s opportunities.

In 2011 Ivor Ichikowitz’ Umoja Foundation subsidised the publication for posterity of the magnificent “Jewish Memories of Mandela” coffee-table book and a revealing and inspiring account of the history of the South African Jewish community. “The book is a crucial addition to the world’s records of anti-apartheid activism from within the white community, of which Jews formed a part,” said Ivor at its launch.

Jewish Memories of Mandela offers a unique take on the story of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle, as seen through the lives and recollections of Jewish South Africans who were a part of it. The book was a collaborative effort between the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the Ichikowitz’ Umoja Foundation.

Since the early 90s, Ivor has supported initiatives that promote transformation and nation building in South Africa. He was active in the anti-apartheid struggle and is a strong supporter of the ANC.

The Paramount Group has established itself as a global innovator with the development of one of the world’s most advanced families of armoured combat vehicles, and a revolutionary reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, the first aerial platform of its kind.

In July 2014, Boeing and Paramount Group met to Collaborate on Defence and Security Opportunities. The agreement, signed during the Farnborough Air Show, will allow Boeing and Paramount to apply their complementary strengths in providing aircraft and land systems solutions for customers in Africa and other major markets that face a range of security challenges. Paramount Group is Africa’s only partner of Boeing at this level in Africa and a trusted partner of sovereign governments around the world.

>>18750089

>At the pinnacle of his career, and at the behest of then-President Nelson Mandela, Meyer Kahn [Executive Chairman of SAB] commenced a two-year sabbatical secondment to the SA Police Service as its CEO in 1997.

>>18715672

>1995: State President Nelson Mandela opens SAB's World of Beer

>>18750069

>I got to know Meyer as a university student through my parents who were anti-apartheid activists. He was committed to fighting apartheid in the most practical way possible through upliftment and training.

“Are You Racist? | George Galloway | Oxford Union” - https://youtu.be/6jfTaIW8mqg. 1:21 – “I’ll let you in on something you don’t know. I’m one of the few people on the left in Britain who traveled the length and breadth of Apartheid South Africa as an underground agent of the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela then in Polsmoor prison in Cape Town… Throughout the entirety of my time underground in South Africa under Apartheid, every house I slept in, every dinner I ate, every car I drove in was provided by Jewish activists of the African National Congress.”

“Nelson Mandela and his relationship with SA Jews” – Part 1

https://www.sajr.co.za/nelson-mandela-and-his-relationship-with-sa-jews/

Jul 13, 2017

The Dalai Lama said he had often met with extraordinary people, including spiritual leaders, royalty, Nobel laureates and presidents, but he invariably found, on meeting them, that those people were not as large as their reputation. Only in Mandela’s case did he find the person larger than the reputation.

What did Mandela mean for South African Jews specifically? The question is a complex one, and in attempting an answer, it is important to reflect the nuances and ambiguities involved. On the one hand, during the apartheid era, Jews belonged to the privileged white ruling caste, and in a collective sense, never took a stand against that system until very late in the day.

On the other, no sector of the white population produced so high a proportion of individuals who fought against the apartheid system, many of them side by side with Mandela himself.

In looking back on Mandela’s relationship with South African Jewry, taking justified pride in and inspiration from these individuals must always be balanced by the recognition that during the apartheid years at least, the Jewish community as a whole was not part of that story.

Rather like Gandhi, who commenced his career in South Africa as a lawyer, but was gradually drawn more and more into the political arena in response to the injustices meted out to his community, Mandela first trained and worked as a lawyer before the anti-apartheid struggle took over his life.

Famously, it was Lazer Sidelsky who enabled him to go into that field by taking him on as an articled clerk in his law firm, at a time when engaging young blacks in that capacity was all but unheard of.

Mandela’s fellow clerk, Nat Bregman, became his first white friend in Johannesburg and, as a member of the Communist Party at the time, also played a part in his early political education.

Mandela went on to study law at Wits. There he established enduring friendships with such future anti-apartheid campaigners as Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Jules and Selma Browde and Harry Schwarz.

Jules Browde, later to become one of South Africa’s most respected senior counsels, was the first of many Jewish lawyers to represent Mandela. The case concerned an attempt to force the law firm established by Mandela and Oliver Tambo, to vacate its premises in the city centre under the Group Areas Act.

Appearing before the Land Tenure Advisory Board in Pretoria, Browde was able to obtain permission for them to stay where they were.

Jewish lawyers were prominently involved in defending Mandela in the various political trials in which he was involved, among them Isie Maisels (who successfully headed up the defence team during the Treason Trial), Arthur Chaskalson, Joel Joffe and Sidney Kentridge.

