SundayTimes March 29 2020 by SundayTimesZA

HOW IT ENDS

BASSIE’S LUNCH

YOU HAVE TO LAUGH

Fred Khumalo and seven other SA authors write the final chapter Lifestyle

46th birthday party goes virtual Page 3

Humour can be our lifeline Insight

We’re open and trading in the essentials.

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The war we have to win INSIDE Mboweni looks to IMF and World Bank for help Page 8

LOCKDOWN GAMES

Already bored? Our questions are the answer Insight

Johannesburg went from bustling metropolis to a ghost city on Friday as the Covid-19 lockdown took hold. Soldiers moved in to support the police to ensure there would be no breaking of the 21-day curfew that will, hopefully, keep the nation isolated from the virus or at least dramatically reduce potential infections. The lockdown, declared by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday, runs until Thursday April 16. Picture: Alon Skuy

● Midnight on Thursday marked a decisive moment

● Our reporters and photographers were on hand to

for SA, as the lockdown announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa to combat the coronavirus pandemic came into effect. Tough times lie ahead for all of us.

document the moment. In the pages that follow we SIDELINED tell how ordinary South Africans are navigating difficult SA sports chiefs are times, providing inspiration to all who so badly need it. all in isolation Sport

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March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid 19- Equipment

Sunday Times

Lotto 06

Lotto Plus 1 24

Lotto Plus 2 07

Scramble for vital supplies COVID-19 cases in SA

Global demand could leave SA without enough ventilators

Stats at March 28 2020

Week 2 Week 3

Week 4

Mar 22-28

8 7

+ 947 cases

By HILARY JOFFE

GAUTENG

5 3 3

NORTHERN CAPE

FREE STATE

6 8 KWAZULU-NATAL

EASTERN CAPE

WESTERN CAPE

55* SA has launched an international search for ventilators like this one being demonstrated at a hospital in Hamburg, Germany. Because Covid-19 attacks the lungs, ventilators are essential in treating patients with severe symptoms. Picture: AF/Axel Heimken

ventilator in production as soon as possi- crease in demand.” ble.” Sasol CEO Fleetwood Grobler said global Patel said the government was fast-track- demand for ethanol and isopropyl alcohol ing the hunt for ventilators and other equip- had soared due to the pandemic, but “Sasol ment and would expedite clearance proce- has prioritised local supply, and prices for dures at ports of entry. South African sales have remained “Before the state of national disstable”. aster was declared, hospitals A list of Treasury-approved could use ventilators only for Covid-19 contractors shows their own patients,” Patel said. the waiting period for equip“Now they are allowed to ment and supplies, including share all these kinds of facilifor ventilators and respirators, ties and share patients, nurses, is longer than three weeks. skilled technicians and medical On Friday the Chinese milipersonnel that operate the tary donated 2,000 specialised equipment. goggles and 3,000 face masks to Ebrahim Patel “We are producing more of the South African National Dewhat we need and importing as fence Force. much as we can find elsewhere in the With SA recording its first Covid-19 death world.” on Friday, general manufacturers have Among the corporations pitching in is ramped up their efforts to help, repurposing Sasol, which is now making sanitiser. machines to produce medical equipment. Company spokesperson Alex Anderson Chris Archer, CEO of the South African said: “As a producer and bulk supplier of a Private Practitioners Forum, confirmed there variety of speciality chemicals, Sasol has de- were serious supply shortages, especially of veloped a new, unique blend of alcohol- ventilators. based chemicals to be used in manufactur“This is a global problem. The state of ing hand sanitisers to help address the in- New York requires 40,000 ventilators, but 18/33 10

12/27

15/27

14/31

14/27 15/26

15/23

17/28 8/26 16 Springbok

14/24

12/25 16/23

16/23

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22 14/19

21/30

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9/25

If you have a story you would like us to investigate or report, send an e-mail with your contact details to newstipoff@sundaytimes.co.za

LETTERS

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16/32

HOW TO CONTACT US TIPOFFS

Number of patients in hospital (public and private)

5 6

UNALLOCATED

2 7 1

LIMPOPO

+ 202 cases

NORTH WEST

14/28

16/20

MPUMALANGA

+ 36 cases

2 4 0

Mar 15-21

High/Low High/Low

Cape Town

3 8

Mar 8-14

Mar 1-7

● SA is in a life-or-death race to secure essential medical equipment before a surge in Covid-19 patients is expected to hit hospitals in about 10 days’ time. State suppliers are scrambling to secure ventilators, masks, gloves, respirators and sanitisers from local and international manufacturers. But with delays of more than three weeks due to global demand, there are fears deliveries might be too late to save some of the pandemic’s victims. While the health department says it has sufficient supplies “depending on the number of people who succumb to Covid-19”, spokesperson Popo Maja said plans were in place to fly to countries that could supply medication and medical equipment. “We will go. By whatever means we will fetch the supplies that are needed,” he said. Maja said the department was talking to China, South Korea, Cuba and Singapore. “They have committed to assisting us.” Professor Alex van den Heever, a health economist at the Wits School of Governance, said state hospitals had 1,178 intensive care unit (ICUs) beds across the country. Private hospitals had an additional 2,140. ICU beds are equipped with ventilators. “It is touch and go with bed numbers. This is compounded by the fact that you cannot have Covid-19-infected people in ICU wards with other patients. “If we can secure ventilators, which will be necessary for the approaching patient infection surge, we can create more ICU beds, but the problem is time. We don’t have it. “Our high-risk period is due to start within 10 days.” Van den Heever said SA should exploit its relationships with countries that were beating the Covid-19 infection curve to obtain equipment and do so at an acceptable price. “It’s not impossible for ventilators, which are highly sophisticated pieces of machinery, to cost R800,000.” While ICU patients usually require ventilation for up to five days, medical experts say Covid-19 patients can require ventilation for up to 21 days. At a media conference late on Friday, trade & industry minister Ebrahim Patel said anyone wanting to export critical medical supplies needed in SA would now require a licence to do so, “to ensure significant stocks available for SA and neighbouring countries”. “A prototype ventilator can be built here,” he said. “Technology previously used to build cars can be repurposed to get a basic

1819/---1823/---1806/---1801/2354 1839/---1819/---1818/---1801/2359 1822/---1803/---1801/2358 1825/----

Confirmed cases, breakdown by province

Confirmed cases

8 7

Weekly case breakdown Week 1

By GRAEME HOSKEN and MPUMZI ZUZILE

0605/1215 0609/1220 0547/1159 0546/1155 0629/1229 0606/1214 0605/1215 0541/1151 0608/1218 0543/1156 0543/1156 0558/1158

Number of patients in ICU

*Figures are based on data from March 27

Number of patients on ventilation

31* Number of recoveries

Graphic: Nolo Moima Source: News Reports/Department of

the US government could only provide 6,000. “Under normal circumstances an ICU patient’s ventilation lasts up to five days, but with Covid-19 this can be 21 days. With the current shortages this means there will be difficulty in helping everyone who has severe Covid-19 symptoms.” He said the forum was assessing what equipment was available and what the country’s needs would be. “SA is behind. Like many globally, our doctors will soon be faced with very difficult decisions. They will have to decide who to put onto ventilation and whether they take people who are not responding off ventilation and let them die.” The Treasury’s approved Covid-19 contractors said they were pulling out all the stops to secure supplies. Hilton Klein, CEO of Numolux Group, which imports respirators and ventilators, said: “We have only been able to secure 25 from China. We are planning to sign off next week on the purchase of 500 ventilators and source other suppliers.” He declined to put a price on the ventilators, but said the cost had skyrocketed. COPYRIGHT The copyright in all material in this newspaper and its supplements is expressly reserved.

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Moody’s makes Tito tremble

“This is vital equipment and demand is pushing up prices. It’s a dire situation,” Klein said. Nasiegh Khan, a director of New Age Medident, which supplies respirators, gloves and masks, said he had run out of supplies. Compounding this was that a container with millions of gloves and masks he had ordered from Italy was seized by that country’s government. “They want all material and products for their people first. Even if released, it will take 30 to 40 days to reach SA.” Atiya Hendricks, sales administrator at Henry Schein Dental Warehouse, one of SA’s biggest suppliers of masks, sanitisers and gloves for dentists, said the company could not cope with demand. “In one day we received a request for over 10,000 masks, over 10,000 gloves and 15,000l of sanitiser,” Hendricks said. Eric Ichikowitz, senior vice-president of Paramount Group, said the defence and aerospace company had made six aircraft, including helicopters, available to the government to transport medical personnel and supplies. “Our engineers and technical specialists are planning to reconfigure manufacturing machinery to produce medical equipment including ventilators and respirators,” he said. South African Airways spokesperson Tlali Tlali said although the airline had suspended commercial flights to slow the spread of the virus to SA, it was processing various requests for the transport of essential goods. “SAA has capacity, with crew and aircraft with requisite range … for repatriation purposes and for transfers of essential goods. “We provide ad hoc services at the moment under exceptional circumstances … with stringent measures that have been put in place.” Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, said the group had called on members to help government efforts to combat the pandemic. “This is about getting as many doctors as possible on the ground quickly. We are formulating plans with government on how to get our members out into the poorest areas where water, sanitation and hygiene are of serious concern.”

