News snippets from around the world

Dlamini-Zuma extends National State of Disaster until May 15

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana DlaminiZuma has Gazetted the extension of the National State of Disaster on Covid-19 until 15 May. The decision to extend the state of national disaster follows consultations and cabinet approval. The extension takes into account the need to continue augmenting the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by organs of state to mitigate against the impact of the disaster on lives and livelihoods. South Africa went into Covid-19-imposed lockdown more than a year ago, as a measure to curb the spread of the virus. The country is now under Alert Level 1 of the Covid-19 lockdown.

(Source: www.sabcnews.com/)

SA Health minster, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has launched the Electronic Vaccination Data System for the second phase of the vaccine rollout, expected to begin in May.

The system is now open for people over the age of 60 to register, among others. You need your ID and medical aid card – where applicable – as well as a cell phone number and address. You will be notified by SMS when you are able to go to your selected vaccination centre. South Africa’s vaccination task team is confident that 67% of the population will be vaccinated within the current timeframe, with the best-case scenario achieving the goal by December 2021 (Source: businesstech.co.za)

FBI reports a 69% increase in internet crime in 2020

According to new data from the FBI‘s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report on internet crime, there was a sharp increase of cybercrime last year. The 2020 Internet Crime Report found that there were 791,790 complaints of suspected Internet crime, an increase of more than 300,000 complaints, a 69% jump, from 2019. The good news is that about 82% of the crimes attempted proved to be fruitless – but the grey cloud to that silver lining is that the reported losses from the “successful” crimes exceeded $4.2 billion. Last year’s surge also came as many depended on technology during the pandemic.

(Source: news.clearancejobs.com)

Another legal setback for Jacob Zuma as SCA dismisses appeal over state funding in corruption trial

The legal woes of former president Jacob Zuma have increased after he lost an appeal to set aside a North Gauteng High Court ruling that stripped him of state funding for his upcoming corruption trial that emanates from the arms deal of the late 1990s. In a ruling sent out electronically to all parties involved, on Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruled that Zuma should pay back the R15.3 million the state used on him to fight off his corruption trial, which returns to court in May.

(Source: www.iol.co.za)

President Ramaphosa announces Military Command Council appointments

Commander-in-Chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced appointments to the Military Command Council (MCC). The announcement of new army chiefs follows the retirement of a number of generals. The Military Command Council is the highest decision-making body in the SANDF, comprised of Chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Military Health Services, Defence Intelligence and Joint Operations. The MCC directs the work of the entire SANDF.

(Source: www.sabcnews.com)

Eskom’s two biggest labour unions demand 15% wage increases

The two biggest unions representing workers at Eskom are seeking 15% wage increases, adding to the woes confronting the loss-making South African power utility. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the National Union of Mineworkers tabled their demands at a preparatory meeting on Friday and pay talks will resume on 2 May, Eskom spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha said by phone. Solidarity, a smaller union, wants 9.5% increases for its members, it said by text message. South Africa’s consumer inflation rate is currently 2.9%.

(Source: www.moneyweb.co.za)

Indonesian hackers arrested over $60 million US Covid-19 scam

Two Indonesian hackers have been arrested over an international scam in which $60 million was stolen from a Covid-19 aid programme helping Americans left jobless by the pandemic, authorities said. Text messages were sent to twenty million Americans, directing them to more than a dozen fake US government websites, police in the Southeast Asian nation said last week. Thousands of victims supplied personal information, including social security numbers, to the fake sites in the hopes of securing $2,000 offered under a real assistance programme for the unemployed, authorities said. But their data was instead used by scammers to steal millions of dollars from the programme. “Some 30,000 US citizens were scammed and the government’s financial loss is up to $60 million,” said East Java police chief Nico Afinta. The two suspects were arrested last month in Indonesia’s second-biggest city, Surabaya, after police were notified by US authorities.

(Source: ewn.co.za)

Tax evaders should face jail time to curb rising noncompliance – Judge Dennis Davis

Says Sars should hone in on taxpayers who are able to afford a Ferrari, but pay less tax than working class South Africans. Retired Judge Dennis Davis wants tax evaders to end up behind bars. He believes that it will be a real deterrent as the idea of going to jail certainly ‘concentrates the mind’. Davis has been appointed as a consultant at the South African Revenue Service (Sars) for a year, with the option to renew, to assist the beleaguered tax authority. His mission is to increase its tax collection capabilities and expand the shrinking tax base.

(Source: www.moneyweb.co.za)

SA alcohol ban

A back-and-forth between policy experts and the alcohol industry has erupted over a report – commissioned by drinks maker Distell – which posited that trauma reductions during lockdown were as a result of curfew, not the ban on alcohol, as government said. However, the South African Alcohol Policy Alliance said that the findings were questionable because it’s known that both alcohol control and things like curfew worked to stop trauma cases, and it wasn’t only one or the other. While it understands that businesses struggle under alcohol bans, SAAPA said that reforms and tighter controls are still needed to curb alcohol abuse in the country.

(Source: businesstech.co.za)

Germany sees drop in crime during 1st year of pandemic

Germany saw a drop in reported crime last year, partly due to pandemic restrictions that kept people indoors, although there was a rise in child abuse, domestic violence and cybercrime.

(www.usnews.com)

MPs have until May 3 to receive mandate on land expropriation in SA

Parliamentarians serving on the ad hoc committee on Section 25 have been given until 3 May to seek a mandate from their parties on the actual drafting of the bill aimed to amend the Constitution. The bill seeks to allow for the explicit expropriation of land without compensation in the Constitution.