Ironically, Percy Yutar, the notoriously over-zealous state prosecutor in the Rivonia Trial in which Mandela and various others were sentenced to life imprisonment, was also a prominent Jewish community member.

>>18067442

>>17991718

“Nelson Mandela and his relationship with SA Jews” – Part 2

https://www.sajr.co.za/nelson-mandela-and-his-relationship-with-sa-jews/

Jul 13, 2017

As he moved increasingly into political activism, Mandela came more and more to be associated with Jewish-born anti-apartheid activists, mainly on the far-left of the political spectrum.

Thirteen of his fellow defendants in the 1956-1961 Treason Trial, for example, were Jews, among them such Struggle stalwarts as Lionel Bernstein, Ben Turok, Joe Slovo, Leon Levy and Ruth First.

Among the founders of the underground military wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe, were Dennis Goldberg, Harold Wolpe and Arthur Goldreich (a volunteer in the War of Independence who later settled in Israel). A strikingly high proportion of those responsible for organising the 1955 Congress of the People and drafting of the famous Freedom Charter, were of Jewish origin.

Before his imprisonment, Mandela worked closely with the journalist Benjamin Pogrund, whose hard-hitting exposés of the injustices of the apartheid system made him the target for continual police harassment.

Forced to go underground during the early 1960s, he stayed at a number of “safe houses”, including the Berea flat of Wolfie Kodesh and the home of Cyril and Raie Jones in Cyrildene.

While on Robben Island, his cause and that of his fellow prisoners was strenuously pursued by Helen Suzman, at the time the sole representative of the Progressive Party in Parliament. [“Oppenheimer was instrumental in the formation of the Progressive Party”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/harry-frederick-oppenheimer-born-kimberley. Harry Oppenheimer also has Jewish origins, https://whatsonincapetown.com/event/south-african-jewish-museum/]

Suzman was able to visit the prisoners and afterwards obtain certain improvements in their conditions. Numerous Jewish former activists who went into exile campaigned ceaseless for Mandela’s release, among them Norma Kitson in London.

After Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he and the mainstream Jewish leadership forged a cordial relationship and many leading Jewish businessmen and philanthropists, among them Eric Samson, Raymond Ackerman, Meyer Kahn and Bertie Lubner, were brought on board to assist in addressing the legacy of poverty and inequality left by the apartheid system.

He became especially close to Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris, a charismatic leader who wholeheartedly embraced the new democratic dispensation and encouraged the greater Jewish community to do likewise.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies met with Mandela regularly, and its leadership accompanied him on a visit to Israel after he had stepped down as president in 1999.

On the Israel-Palestine question, Mandela was deeply committed to the attainment of Palestinian statehood, but at the same time recognised that this had to be accomplished through peaceful negotiations and steadfastly affirmed Israel’s right to exist within secure borders.

Few can doubt that had his example been followed by the Palestinian leadership, a peaceful, two-state solution to the conflict would have been achieved decades ago.

Next week marks the birth of Nelson Mandela, a true colossus on the stage of history. In remembering it, South African Jewry can take pride in how many of its members contributed to what he was able to achieve, for his own people and for humanity at large, and hopefully be inspired to continue building on his legacy.

“BEWARE! The ANC Attempted Coup.”

https://youtu.be/pnpXHw3hThQ

“ANC ‘trying to shift goal posts’ to incorporate the DA-governed uMngeni into Impendle, Mpofana councils”

https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/anc-trying-to-shift-goal-posts-to-incorporate-the-da-governed-umngeni-into-impendle-mpofana-councils-743ff481-bc6c-44c7-b24c-344269336934

Apr 25, 2023

Durban — A concerned member of the public, Mike Wood, has put pen to paper accusing the ANC of attempting to “steal” a well-run uMngeni Municipality back into its hands, and said the attempt “flies” in the face of the voters of the DA-governed municipality”.

This came after the ANC approached the municipal demarcation board to incorporate the DA-governed uMngeni into the councils of Impendle and Mpofana.

In his letter, Wood said: “Under the capable leadership of mayor Chris Papas and team, the council has been turned around in a short space of time. Loans have been repaid, employment has been created, plant and equipment has been purchased to assist with service delivery. Huge strides have been made to promote tourism in the area, and that will and has led to more employment.”

He added that the municipality stepped in when the ANC-led provincial government could not deliver food to schools in the areas.

“This was driven by the mayor and his team. Service delivery is at a high.”

Wood added that the ANC “would have us believe that service will improve in Impendle and Mpofana”.

“This begs the question: why has the service delivery not been of the required standard since the ANC has been in government in these councils since 1995?