● SA’s policymakers have come in for harsh words from rating agency Moody’s, which finally junked SA’s rating late on Friday night after three years of warnings. The agency signalled that it might cut the rating even further into junk territory, saying SA’s economic growth and its public debt could turn out even worse than expected. Moody’s said SA had made only limited progress on structural reforms, and economic growth would remain very low in coming years, even after the sharp downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The public debt burden would rise to well over 90% in the next five years “under any plausible economic and fiscal scenario”. The Treasury’s response was unusually heartfelt. “The decision by Moody’s could not have come at a worse time,” it said. “The sovereign downgrade will further add to the prevailing financial market stress … We are trembling in our boots.” Moody’s also kept SA on “negative outlook”, indicating a further downgrade could be on the cards in the next 12-18 months. It was the last of the big three global rating agencies that still had an investment grade rating on SA, and its decision will mean that foreign investors such as pension funds — whose mandates limit them to investmentgrade bonds — will have to sell off. This will trigger an outflow of up to $8bn (about R140bn at yesterday’s rate) and put fresh pressure on the local currency.

Now Motsepe donates R1bn By JEFF WICKS

● Billionaire mining magnate Patrice Motsepe — along with an array of companies he has a stake in — has pledged R1bn in aid for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. His dip into the coffers places him alongside the Rupert and Oppenheimer families, bringing the total donations intended to combat the pandemic — as well as the economic fallout — to R3bn. Motsepe said in a virtual press conference yesterday that the cash injection would be structured in separate flows, with an immediate push of several hundred million rands to halt the spread of Covid-19 through the purchase of sanitisers, protective equipPatrice Motsepe ment and disinfectants for those on the frontlines. The second wave would be funds to buttress the education system, building classrooms and computer labs at schools across all the country’s nine provinces to avert overcrowding and allow some semblance of social distancing. “In these challenging, difficult and unprecedented times, it is important that we come together as South Africans and send a clear message to the poor and jobless that we will always be there in whatever way we can,” Motsepe said.

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SUNDAY TIMES - March 29 2020

News A-listers

Bathtub bizarre From a milky bath sprinkled with rose petals, Madonna has told her fans that Covid-19 is “the great equaliser”. In the clip posted to her Instagram and Twitter accounts, the singer said, to a background of tinkly piano music: “It doesn’t care about how rich you are, how famous you are, how funny you are, how smart you are, where you live, how old you are, what amazing stories you can tell.”

Black Coffee

Sunday Times

Don’t go out, the fun’s in your own home Musicians are coming to the lockdown party with online intensive care By KARISHMA THAKURDIN

● There’s nothing like a bit of music to lighten the mood. And some South African artists are stepping up during the lockdown, keeping fans entertained in their homes through online parties and performances. Electronic music band Goodluck became the first local act to be a part of Global Citizen’s #TogetherAtHome live online streaming series in support of the World Health Organisation’s efforts to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Goodluck joins stars such as Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, One Republic, Miguel and Chris Martin. Singing sensation John Legend, who is also part of the campaign, has been giving fans a front-row seat as he stages performances on his social media platforms dressed only in a bathrobe. Goodluck’s lead singer, Juliet Harding, told the Sunday Times it was a huge honour to be part of the project. “We’ve been included on a lineup of some of our favourite artists in the world, who are taking a stand to help prevent the spread of coronavirus and promote the importance of self-isolation to get ahead of the curve of this deadly virus.” Harding said the group will do several DJ sets and online concerts for fans during the

lockdown as they believe music pulls people together and lifts their spirits. “Us musicians have a very important part to play in the next 21 days to help promote happiness and togetherness.” Singer Matthew Mole said he will host his first lockdown live-stream performance next week to “stay connected” with his fans. “Take this time as an opportunity to be productive and, as hard as it sounds, keep yourself inspired. At the same time, try to remember that everything will be OK.” Award-winning DJ Black Coffee attracted more than 84,000 viewers to a live 90minute set last weekend, while DJs Shimza and PH joined forces to host their digital #QuarantineParty. It went so well that Channel O on DStv approached Shimza and PH to record Lockdown House Party, which will air in a six-hour slot every Friday and Saturday night until April 11. “It’s quite cool to have the corporates come through and help us reach our audience,” Shimza said. “They need the content and we need the reach. This is also a way for us to get money from brands because artists are going through a drought as far as gigs go. So this is a bit of money for the artists, which for us is a winwin.” Veteran musician and record label owner Oskido, who will also be doing sets from his home, said it was important for everyone to support each other during this difficult time. Shawn And it’s not just dance music going Mendes strong. This week trumpeter and vocalist Mandisi Dyantyis, whose

debut jazz album Somandla was nominated in the South African Music Awards last year, hosted an online concert, charging R100 per household for access. Meanwhile, Pick n Pay roped in several artists, including Loyiso Bala, Lira, Karen Zoid, Jack Parrow and Zolani Mahola to produce a catchy, light-hearted track aimed at curbing panic buying. The song, written by Ard Matthews, says Friends don’t let friends panic buy, ’cause you don’t wanna be that guy. Bala, who is also channel director of TBN Africa, said the “faith and family” TV network had been working around the clock to ensure people have “content of hope” during the pandemic. — Additional reporting by Chrizelda Kekana Miguel

Zolani Mahola Matthew Mole Chris Martin of Coldplay.

For locked-down celebs, home is where the heart is By CRAIG JACOBS

Author and business person Basetsana Kumalo turns 46 today — and her friends will join the party on Instagram. Pictures: Angela Buthelezi

● To celebrate turning 46 today, bestselling author and business person Basetsana Kumalo is throwing a party in a room filled with her favourite blooms and a two-tier cake iced in lemon and blush pink. But this will be a party with a difference. While her three children and husband Romeo will be there in person, the rest of her guests will celebrate from the comfort of their smartphones and laptops. “It’s going to be fabulous, darling. There is so much I am grateful for, and I want to celebrate this journey with everybody,” says the My Journey of Hope author. Kumalo is one of a handful of well-known mothers taking an out-of-the-box approach to stimulate their broods and inspire others as we batten the hatches to flatten the coronavirus curve. She got the idea for the isolation birthday party after watching TV host Nandi Madida celebrate hers on Instagram last week. “Even though we are quarantined, birthdays should be celebrated. I want to bring hope and lightness,” she says. She posted the invitation for the party, which starts at 1pm today, on her Instagram feed yesterday.

Basetsana Kumalo spends time at home with her son Nathi, 14.

Don’t change your routine ● Don’t step out of your routine. It will destabilise the entire household. ● Limit time on electronics. ● Use this time to connect with each other as a family. Appreciate this opportunity for quality time.

Her celebration begins with a live cook of the lunch, which will include her kids — Nathi, 14, Kgosi, 7, and Bontle, 5 — helping prepare stuffed salmon, salads and veggies. Later on, she will blow out the candles on a cake baked by chef Simphiwe Zondi. The cake, and the flower arrangement by Ann Malinga of Blaque Petals, arrived days before the lockdown kicked in on Thursday night. Meanwhile, broadcaster Elana AfrikaBredenkamp, who has two young daughters, has taken to reading children’s stories across all her channels — her Jacaranda FM radio show, her social media feeds and her online support network, Parent+Baby Brunch. On Thursday, she read from the Afrikaans children’s book Stampie die Dinosourus. Afrika-Bredenkamp began preparing for the lockdown long before Thursday. The “mom-preneur” says sticking to routine, something Kumalo also highlights, has been crucial. “By 8am the girls are already dressed and eating breakfast. When I start my show on Jacaranda at 9am, they have an hour of homeschool — puzzles, mathematics for toddlers, brain exercises,” she says. Former Miss SA Vanessa CarreiraCoutroulis concurs. “I’ve always been a schedule mom. It is the only thing that has

kept me sane,” says the mother of sevenyear-old triplets Sophia, Mila and Nikola, and Leo, 10. Afrika-Bredenkamp says she has converted the garage into an art room, and Kumalo has transformed her study into a classroom. On Wednesday, when the pics for this article were taken, the Kumalo brood were deep into an art exercise, painting miniature cars, butterflies and owls. Their day also starts with breakfast at 8am before they head out for a walk around the family property. Exercise is key in the Carreira-Coutroulis household. Vanessa’s husband Chris brought home pairs of mini boxing gloves for the classes he holds with the kids. All the moms cite restricting the kids’ time on electronics, whether it’s TV, smartphone or PlayStation, as a crucial part of their lockdown regime. And Kumalo says spending more time with her family hasn’t meant her business interests, which include an investment company and production company Connect TV, have suffered. “I am getting so much work done, being at home. I am really astounded at how technology is helping us keep sane and productive during these times,” she says.