(Source: www.iol.co.za)

Police Minister Bheki Cele orders officers to protect Cape Town’s women, children ‘at all cost’

Cele was speaking at a parade of the newly deployed officers, who are members of visible policing, crime intelligence, forensics and detective services. They have been placed in crime hotspots across Cape Town such as Khayelitsha, Delft, Kraaifontein, Nyanga and Philippi East. “The Western Cape’s high murder rate is simply unacceptable. In the past week and during the [Easter] long weekend, 100 people were killed, either by stabbing or were shot dead in this province,” he said.

(Source: citizen.co.za)

EU sets out five-year crime cooperation, anti-trafficking plans

The European Union will seek to increase police cooperation, target human trafficking and establish new rules to counter money laundering, according to plans detailed by the European Commission on Wednesday. The EU executive has set out a five-year roadmap of legislative proposals and initiatives designed to combat organised criminal gangs, who have increasingly gone digital and even exploited the Coronavirus pandemic with sales of counterfeit medical products.

(Source: www.usnews.com)

ANC infighting

Factions within the ANC are sowing further divisions, with party deputy secretary general, Jesse Duarte, accusing secretary general Ace Magashule’s supporters of leaking confidential discussions to the public in a bid to destroy the party. Duarte was heard defending Jacob Zuma and advising that he remain firm in his defiance of the State Capture Commission. However, she now says the recordings were manipulated. Divisions in the ANC are well known, but in recent weeks have flared up publicly, with leaders openly attacking each other on social media.

(Source: businesstech.co.za)

New clashes in Mozambique’s Northeast

New clashes erupted in the town of Palma in Mozambique, three weeks after a jihadist attack there left dozens of people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, military and security sources say. Islamic State-linked militants raided the coastal town of Palma on 24 March in an assault that marked a major intensification in an insurgency that has wreaked havoc across Cabo Delgado province for over three years as the jihadists seek to establish a caliphate.

(Source: ewn.co.za)

Africa to see slowest regional growth in 2021: IMF

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has warned that limits on access to vaccines and policy space were holding back the near-term recovery, calling for wealthy countries to step up access to vital vaccines and make financing available to Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is set to record the world’s slowest regional economic growth at 3.4 per cent, as it struggles to recover from a virustriggered slump, it warned last week. “The economic hardships have caused significant social dislocation, with far too many being thrust back into poverty,” said Abebe Aemro Selassie, the head of the IMF’s Africa department. “The number of extreme poor in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have increased by more than 32 million,” he said.

(Source: https://ewn.co.za)

New study shows that the black market for cigarettes continues to grow

Nearly three-quarters of retail outlets in Free State, Gauteng and Western Cape are selling illicit cigarettes, according to global market research firm Ipsos. A study commissioned by British American Tobacco SA (BAT) – said to be free of interference from BAT – suggests that the cigarette market has been given over to black marketeers, with four out of five outlets surveyed in the Free State offering smokes at below the minimum collectable tax (MCT) of R21,61 for a pack of twenty. Any pack of twenty cigarettes selling below the MCT of R21,61 is deemed to be illicit. Some packs were selling for as little as R10 and even R6 – meaning that no tax could have been paid on these cigarettes. The study says that this is a consequence of the government’s imposition of a ban on cigarette sales in the early part of the Covid lockdown last year (now lifted). The ban allowed a black market for cigarettes to flourish, with the fiscus losing R8 billion a year in excise revenue.

(Source: www.moneyweb.co.za)

Cops charged with stealing cash from CIT heist scene

Two police officers have been arrested by the Serious Corruption Investigation team in the Vaal Rand in Gauteng on charges of theft and defeating the ends of justice. According to Colonel Katlego Mogale, 51-year-old Rapulane Levy Tlholoe and 53-year-old Ndavheleseni Edward Musetha, attached to the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation unit, attended to a cash-in-transit crime scene in the Langlaagte area, Johannesburg in January this year. During the heist, a group of armed men used explosives to bomb an armoured vehicle to gain access to the safe. One suspect was arrested while four others died from gunshot wounds which they sustained in a shootout with police. On arrival at the crime scene, the two officers allegedly placed the scattered cash inside four forensic seal bags to book them in at the police station… but only submitted two sealed forensic bags when they returned to the station, Mogale said. “Further investigation revealed that the suspects kept one torn sealed forensic bag with an undisclosed amount of money in their vehicle. More cash was discovered inside the cubbyhole and later placed in another sealed bag to be submitted as evidence, with one sealed bag missing.”

(Source: citizen.co.za)

Bogus Hawks investigator demands R60K to make murder case disappear

National Hawks head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya has expressed concern about increasing incidents of Hawks investigator impersonations. The Hawks have arrested a 29-year-old man for allegedly impersonating one of their officers and approaching an elderly Mpumalanga man on Tuesday with an offer to make a bogus murder investigation go away in exchange for R60 000. The elderly man recognised the man as one of three people who visited him at his home in June 2020 and introduced themselves as investigators in a murder case he had been implicated in, Hawks spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale said. “The trio were allegedly driving a police vehicle and stated that they were there to arrest him. The ailing victim was threatened and told his family was going to be destroyed unless he paid R60 000 in cash to ensure that the said case was destroyed,” Mogale added.

(Source: citizen.co.za)