“This attempt to amalgamate uMngeni into a broader municipality must be rejected with the contempt it deserves.

“Where the DA governs, they govern better and for all,” he said.

Mooi-uMngeni constituency leader Greg Krumbock said that this is nothing but the ANC’s political ploy to get rid of the DA in this region, so they were using the demarcation incorporation ploy to take over this municipality.

Krumbock said that since the DA took over the municipality in November 2021, the residents were happy about the service delivery in the area.

“When we took over, only 131 received the indigent grant to help assist those households who meet the requirements and receive free water and electricity.

“Our mayor, Chris Papas, is very popular with all residents here, and you can find him interacting with different races in the area. He even speaks IsiZulu fluently, which makes him even more loved and accepted here.

“The uMngeni Municipality budget is well-run, and service delivery is well-received by all.”

Because of the DA’s successes, Krumbock added, the ANC is now doing all it can to fight the DA and get rid of the only party that is changing people’s lives for the better.

Krumbock said the public was very unhappy about what the ANC was trying to do, and many were flocking into the municipal hall to voice their objections.

“If you come to Howick now, you cannot see even a single pothole, people have water, electricity and other human needs.

“Moving the goal posts is what I’m hearing from the voters her – all those who come here echo similar sentiments,” Krumbock stressed.

ANC Moses Mabhida Regional secretary Samora Ndlovu said the matter was still under discussion.

“But it is true that the municipal demarcation board is currently undertaking public engagements of all stakeholders interested in the matter to determine whether the municipality is incorporated or not, and these are going to close on May 2. Thereafter the board will make a determination, and then make its decision around this matter,” Ndlovu added.

“Months-long water issues the final straw for White River residents”

https://lowvelder.co.za/822119/months-long-water-issues-the-final-straw-for-white-river-residents/

April 26, 2023

The town has been without water for 95 days since December, and the residents demand a permanent solution.

Labelling the current water situation in town anything other than a crisis, would be to downplay the severity of the problem.

Lowvelder visited several enraged members of the community on Monday April 24. During this time, it was discovered that the town had been without water for 95 days since December, according to some residents.

On days that water does flow from household taps, it is dirty and inconsumable and most likely a health hazard. In March alone, the town only had water for nine days, and in April, up until Monday, only five.

A resident, Ludolph Botha (75), could not hold back his tears and was so infuriated that he was willing to strip down to his boxers in protest against the hardships he has been suffering as a result of this dire situation. According to Botha, he has to go to nearby farms with empty containers to obtain water to bath and flush the toilet.

“I look after my mother, who is 95. She cannot look after herself anymore. At my age, I have to carry water for myself, my wife and my mother. We use the water for flushing toilets and cleaning. I have to carry the heavy water containers onto my van and offload them into the house.

“My wife and I no longer work, but we still pay for services, and now have to buy water as well, which we cannot afford. How can the municipality expect people to survive without water for more than 20 days? Maybe the municipality wants to see me and other community members walking naked in the streets to show our frustrations to realise we need serious intervention? I am personally pleading with the mayor and the entire council to do something about the water crisis,” he said.

Botha is one of the many disheartened residents demanding a permanent solution from the City of Mbombela (CoM) for this ‘never-ending’ crisis.

Residents who can afford it, have been buying water for consumption, incurring additional costs despite regularly paying for monthly services.

“There was a slight improvement in supply for a short while, but now it seems the problems have returned. Not everyone is in the financial position to buy water from local retailers and is forced to drink dirty water,” the residents said.

The ward councillor for the area, Rowan Torr, once again stressed that the deteriorating water issue is a direct result of White River not receiving water from Silulumanzi’s pump stations.

“Both the mayor and officials have been promising that pump stations will be fitted with emergency generators. This has not been done. This is not a water shortage, but a system failure aggravated by load-shedding, continued electrical problems and mismanagement of the water systems,” Torr said.

He also added the community has tried to assist by collecting R46 000 to keep one of the water treatment plant pumps operational. He said it does help sometimes, even though the municipality takes its time to fill up the pumps with diesel to keep it running.

The CoM’s spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, said the municipality is aware of the crisis and is working on a permanent solution.

“Load-shedding has a bad impact on the water system, because all our water treatment plants depend on electricity. Eskom was called on to stop load-shedding during the week in those areas depending on the Boschrand-Nels River link in order to improve the supply in the area. We are in the process of securing generators for all our water plants so that people will still have water during power cuts,” he said.

He also said the municipality is prepared to organise on-site storage for emergency water and was willing to provide tankers in the affected areas, but the resident do not want it.

“We have availed tankers, but people insist on water from taps and say they do not have containers and storage facilities in their yards.”