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March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

News Covid-19: Heroes

The heroes who fight the virus head-on Doctors, nurses and bus cleaners all play vital role By ZIMASA MATIWANE, MPUMZI ZUZILE, BOBBY JORDAN, PHATHU LUVHENGO and MATTHEW SAVIDES

● While the rest of the country is corralled behind closed doors, SA’s Covid-19 heroes are at the frontline in the war on the disease. This week, doctors, nurses and even bus cleaners spoke of their sacrifices in fighting the coronavirus, and their pleas to South Africans to stay at home. In her mask, scrubs and even disposable underwear, Mandisa Ntanzi, 31, may not look like a soldier, but she has been caring for Covid-19 patients at Durban’s Addington Hospital for the past three weeks. The nursing sister volunteered to work in the isolation ward and uses her smile and humour as tools of the trade. “That is how I deal with difficult situations, I find the light and I hang on to it. I laugh, I make the hopeless get a sense of normality with care, medicine, love, but also humour,” she said. “My job is to make sure no-one dies. Our patients do not get visitors, so not only do we check their vitals and administer medication, we give emotional care.” Ntanzi’s biggest fear is not that her daughter and brother with whom she lives will fall ill with Covid-19, but that the country’s health system will become overwhelmed. In Port Elizabeth, Dr John Black, the head of the Covid-19 ward in Livingstone Hospital shares this fear. There are two Covid-19 patients in private hospitals in Port Elizabeth. “The stock shortages of protective equipment be-

ing used unnecessarily in the community, staff shortages and overcrowded wards all make the potential dangers much greater,” he said. “We are a dual-doctor family and the fear of bringing the infection home to our loved ones causes high levels of anxiety. Knowing the risks, we have no other option but to send our children to live with their grandparents in order to protect everyone.” Black says he and his wife now fret over what they could have contaminated and are paranoid about hand washing. “If each of us does not adhere to the lockdown and limit social interaction, it will allow the virus to propagate unchecked. As doctors we will have to decide who gets a ventilator, who gets a bed, who lives or dies. Arrogant or ignorant disregard for the social distancing rules comes at a very high price for the community as well as for those having to deal personally with the consequences on the frontline,” he said. Black’s colleague, Dr Lia Boretti, an infectious diseases doctor at Livingstone Hospital, says she’s “terrified, exhausted and scared”. She and her husband, also a doctor, are faced with moving their six-year-old daughter and three-yearold twins to relatives to protect them from their parents. Her message to South Africans is: “Every day we put our own lives and those of our loved ones at risk to save you. We sacrifice so much of ourselves, yet people cannot adhere to the simplest rules. Day one of lockdown and hundreds of South Africans are out and about. People insist on travelling despite being advised differently. This selfish behaviour will kill thousands of South Africans.” Epson Chiolane, 48, from Tsakane township in Ekurhuleni, is doing his bit to ensure that doesn’t happen. He has been cleaning metro buses twice a day during the outbreak to “make sure that everybody is safe and arrives at their destinations safely”.

Lives on the line “Every day we put our own lives and those of our loved ones at risk to save you. Yet people cannot adhere to the simplest rules. Day one of lockdown and hundreds of South Africans are out and about. This selfish behaviour will kill thousands of South Africans.” — Dr Lia Boretti, an infectious diseases doctor at Livingstone Hospital

Bheki Cele becomes our Dick Tracy By QAANITAH HUNTER

Mandisa Ntanzi, a nursing sister at Addington Hospital, is at the forefront of the battle.

Ahmed Bham before boarding a plane to Wuhan to fetch South Africans trapped in the virus epicentre.

A glance at the curve

591,971

Total confirmed COVID-19 cases 400,000

Confirmed deaths

300,000

WORLD ITALY

27,090 9,136

200,000 118,610 100,000 392 0 Jan 21

9,826 Jan 31

75,723

87,024

1,128

Feb 10

Feb 20

Mar 1

86,498

45,540 11

10,149 Mar 11

1,187 Mar 28

Graphic: Nolo Moima Source: OurWorldInData.org

He said initially he spent sleepless nights thinking about the outbreak and why people were dying throughout the world. “We don’t want to lose lives and every morning when I get here I remind everyone that we are cleaners and what we are doing now is very important and we should remain focused.” One person who has been fighting the virus for weeks now is Ahmed Bham, the head of disaster medicine at the national department of health. He was on the mission to bring South Africans back from

Wuhan, China, to the quarantine site in Limpopo. But as the quarantine draws to an end, Bham admitted there was anxiety. They left Wuhan when the epidemic was dying down, only to arrive back in SA when it was escalating. When he is eventually allowed to leave the quarantine site, Limpopo’s The Ranch Resort, Bham won’t be going home. “I know I already have tasks allocated to me. I will be going to other provinces to oversee some quarantine facilities. No family time for me.”

● Forget 10111. Police minister Bheki Cele’s cellphone is the lockdown hotline. At least eight arrests of those breaking the curfew came from tip-offs to Cele’s phone. It’s an irritation for Cele that his number is widely known, but it’s become a resource to help contain the spread of Covid-19. “This thing of my number being known out there … it irritates but it helps more than it irritates,” he said. He is briefed regularly by police top brass, but “most of my information comes from my phone”, Cele said in an interview. Seven people who broke the curfew in Montclair, Durban, were arrested after a phone tip-off to Cele. Another was arrested north of Durban at Amaoti, Inanda. He was pushing a wheelbarrow carrying beer. When Cele gets inforBheki Cele mation, he tells Lt Gen Fannie Masemola, who heads the police’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NatJoints). Orders for arrest follow. Cele has been on the beat as the government tries to control the virus. Others have joined the fight. Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi told how he’d gone to the Beitbridge border post on Friday morning on a gut feeling that there would be trouble on the Zimbabwe border. “I stay not far from the N1. When I saw the traffic going that way to the N1, I said this is a disaster. I phoned my acting [director-general]. “I said let’s go to Musina. And we were spot on,” he told the Sunday Times. When Motsoaledi arrived at the border post, which is seen as a gateway to the rest of the continent, there were trucks parked bumper to bumper from the border, extending 10km southwards. “I had to call my Zimbabwean counterpart and he had to call his Zambian counterpart to let people go over,” Motsoaledi said. Following his intervention, he said, some normality had returned to the border post by Friday evening.

Notice of the list of protected tree species under the National Forests Act, 1998 (Act No. 84 of 1998) By virtue of powers vested in me under section 15(3) of the National Forests Act, 1998, I, Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries hereby publish a list of all protected trees belonging to a particular species under section 12(1) (d) set out in the schedule below. The effect of this declaration is that in terms of section 15(1) of the National Forests Act, 1998, no person may cut, disturb, damage or destroy any protected tree or possess, collect, remove, transport, export, purchase,

sell, donate or in any other manner acquire or dispose of any protected tree or any product derived from a protected tree, except under a licence or exemption granted by the Minister to an applicant and subject to such period and conditions as may be stipulated. Contravention of this declaration is regarded as a first category offence that may result in a person who is found guilty being sentenced to a fine or imprisonment for a period up to three years, or to both a fine and imprisonment.

Schedule A Botanical name

English common names

Other common names Afrikaans (A), Sepedi (P), Sesotho (S), Setswana (T), Tshivenda (V), isiXhosa (X), isiZulu (Z)

National tree number

Lumnitzera racemosa var. racemosa

Tonga mangrove

Tonga-wortelboom (A)/isiKhaha-esibomvu (Z)

Lydenburgia abbottii

Pondo bushman’s tea

Pondo-boesmanstee (A)

407

Lydenburgia cassinoides

Sekhukhuni bushman’s tea

Sekhukhuni-boesmanstee (A)

406

Mimusops caffra

Coastal red milkwood

552

Kusrooimelkhout (A)/Umthunzi (X)/Umkhakhayi (Z )

583

Newtonia hildebrandtii var. hildeb- Lebombo wattle randtii

Lebombo-wattel (A)/Umfomothi (Z)

191

Ocotea bullata

Stinkhout (A)/Umhlungulu (X)/Umnukane (Z)

118

Stinkwood

Ozoroa namaquensis

Gariep resin tree

Gariep-harpuisboom (A)

Philenoptera violacea

Apple-leaf

Appelblaar (A)/Mphata (NS)/Mohata (T)/isiHomohomo (Z)

373.2 238

Pittosporum viridiflorum

Cheesewood

Kasuur (A)/Kgalagangwe (NS)/Umkhwenkwe (X)/Umfusamvu (Z)

139

Henkel’s yellowwood

Henkel se geelhout (A)/Umsonti (X)/Umsonti (Z)

207

Real yellowwood

Regte-geelhout (A)/Mogôbagôba (NS)/Umcheya (X)/ Umkhoba (Z)

Pod mahogany

Peulmahonie (A)/Mutokota (V)/Inkehli (Z)

Balanites subsp. maughamii

Torchwood

Groendoring (A)/Ugobandlovu (Z)

251

Barringtonia racemosa

Powder-puff tree

Poeierkwasboom (A)/Iboqo (Z)

524

Boscia albitrunca

Shepherd’s tree

Witgat (A)/Mohlôpi (NS)/Motlhôpi (T)/ Muvhombwe (V)/ Umgqomogqomo (X)/ Umvithi (Z)

122

Swazi-uiehout (A)

Podocarpus latifolius

Afzelia quanzensis

Swartwortelboom (A)/isiKhangati (X)/IsiHlobane (Z)

Silwerboom (A)

Podocarpus henkelii

Kremetart (A)/Seboi (NS)/Mowana (T)

Swazi onionwood

Silver tree

467

Baobab

Black mangrove

Leucadendron argenteum

598

Adansonia digitata

Cassipourea swaziensis

Moerasvy (A)/Umvubu (Z)

169

Vaalkameeldoring (A)/Mokholo (T)

Bruguiera gymnorrhiza

Ebbeboom-ghwarrie (A)

Swamp fig

Grey camel thorn

Mingerhout (A)/Mohlomê (NS)/Mutu-lume (V)/Umfomfo (Z)

Ebony guarri

Ficus trichopoda

Outniekwageelhout (A)/Mogôbagôba (NS)/Umkhoba (X)/Umsonti (Z)

Vachelia haematoxylon

Matumi

Euclea pseudebenus

Breede River yellowwood Breëriviergeelhout (A)

168

Breonadia salicina

436.2

Outeniqua yellowwood

Kameeldoring (A)/Mogohlo (NS)/Mogôtlhô (T)

Msasa (A)

Bosveld-rooiklapperbos (A)/Mofalatsane (T)

Podocarpus falcatus (Afrocar-pus falcatus)

Camel thorn

Msasa

Bushveld red balloon

Podocarpus elongatus

Vachelia erioloba

Brachystegia spiciformis

Erythrophysa transvaalensis

198.1 684 527 531.1

Protea comptonii

Saddleback sugarbush

Barberton-suikerbos (A)

Protea curvata

Serpentine sugarbush

Serpentynsuikerbos (A)

88.1

Prunus africana

Red stinkwood

Rooistinkhout (A)/Umkhakhase (X)/Umdumezulu (Z)

147

Pterocarpus angolensis

Wild teak

Kiaat (A)/Morôtô (NS)/Mokwa (T)/Mutondo (V)/Umvangazi (Z)

236

Rhizophora mucronata

Red mangrove

Rooiwortelboom (A)/isiKhangathi (X)/Umhlume (Z)

526

Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra

Marula

Maroela (A)/Morula (NS)/Morula (T)/Umganu (Z)

360

Securidaca longepedunculata

Violet tree

Krinkhout (A)/Mmaba (T)

303

Sideroxylon inerme subsp. inerme

White milkwood

Witmelkhout (A)/Ximafana (X)/Umakhwelafingqane (Z)

579

Catha edulis

Bushman’s tea

Boesmanstee (A)/Mohlatse (NS)/Igqwaka (X)/Umhlwazi (Z)

404

Ceriops tagal

Indian mangrove

Indiese wortelboom (A)/isinkaha (Z)

525

Cleistanthus schlechteri var. schlechteri

False tamboti

Bastertambotie (A)/Umzithi (Z)

320

Colubrina nicholsonii

Pondo weeping thorn

Pondo-treurdoring (A)

Combretum imberbe

Leadwood

Hardekool (A)/Mohwelere-tšhipi (NS)/Motswiri (T)/ Impondondlovu (Z)

539

For more information contact:

Curtisia dentata

Assegai

Assegaai (A)/Umgxina (X)/Umagunda (Z)

570

Shumani Dzivhani: Tel.: 012 309 5765; E-mail: Shumanid@daff.gov.za

Elaeodendron transvaalensis

Bushveld saffron

Bosveld-saffraan (A)/Monomane (T)/Ingwavuma (Z)

416

Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Private Bag X 313, Pretoria 0001

453.8

Tephrosia pondoensis

Pondo poison pea

Pondo-gifertjie (A)

Warburgia salutaris

Pepper-bark tree

Peperbasboom (A)/Molaka (NS)/Mulanga (V)/isiBaha (Z)

226.1

Widdringtonia cedarbergensis

Clanwilliam cedar

Clanwilliamseder (A)

Widdringtonia schwarzii

Willowmore cedar

Baviaanskloofseder (A)

488

Page 5 - 29 March 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

News Covid-19: Stranded

Getting our people home “There are many South Africans stuck in different countries throughout the world. We are negotiating with several authorities throughout the world to find amicable ways to bring people back home.” — Dirco spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele

New Covid cases arise — legal ones From left, Ricardo, Kelly, Laura and Sloane McCollough after being given permission to leave SA this week.

Family matters and loony long shots already before courts

Picture: Supplied

By QAANITAH HUNTER, TANIA BROUGHTON and PHILANI NOMBEMBE

● Just three days in and SA’s lockdown has already seen several legal challenges. A relatively obscure civil society body has taken President Cyril Ramaphosa to the Constitutional Court, arguing that his declaration of a 21-day lockdown was ill-informed because the killer virus Covid-19 is not, it says, harmful to Africans. In a bizarre case, the Hola Bon Renaissance Foundation on Thursday approached the court on an urgent basis, asking it to declare the 21-day national lockdown announced by Ramaphosa on Monday to control the spread of the coronavirus unconstitutional. In court papers, the nongovernmental organisation wants the court to declare that Covid-19 “poses no serious threat to the country and its people”. “HBR Foundation believes that Covid-19 cannot be harmful to Africans,” says the NGO. Earlier, a court in Mpumalanga dismissed an application by a man who wanted to travel from the province to the Eastern Cape to bury his grandfather. The man had lodged an urgent application to be exempted from the travel restrictions. He had told the court that he did not pose any risk as he had not been in contact with anyone who had travelled abroad and did not show any symptoms. The court said granting the man relief would be giving him permission to break the law. This is also why the Constitutional Court is unlikely to entertain the HBR Foundation’s arguments. The NGO is chaired by Bontshitswe Mothopeng, who has been posting videos online calling on South Africans to support his legal challenge. His NGO’s argument appears to be based on a number of questionable news sources, including articles published on apparently fake news websites under headlines such as “Chinese Doctors reveal why African skin resists coronavirus”. The HBR Foundation describes itself as a nonprofit organisation with no political affiliation championing community transformation and promoting “central economic opportunity”.

Martine du Preez wants R20,000 after her Italian Airbnb tenant was kicked out.

In 2011, the foundation lost a case in the Constitutional Court in which it argued for Soweto, which falls under the City of Johannesburg, to have its own municipality. Now the group wants the court to order the government to remove any funds dedicated to fighting Covid-19 and for them to be reprioritised for essential services delivery. In one case that did succeed, a Cape Town court allowed a US couple to leave SA with their newly adopted son on one of the last pre-lockdown flights, ruling against the department of home affairs. Kelly and Laura McCollough, who arrived in SA in February to finalise the adoption of nine-year-old Ricardo, had faced being stuck in SA, not only because of the lockdown but also because home affairs had not processed Ricardo’s name-change application nor issued the new birth certificate he needed to apply for a South African passport. Previously, adopted children left on their South African passports in their birth names, with their adoption orders and a formal signoff from both countries. But last year home

affairs stipulated that passports could only be issued once name changes had been registered and new birth certificates issued, which can take months, if not years. The McColloughs, in an application heard by Cape Town high court acting judge Fred Sievers on Wednesday, said Ricardo had integrated well into their family and the adoption was finalised in court on February 20. In March, the US issued an urgent travel advisory that citizens must return home — and then the lockdown was announced. “There was no question of leaving Ricardo behind,” said Kelly. “We told him we would never leave him and promised to always be there for him.” Lawyers for home affairs opposed the urgent application, saying it was not urgent, that the minister had not had sufficient time to consider the case and that a special travel document issued by the US was not a recognised travel document. But Sievers ordered that Ricardo be allowed to leave in light of the worldwide Covid-19 crisis. Also in Cape Town, the head of a body corporate has been slapped with a demand for R20,000 compensation after kicking out an Italian Airbnb tenant because he feared he might have Covid-19. Apartment owner Martine du Preez has also told Alan Shearer, body corporate chair at the upmarket New Cumberland block in Mouille Point, that she will haul him to the Equality Court and the South African Human Rights Commission if he does not apologise. The body corporate’s lawyer, Matthew Ashworth, wrote to Du Preez’s attorney on Thursday, saying no damages would be paid. “[The body corporate] has a duty to ensure that all residents at New Cumberland enjoy a safe living environment,” he said. — Additional reporting by Sthembile Cele

INHALING HOPE Members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church take part in a procession through Addis Ababa this week during which incense was burnt in the belief it will stave off Covid-19 infection. The government is urging Ethiopians not to hold large gatherings. Picture: Reuters

Kindness that ‘opened his eyes’ By GRAEME HOSKEN

● A simple gesture, a word of kindness and a meal costing R79 changed the life of Free State goat farmer and pensioner Theuns Botha. Last Sunday evening the 85-year-old was sitting quietly under a blanket near the South African Airways check-in counters at OR Tambo International Airport when SAA attendant Tumi Mogale came to ask if he was all right. He was waiting to catch a flight the next morning at six, the final leg of a journey from Dallas in Texas to Bloemfontein. He had cut short his US visit by a week because of the coronavirus. Mogale had earlier issued him with his boarding pass. “The wait didn’t bother me as I had a good book and a blanket,” he said. After her shift, Mogale came to check on him. She then went to buy him a chicken pie, a cool drink and water. She refused his offer of money, but accepted his business card. “She wanted to make sure I was all right,” said Botha. A while later, Botha’s son phoned him. “I was surprised. I told him I was fine

Tumi Mogale, left, showed kindness at the airport to farmer Theuns Botha, right.

and asked why. Willem said a woman had phoned him to say she was worried about me. I told him I was perfectly fine.” About an hour later Botha’s son phoned again. The son said Mogale had called him back to check on his father. “When I landed in Bloemfontein the next day, my son told me that Tumi and her fiancé had wanted me to come and stay with them for the night and that they would have brought me back to the airport to catch my flight. Willem told me that Tumi had wanted to help me because I resembled her grandfa-

ther, and that she was worried. “The first thing that I did when I got that message was phone Tumi and tell her that her Bloemhof grandfather had landed safely. She laughed and laughed.” He said he had never experienced such kindness and that Mogale had “completely opened my eyes” to the real kindness of South Africans. “She completely changed my attitude to life and the people of this country. What Tumi did for me has made me look inwards and do a self-inspection of my own life and how I treat and think of people. “There is so much anger in SA, and kindness like this is exactly what we all need.” Mogale said she had reached out to Botha because it was cold, he was on his own and far from home. “He had been travelling for two days. When I saw him there on the bench I immediately thought of my grandfather. I thought if he had to find himself in that situation I would hope that someone would help him. It was not about seeing race, it was about seeing another human being out in the cold. “Anyone with a heart would have done what I did,” she said.

They missed the last plane home By ZIMASA MATIWANE, PHATHU LUVHENGO and PAUL ASH

You can help us achieve this. Thandi is unemployed and despite facing hardships wants to give her children the best start in life. Joining the Cotlands toy library helps Thandi s children access different age-appropriate educational toys to develop holistically. Bright futures start with investing in the foundational years.

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● Durban father Calvin Jacobs will miss his daughter’s birthday because he was left stranded in Ghana as the country closed its airports 12 hours before his departure. Jacobs, from Morningside, Durban, is a project manager on a gas pipeline in Takoradi, 200km east of Accra. He had tried to fly home on Monday to be with his family before the lockdown. “My only daughter’s 17th birthday is on Sunday, but besides that a father wants to be home at this time to safeguard and protect his family,” he said. “The family has done the necessary shopping to ensure food and household commodities are available. We are in daily communication by video chat.” He said he was escorted out of the airport by armed soldiers on Monday and his booking [on Ethiopian Airlines] was cancelled the same day. Jacobs said a message from SA’s high commissioner to Ghana, Lulu Xingwana, indicated he could come home “most probably the last week of South Africa’s three-week lockdown”. For teacher Janet Naidu, 48, who has been in lockdown in Xian, China, for 34 days, having her 21year-old son with her has helped. “Lockdown can be mentally distressing and most foreigners live alone — having someone is important. “You have someone to talk to even if it’s someone to fight with, nag if you are bored, and cleaning the house together is good,” Naidu said. Originally from Johannesburg, Naidu has been teaching in China for the past four years. She said not having to go about normal day-to-day life was the most challenging aspect of the lockdown. However, she acknowledged that it is what needs to be done to curb the spread of Covid-19. Lunga Ngqengelele, media liaison officer for the department of international relations & co-operation, said the department was aware of South Africans stuck abroad and was doing all it could to bring them home. “We are trying through our missions to assist to get South Africans on commercial flights as well as assist with the extension of visas,” he said. Hundreds of South Africans have been left stranded in London as British Airways cancelled

Calvin Jacobs is stuck in Ghana.

THE NUMBER of days that SA-born teacher Janet Naidu, now living in China, has been in lockdown

7-9 DAYS

The period Naidu stays indoors before going out to stock up on essentials

Janet Naidu is happy she has her son for company during the lockdown.

flights to SA ahead of SA’s countrywide lockdown on Thursday. Witnesses reported chaotic scenes at London’s Heathrow Airport as planeloads of desperate passengers landed at the UK’s busiest airport to find their flights to SA had been cancelled only hours before. One group of at least 40 people had flown on American Airlines from Miami, where they had been working on contract in the Caribbean for MSC Cruises. Among them was Justine Segal, 23, who said she found out before boarding her flight in Miami that BA had changed the departure time of her London-Johannesburg flight from 3pm to 7.30am the same day. Faced with the option of being alone in the US or being with colleagues, Segal boarded the flight to London. On arrival, the group was told that all flights to SA had been cancelled. Segal claimed the airline had ignored repeated requests for help. At 2am the group was taken to a nearby hotel. “We were told this morning we can stay here one more night,” she said. “After that we don’t know.” Cara Levinsohn also found herself trapped in London. Fearing that the UK would be locked down, she quit her job at an exhibition firm in London to head home to her family. She bought one of the last available tickets on British Airways’ Thursday afternoon flight. All seemed on track until she learnt that SA’s airspace was to be closed. With no home and no job, Levinsohn is staying with friends. In Morocco, stranded South African Elsabe Jastrzebski, 63, said she would run out of chronic anxiety medication by Wednesday. “We have been stranded since March 15 and we are battling emotionally and scared,” said Jastrzebski, who is on the trip with her husband Ted, 68. The couple, from Scottburgh in KwaZulu-Natal, are among a group of South Africans stuck in Morocco. The pensioners were left stranded after they were told to leave their hotel as the country escalated its shutdown measures — just four days into their trip. Through the assistance of Cape Town businessman James de Wet, who is in the country on a business trip, the couple managed to secure an apartment in Casablanca. “We are not allowed on the streets without a letter. We are in complete isolation and are the oldest people in the group,” Jastrzebski said.

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Page 7 - 29 March 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid-19: Economy

Busa horrified by Moody’s downgrade Business Unity SA reacted with dismay to the Moody’s downgrade, saying: “ This rating downgrade comes at a time that the country is in the midst of pulling all its resources and capacity together to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 across economic, social and health sectors. The country’s resources and capacity are being stretched in addressing this extraordinary situation and the downgrade opens another major challenge for SA.” JSE CEO Leila Fourie said the Moody’s downgrade was likely to be felt in the bond market, with foreigners owning 37% or R780bn worth of government bonds.

Mboweni looks to IMF, World Bank for funding Mboweni looking to ‘access facilities for health purposes’ By HILARY JOFFE

● Finance minister Tito Mboweni says SA will look to take advantage of any funding that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank make available to support countries through the coronavirus crisis — and will not be “ideological” about it. This comes after the country’s credit rating was junked by Moody’s following a week in which turmoil in the financial markets saw the cost of government borrowing spike, forcing the Reserve Bank to intervene to keep the bond market functioning in an orderly manner ahead of a lockdown expected to push the economy into a severe recession. The Moody’s decision couldn’t have come at a worse time for SA, potentially making it more costly and more difficult for the government to borrow on the market at just the time when the recession will slash tax revenues. This in turn will force the government to increase its borrowing requirement if it wants to deliver on the spending promised in February’s budget. Mboweni said he was very disappointed with the Moody’s decision and that the government must speed up structural economic reforms to get the economy going. At a time when almost the entire economy is working remotely, he took aim particularly at the lack of progress on releasing broadband spectrum in SA. He said the country could use the national disaster to speed up progress. “We can’t be talking about this forever. I will be speaking to the president about this. The matter can’t rest with the Independent Communications Authority and the communications department,” he said. There has been speculation Mboweni might have to table an emergency budget, but he told the Sunday Times in an interview yesterday that he was not considering revisions to the budget at the moment. The government would have to adjust and reprioritise, and see how to manoeuvre if borrowing costs increased, he said. It would also have to see how SA could use loans from multilateral institutions such as the New Development Bank, the IMF and World Bank. “This morning in a conversation with the Reserve Bank and the Treasury I indicated that we should proceed and speak to the IMF and the World Bank about any facility that we can access for health purposes,” Mboweni said. “We take no ideological position in approaching the IMF and World Bank.

Finance minister Tito Mboweni.

They are creating facilities for this environment and SA should also take advantage of those facilities in order to relieve pressure on the fiscus.” The IMF and World Bank have been meeting in recent days to put extensive facilities in place for countries whose economies and health systems are taking strain as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said this week that more than 80 countries had approached the IMF for assistance. While the World Bank can lend directly to governments for specific programmes in health, for example, IMF lending generally focuses on assisting countries that run short of dollars or hard currency to finance imports and service their foreign loans, and run into balance of payments problems. SA has never previously had to access such funding from the IMF, although it has drawn on World Bank funding, including in the form of an almost $4bn loan (R70bn at current rates) to Eskom several years ago. Moody’s said the key driver behind the downgrade was the continued deterioration in SA’s fiscal strength and structurally very weak growth, which the rating agency “does not expect current policy settings to address effectively”. Though Moody’s raised the prospect in its report on Friday night that SA could face difficulty borrowing on the market if its public finances and market conditions deteriorated even further, Reserve Bank deputy governor Fundi Tshazibana said yesterday that SA did not currently have a dollar shortage or a balance of payments problem. “But if the situation were to evolve we would have to look at all the measures that are available to us.”

Three’s not a crowd, it’s a party. This trio, with their cat, were part of an online party streamed and organised by the Culture of Sound nightclub in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The country’s government this week imposed restrictions on public gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Picture: Reuters

Dad’s home economics a big hit By SUTHENTIRA GOVENDER

● The “lockdown tuckshop” is open for business and the only currency it accepts is the fake variety. Cape Town father Richard Theunissen has invented a novel idea to keep his daughters Kylie, 12, and Lilly, 7, from obliterating their snack stockpile during SA’s mandatory 21-day lockdown. It also controls their time spent in front of screens. The girls are paying in Monopoly money for their snacks, treats and screen time. “It’s going to be a tough couple of weeks,” said Theunissen. Screen time will set the girls back R250. They will pay R20 for a Chomp or a packet of chips and R30 for an Easter egg. Theunissen, a regional sales manager for a retailer, has also drawn up a chore list, which can earn them hundreds of rands in Monopoly money. It includes “combo deals”. A vacuum and mop earns the two girls R300. The washing and hanging out of clothes will net R400. Penalties of R100 will be imposed for “throwing a tantrum, arguing with a sibling or doing half a chore”.

The Theunissen family, Kylie, 12, Lilly, 7, Richard and Anita, who will be using Monopoly money during the lockdown. Picture: Supplied

“Each item is priced according to how bad or sugary it is,” Theunissen said. “A simple cookie or small packet of chips is cheap and a very sweet chocolate or Easter egg is expensive. This is to make sure they either make better choices or work harder. “Every chore pays a specific amount and they can spend that on sweets or screen

No hugs for Granny, you could infect her By SIPOKAZI FOKAZI

● Since retiring as a domestic worker five years ago, Sintuntu Tshandana, 69, has been looking after her two grandchildren fulltime and is a day mother to three other children. “I’m helping my daughter, who works full-time, and caring for my neighbours’ children helps supplement my state pension,” she said. But child health and infectious disease experts warned this week that elderly people such as the Philippi, Cape Town, grandmother should avoid children in a bid to lower their chances of catching Covid-19. Professor Heather Zar, head of child health at the University of Cape Town, said children face a low risk of dying from the virus. But because they are potential transmitters, they should not be with their grandparents. “Children seem to be getting infection but not developing disease, or they develop mild disease. The most important message is that young children can transmit the virus to elderly people such as grandparents, so wherever possible keep young children away

time. Easy chores pay little so they won’t be able to buy much. Screen time is R250 per hour, so for them to get two hours of screen time they would have to do my super combo, which is reading 30 minutes and exercise 15 minutes.” The girls said they were excited about their dad’s idea.

“I want to add chicken schnitzel to the list,” said Lilly. Kylie praised the idea, saying: “This is great. I really want the Smarties.” Theunissen’s novel concept, which he shared on Facebook, has gone viral, with parents as far away as Russia and Australia praising and adopting the idea.

Music to help you through the lockdown By LWANDILE BHENGU

from the elderly, and definitely no hugging, kissing or even touching,” she said. The World Health Organisation says the elderly and people with conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and respiratory problems “appear to be more susceptible to becoming severely ill with the virus”. Zar said strong intergenerational interactions in Italy, which has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 deaths, might have driven the severity of the pandemic. Paediatricians are even more worried by the socioeconomic challenges facing South African children, with malnutrition, HIV and tuberculosis weakening their immune systems. Professor Mark Cotton, head of paediatrics and the infectious diseases unit at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital, said while the virus seems to affect children mildly in other countries, in SA it could prove fatal. “It’s a big fear. We have many informal settlements and much overcrowding. If Covid-19 is established and transmitted in these settings, it can be very serious,” he said.

Sintuntu Tshandana with her grandson in Browns Farm in Philippi. Picture: Esa Alexander

4.6m 8.1% THE NUMBER

of South Africans over the age of 60

the proportion of the population over 60

“Where one can limit contact, it’s worthwhile,” he said. “For instance, children should not visit grandparents in retirement homes. Any limitation of movement will be good to curb the spread.” Tshandana, who was not aware of the risk children posed to her health, said staying away from her grandchildren would be difficult. “We’ve grown so close over the years. It looks like this virus is going to cause havoc in our society and is splitting families,” she said.

● If the prospect of spending three weeks with your family has got you in a funk, there are playlists to get you out of the lockdown blues. Gallo Record Company has released a series of five-song playlists featuring some of its top artists, including The Parlotones and SA Idols winner Luyolo Yiba. General manager Robert Cowling said the company had decided to do playlists for themes such as washing hands, being stuck inside, or washing dishes. Playlist titles include Don’t Touch Your Face — Just Move Your Feet and Mom’s Not Available Right Now — Go Bug Your Dad. “Tebogo [Louw] has a song titled Do it Again, so if you are washing your hands, you listen to Tebogo and you make sure you do it again,” Cowling said. “Another example is Wandile Mbambeni, who has a collaboration song with Bongeziwe Mabandla that’s called Our Lives Matter. It reminds you to stay at home and listen to the messages of staying in isolation.” The playlists are available on Gallo’s website and its Facebook and Twitter pages,

Luyolo Yiba features on a playlist of songs for the lockdown. Picture: Mzansi Magic

and can be played through any streaming service. Cowling said he hoped the people of SA would use music to mentally help them through this time “Music has always been an outlet, whether for a breakup, or a challenge, or sports, or whatever it is. We can help society through our music to focus on staying indoors and practising good hygiene.”

Page 9 - 29 March 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

News Covid 19: In pictures

Not a soul in sight in Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap district as the lockdown kicked in at midnight. Picture: Esa Alexander

DESERTED

Nelson Mandela Bridge in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, is uncharacteristically quiet as the lockdown begins. Picture: Alon Skuy

In 1965, when US soul musician Wilson Pickett wrote the lyrics “I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour, When there’s no one else around”, he couldn't have imagined what would happen at midnight 55 years later when entire countries went into lockdown amid a worldwide public health crisis. Normally busy streets across SA were empty when midnight tolled on Thursday, and they still echoed to the sound of silence when dawn broke on the three-week Covid-19 lockdown on Friday. Sunday Times photographers were there to experience the great shutdown

Hobie Beach in Port Elizabeth, which is usually crowded with happy people, was deserted. Picture: Eugene Coetzee

The normally busy Long Street in Cape Town, known for its night clubs and restaurants, at midnight when the lockdown began. Picture: Esa Alexander

The streets of Bloemfontein were deserted shortly after midnight as the 21-day lockdown commenced. Picture: Sebabatso Mosamo

A man walks past a building in Cape Town covered with a poster aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19. Picture: Reuters

Page 11 - 29 March 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Churches

Sunday Times

The new normal Police officers patrolled the streets of Bloemfontein on Friday morning, stopping cars to inspect the credentials of those still out and about after the populace was ordered to stay home. In the CBD, officers stopped a car with three occupants — only two are allowed at a time, to maintain social distancing. They ejected one man from the car, telling him to walk home. Picture: Sebabatso Mosamo

Hunt for holy vectors moves well beyond Bloemfontein Churchgoers from all over SA met infected five at mass gathering By JEFF WICKS

● A desperate effort to trace hundreds of Bloemfontein churchgoers who are possible carriers of Covid-19 has expanded into neighbouring provinces after police and military personnel sealed off the Free State capital. The outbreak in the province is localised to the city, with 49 confirmed cases, and the nondescript church building of the Divine Restoration Ministries is central to the crisis. It was here that the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast was held, organised by a group of South African people together with the leaders of the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast movement based in Israel. The gathering took place on March 10 and 11, days before President Cyril Ramaphosa asked that all foreign tourists test for the virus, the church said in a statement. Free State health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi confirmed that about 480 people attended an evening worship, and of those a group of 225 attended the breakfast. There was also a dinner prayer session attended by about 160 people. And while health officials try to stay the local transmission rate, tracing and quarantining people who came into contact with five infected guests from Israel, the US and France, Bloemfontein is on tenterhooks. Function attendee Chris Eden said he had been contacted by the health department’s tracing team on his return to Cape Town. “We had five people in our group, two of whom were from Gauteng. I was also chatting to people who had come from the Eastern Cape, but I think the bulk of those who came were from Bloemfontein,” he said. Evangelist Angus Buchan and African Christian Democratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe attended. He and Meshoe have since tested positive for Covid-19. Professor Patrick Bouic, an immunologist from Stellenbosch University, said exposure like that in Bloemfontein meant effective

contact tracing was a near impossible task. With HIV and TB being so rife in communities around Bloemfontein and so many people therefore being immune-suppressed, he said, many would not survive to see the end of the pandemic. “We are in for a major crisis. This thing is going to decimate the working people of South Africa. The co-infections of HIV and TB, along with poor nutrition, are a recipe for disaster,” he said. A source in the Free State health department said contact tracing had led into the city and also out of the province. “We had one case of a woman who attended the service and went back to Pretoria, only to test positive,” he said, adding that if the pandemic took hold, hospitals in the city would not cope. “Those who have tested positive are mostly in the affluent suburbs. If this spreads to the townships, we’re in trouble, said the source. “With the private and public hospitals combined there are, at best, 150 operational ICU beds and they will be overwhelmed.” Fear gripped the city on Thursday, with many rushing from shop to shop for provisions as shelves were stripped bare. As night fell, a caravan of people, heavily laden with bags and wheelbarrows full of food, snaked its way into the township of Bochabela. Speaking at the Free State provincial legislature last week, health minister Zweli Mkhize said contact tracing teams had been augmented with National Institute for Communicable Diseases staff from outside the province, as well as 285 volunteers from the South African Red Cross. The Sunday Times can also reveal that a team from the US’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among them specialist epidemiologists, had been deployed to the city. The CDC’s South African office and its Atlanta, Georgia, headquarters had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publishing. The outbreak has its genesis in the church, but domestic worker Sana Ksiane said God would protect her. “I’m worried about the virus, but I am going to try my best to stay at home. I bought my groceries and I will be fine … my Lord is watching me,” she said, her eyes moving to

Lockdown dos and don’ts

Johannes Mokgele, his wife Molebogeng and their daughter Lebogang, of Bochabela township in Bloemfontein, stock up on groceries before the lockdown came into effect on Friday. Pictures: Sebabatso Mosamo

150

The approximate number of ICU beds in Bloemfontein — at public and private hospitals combined

Last-minute Bloemfontein shopper Kenneth Mokwena, right, elbow-bumps a pal.

an image of Mary the Immaculate that hangs above her doorway. Outside, Johannes Mokgele steered a rickety wheelbarrow laden with potatoes, cabbages and mealie meal over the uneven township road.

“I spent all my money on food. I just left enough to pay the rent, otherwise they will kick me out,” he told the Sunday Times. In the suburb of Universitas, Melissa Smit loaded bags of groceries into her bakkie, the product of a three-stop, R7,000 tour of shops

that had sold out. “I don’t want to leave my house again … I’m not panicking but I just don’t want to go outside,” she said. “I believe that my family and I won’t get it … we have prayed about it since day one and I have faith.” In a parking lot nearby, pensioner Lisa van Rensburg steered a trolley full of food and supplies towards her car. “This is a biblical prophecy playing out. Jesus said that in the last days we would see plagues, pestilence and wars, and that is what we have now,” she said. Repeated efforts to contact Divine Restoration Ministries leader Elisée Yao were unsuccessful.

Pulpits go online to reach the absent congregations By SISANDA ALUTA MBOLEKWA and DEEPIKA NAIDOO

● Online sermons, turning homes into places of worship and tithing via EFT. It’s how churches, mosques and synagogues are adapting to the lockdown. Simon Lerefolo, a pastor at Every Nation Rosebank in Johannesburg, said his 2,000member church held four services on Sundays. These have been cancelled, and sermons are now recorded and streamed on social media. “We also use the Zoom platform to meet for Bible study,” said Lerefolo. Church leaders said the loss of fellowship was hardest. “A big part of who we are as a church is the warmth, the quick chats and check-ins with each other, the high fives and the sound of people laughing and singing,”

said Hans Antonio, associate pastor of The People’s Church. Pastor Yvette Angoma of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town said the church stopped observing communion some time ago because it involved sharing a cup. Now keeping the faith among parishioners was the priority. “We have recorded a whole lot of sermons that will be sent out during holy week, with Good Friday and Easter Sunday probably one of our biggest festivals of the church. So we will have, for example, a Good Friday message that goes out to all our parishioners via YouTube, through e-mail, on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook,” she said. Hanifaa Akoo from Durban has turned her granny cottage into a room for prayer. “Our family is very involved in the Masjid

We have recorded a whole lot of sermons that will be sent out during holy week Yvette Angoma Pastor, St George’s Cathedral

al-Hilal mosque in Crescent Street. The call to prayer that is announced through the speakers of a mosque usually calls people to the mosque. Now mosques have changed the call to ‘pray at home’,” she said. Sheikh Riyad Fattar, second deputy sheikh of the Muslim Judicial Council, said the organisation had become a “command centre” for the Islamic community and was encouraging it to adhere to lockdown rules and regulations. Huge congregations, such as the Grace Bible Church in Soweto, have had their first Zoom service, using the booming video-conferencing platform, while Divine Restoration Ministries in Bloemfontein — at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak — has switched to live-streaming services. While some churches have been able to

move to tithing via EFT and transferring their offerings online, some said not all members were able to do so. Pastor Mulalo Hugo Tshikalange from Bethlehem has seen a huge decline in contributions since people were no longer congregating at church. “Having to pay rent is a challenge. We will now have to negotiate with landlords. The fortunate churches are those that have their own building — they won’t have much to worry about except water and electricity,” said Tshikalange. The chair of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, Shaun Zagnoev, said the Jewish community had several welfare organisations registered as essential services, so these were able to assist vulnerable community members.

By ALEX PATRICK Lawyers and officials answer questions about the lockdown. May I still order items online? Yes, Takealot.com has been named an essential service. Only essential items can be ordered, and no food items except pet food, limited to five items per customer. Some supermarkets offer deliveries, but there is a waiting period due to demand. Why no wine and cigarettes? Andrea Campher from Agri SA disaster risk management said this rule was put in place because only essential items are to be sold. Nonessential crops can be harvested and stored, such as wine grapes, tobacco and cotton, but they are not needed for nourishment. Drinking alcohol is also discouraged because it lowers immunity. Do I still have child visitation rights ? Yes. Riaan Scheepers, a divorce and family law attorney, said the lockdown will not replace court-ordered visitation and shared residency rights. He said exchanging children is far less risky than going to the shops, but parents need to realise that if it is safer for a child to stay at one home, that should be done. He said it is doubtful law enforcement will arrest parents driving to visit their children. What if my ex-partner refuses visitation rights? Certain family law courts will remain open. People may still approach the Children’s Court, Maintenance Court and Domestic Violence Court in matters of urgency. The law still stands in matters of custody and visitation according to an existing court order, and noncompliance could lead to contempt of court. Refusing electronic means of contact could have consequences for the refusing parent. Will I be arrested for going to the grocery store? No, as long as you are shopping at a store near your home. If you are stopped while travelling to a store far from your home, you will need to show that the essential item you need cannot be bought closer to home. What if I don’t obey the lockdown? If you are convicted of contravening the lockdown order you may be liable to a fine or could face a prison term of up to six months, or both. What if I am stopped on the road? You will be asked for the reason for being out. If it is acceptable, you will be allowed to continue. If you have left home to perform an essential service, you need to carry a permit for this. May I travel to my holiday home? No, you are not permitted to leave the country, or the province you are staying in, and you may not travel outside your metropolitan area. Can I still use public transport? Yes, but only if it is for the purpose of performing an essential service, getting essential goods, seeking medical assistance, attending a funeral service or collecting social grants. Public transport will only be available between 5am and 9am and again between 4pm and 8pm and includes bus and taxi services, e-hailing services and private vehicles. But a vehicle may hold only 50% of its licensed capacity and drivers must ensure that vehicles have been sanitised. You may only use these services if you do not have flu-like symptoms. May I swim at the pool in our complex? No, during the lockdown you may not swim in public swimming pools, at beaches or in dams. You may not use the public facilities at your complex, either. These facilities have the potential to attract other people and risk spreading the virus. May I take groceries to my elderly neighbour? You are permitted to shop for close neighbours or community members as long as you do not have to deviate far from your route. All necessary precautions must be taken to ensure this does not spread the virus, and buying for others must only be done if there is no alternative.

Has the coronavirus just saved Ramaphosa from his enemies? By SIBONGAKONKE SHOBA

● Just a few weeks ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s lieutenants were preoccupied with hatching a plan to shield him from his political foes so he would emerge unscathed from the ANC national general council meeting scheduled for four months’ time. It was not going to be an easy task. Impatience with Ramaphosa’s leadership had spread beyond the “radical economic transformation” (RET) faction of the ANC even to some of those, in and outside the party, who had supported his ANC presidency. It was as if a dark cloud had gathered over this great republic in the past few months. A sense of helplessness prevailed. The economy’s performance remained below par, as a result of a cocktail of problems, including the unreliable power supply brought to us by Eskom. Despite leadership changes at the power utility, no clear message had been communicated to

assure the public we were anywhere close to resolving the electricity crisis. Load-shedding meant that industries switched off machines, and production ground to a halt. As a result several companies issued retrenchments notices — adding thousands more people to the burgeoning unemployment statistics. The business rescue process at SAA brought more instability than assurance. There was no consensus within the government and the ANC on how the restructuring of the airline should be carried out. This created anxiety among staff, investors and customers. Of course, Ramaphosa inherited a corrupt, looted and dysfunctional state — so none of these problems was his own creation. But he has been in power for two years now, and the patience of the public and investors was wearing thin. At a time when the country yearned for its leaders to come up with solutions, there was total silence from the presidency.

SUNDAY MORNING ASSESSMENT Perhaps Ramaphosa had his own personal headaches. His opponents within the ANC were sharpening their daggers ahead of the national general council, which is supposed to be a mid-term meeting to review the party’s policies. His leadership was going to come under intense scrutiny. Not for his record on addressing the above long list of challenges, but because his foes want to render Ramaphosa a one-term president. The RET group, which he defeated at the ANC’s Nasrec conference in 2017, had drafted charges they planned to place before the national general council; these accused the president of sole responsibility for the party’s failure to implement policies that were adopted at Nasrec. The RET faction was ready to blame

Ramaphosa for the slow pace of the process in parliament to amend section 25 of the constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation, and for delays in tabling a motion to nationalise the SA Reserve Bank and change the bank’s mandate. His backers, on the other hand, were preparing to defend the president and openly challenge his opponents on whether some of the policies adopted at Nasrec were correct. Under ANC rules, a national general council meeting cannot remove a sitting president. But Ramaphosa’s detractors knew that openly challenging him at the gathering could undermine him ahead of the next elective conference. Even though the RET faction’s accusations were ludicrous, Ramaphosa’s real or

perceived impotence in fixing the ailing economy served to strengthen their hand. For a while, it seemed as if it would take a miracle for Ramaphosa to redeem himself. The president must have thought he did not need additional problems that would put him under an even brighter spotlight. But a deadly virus was spreading across the world at a rapid pace, and it was a matter of time before it reached our shores. When the country recorded its first Covid19 case early this month — a South African who had been on holiday in Italy — Ramaphosa and his cabinet moved swiftly. Health minister Zweli Mkhize, whose presidential ambitions are an open secret, became the face of the fight against the pandemic. Since the first cases were confirmed in SA, Mkhize has kept the public up to date on the spread of infections and the measures being taken to contain the outbreak. Mkhize, as unflappable as ever, has spoken with authority, giving comfort to the

public and providing some reassurance that we have a health minister who knows what he is talking about. But from the moment Ramaphosa first stepped up to the podium at the Union Buildings two weeks ago to address the nation on the pandemic, he has conveyed a sense that his government was not caught off guard by the virus, and that there is a plan in place to try to ensure that the spread of the disease is contained. This pandemic, as tragic as it is, meant the national general council had to be postponed “until further notice”, giving Ramaphosa breathing room. But it may also be the opportunity for him to show the kind of leadership that will regain the trust of South Africans, and in the process disarm his rivals. Ramaphosa’s leadership in these turbulent times will determine his future. He could still become the president the country has been longing for. If he doesn’t, Mkhize may well seize the moment.

ST MARCH 29 2020

www.sundaytimes.co.za

Insight Floyd Shivambu

Brain massage

This virus can kill capitalism Page 21

‘Test your general knowledge with our bumper quiz Page 16

Sue de Groot celebrates the power of humour to unite, distract and keep us sane as we enter a period of uncertainty under the cloud of Covid-19

Graphic: Nolo Moima

You have to laugh, really

HE DEF LADY IS KILLING IT! Reproduced as it appeared (minus a few dozen exclamation marks), that comment stood out among the thousands of inanities flying up the comments bar on YouTube while President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Monday night. A sign-language interpreter, her hands and fingers performing a graceful ballet, was pictured next to Ramaphosa, translating his speech for the hearing-impaired. Things are never as funny after you’ve analysed why they’re funny, but it seems there were quite a few viewers who collapsed in mirth as this comment flashed up, preceded and followed by reams of abuse, much idiocy and many rows of squirrel emojis. The hilarity was caused by three things, I think. First, its utter absurdity and incongruity jerked our anxious thoughts out of their one-way tunnel and made us forget, for a second, the Covid-19 crisis and the prospect of confinement. Second, the not-quite-rude reference to someone who might or might not be hearing-impaired

We will not survive this pandemic, our mass quarantine and the disastrous consequences of both unless we can occasionally laugh

provoked the slightly guilty snort of laughter that almost everyone involuntarily gives when faced with inappropriate humour. It doesn’t mean we find people with disabilities funny per se; it’s just that one isn’t really supposed to talk about such things or, if they are permitted, such conversations should tactfully steer away from any bald statement that might cause offence. That “def” made us squirm a bit. And whenever humans squirm in embarrassment, their natural reaction is to laugh. Third, the fact that “deaf” was misspelt made it even funnier. Again, that doesn’t mean anyone was laughing at the writer for not being an English professor. On the contrary, it gave the absurd, incongruous, inappropriate comment an added level of charm and innocence. Besides, she really was killing it. Unlike that other famous so-called interpreter, Thamsanqa Jantjie — whose energetic but meaningless hand-flapping ruined Nelson Mandela’s memorial service for deaf people — this interpreter actually seemed to know what she was saying and said it most eloquently. Whoever posted that comment on Monday night should be thanked for providing a moment of much-needed light relief in the darkness. ➜ The value of humour is often underrated but it is as important, in these strange days, as

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March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Insight Humour

Sunday Times

The buoyant effects of a little light relief ➜ From Page 13

health-care services, civil obedience and stringent hygiene. We will not survive this pandemic, our mass quarantine and the disastrous consequences of both unless we can occasionally laugh. Sometimes what we laugh at is offensive (and we apologise if any of the examples illustrated in this article cause offence to anyone) but maybe in times like these we can be allowed more latitude. The debate about offensive humour is an ongoing one. The second draft of SA’s Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill differs markedly from the first draft in that it excludes professional comedians — provided they do not actually incite violence — from the proposed legal provisions against hate speech. If a person makes a living from being funny, in other words, they may say things that undermine another person’s dignity, because they probably have a good reason for doing so. There are many arguments that can be made against this, and one might ask why the average person may not also be permitted to tell off-colour jokes, but that is a conversation for another day. Right now, as we grapple with this surreal state of shutdown and worry about what will happen next, we need humour more than ever. South Africans have risen to the challenge. We may not all laugh at the same things but we are united in our appreciation of an infectious giggle. Let us keep spreading whatever lightens the load, however absurd or inappropriate such jokes might be. Covid-19 is no laughing matter, but let us be good to ourselves, and each other, and laugh anyway.

A wors case scenario and more Laugh together, cry alone Social media channels have been flooded with crazy, funny and bittersweet advice for surviving isolation. From the woman teaching fractions by constantly filling and emptying a glass of wine to the man who built a trail of dominos around his entire apartment with strategic points where his cats could set the falling chain in motion, these have ranged from helpful to downright insane. On the sweeter side, a couple made an amateur video of themselves that has delighted millions. They are both dressed in black. The woman bends over to face the camera, tossing her long wavy hair over her head. The man stands behind her, wearing a cowboy hat and with his back to the camera. Most assume some filthy thing is about to happen, but then a song begins playing tinnily in the background and the couple jog and jiggle from side to side in time to A Horse with No Name by the band America. It looks exactly like a man riding a pony with a swishing tail. Genius. In SA, the picture of a man drinking beer under his duvet while wors cooks on a flaming charcoal braai in the bedroom next to him — captioned “South African quarantine” — has taken off like shisa nyama.

Memes and music South African band The Kifness raised the nation’s spirits with their spoof online Covid-19 versions of Toto’s Africa and My Sharona. One of the earliest memes to spread like wildfire was a picture of the four members of alternative British band The Cure captioned: “I don’t know much about coronavirus, but this is The Cure”

Sharpened knives Political satire has proliferated, with Donald Trump, as always, getting the lion’s share. Apart from the endless reams of amusing and biting columns written about the US president’s hubris and ineptitude, visual memes have multiplied. A favourite is the picture of Trump, his mouth taped shut by duct tape, accompanied by the caption: “Finally, a mask that works against Covid-19.” Cartoonists all over the world, whether political or otherwise, have entered the corona fray with gusto. The New Yorker featured a quartet of mafiosi, or possibly just big businessmen, sitting around a table discussing the need to transition to cybercrime for health and safety reasons. Tom Gauld, who designs covers for the New Scientist magazine, created an Instagram post with drawings of cheerful books to read during lockdown. Among them are Finnegan’s Birthday Party by James Joyce, Portnoy’s Compliment by Philip Roth, Merriment on the

Orient Express by Agatha Christie, and Life in Venice by Thomas Mann. And when artist Albert Uderzo died last week, it was sad, funny and entirely appropriate to see everywhere a cartoon panel of Asterix and Obelix wearing hygiene masks as they stand some distance from each other on either side of the grave of their co-creator.

Corona and the crown

coronavirus after eating old bat”; an uncaptioned picture of Charles standing alone at one end of the wave-to-the-people balcony outside Buckingham Palace with the rest of the royal family huddled together at the far end; and the viral WhatsApp: “Charles is at home with Covid-19; his brother Andrew is at home with Lisa-14”.

The memes about Prince Charles flew thick and fast once it was reported that he had tested positive for Covid-19. There was a picture of the late Princess Diana laughing joyfully, accompanied by the caption, “He’s got WHAT?”; a picture of Charles with wife Camilla captioned, “Prince Charles tests positive for

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SUNDAY TIMES - March 29 2020

Insight Panic buying

Sunday Times

Most of us resemble nothing so much as a herd of anxious antelope in this coronavirus moment, with panic as our instinctive default. As Ben Okri says, we should dare to imagine another way, writes Nadine Dreyer

Illustration: Keith Tamkei

Just switch the narrative

hen our president told the nation not to panic what did the nation do? We put on our trainers and sprinted for the nearest supermarket to buy a truckload of household goods. Despite repeated assurances from the sitting tenant at Mahlamba Ndlopfu that all essentials would be available during our 21-day lockdown, swashbuckling grannies with brollies prodded their fellow shoppers while zoning in on the two-ply shelf. Grown men shamelessly pushed other parents’ children out the way as they sprinted for the baked beans. The herd instinct turns intelligent, rational citizens into crazed lunatics tearing down aisles steering trolleys as if they were competing in the Monaco Grand Prix. Toilet paper has become symbolic of the great smash and grab as the world closes for business. Philosophical essays get bogged down with history. What did people do in the pre-toilet paper epoch? (Don’t ask, this is strictly on a need-to-know basis.) In Australia police had to intervene when a fight for toilet paper got heated. An Australian tabloid circulated an issue with an extra eight blank pages. “Get your limited edition one-ply toilet paper newspaper sheets.” The benefits of sticking to the herd are obvious. You don’t have to be Charles Darwin to appreciate the advantages. Even an impala doesn’t need to be an actuary to figure out that if you’re on your own you have a far greater chance of being snatched by a predator than if you’re part of a herd of 20. The neurochemical oxytocin triggers the herd mentality. It causes a “bliss response” in the brain whenever we are engaging in social behaviour. Wildebeests take the herd mentality to new heights. In East Africa more than 1-million of them participate in what is known as the Great Migration, the world’s most spectacular movement of mammals, as they search for food and water over large distances. (The gnu version of panic shopping.) Theirs is a Homeric odyssey during which they must face starvation, thirst, exhaustion, mutilation and death by savage means in search of rain and greener pastures. It’s not often that the Greek poet and the humble wildebeest are mentioned in the same breath, but if he lived today Homer could take inspiration from their never-ending journey. In case you’re not up to speed with your ancient whodunnits, here’s a primer on Homer’s two bestselling paperbacks. The Iliad and The Odyssey chronicle the quarrels between the Greeks and Trojans many hundreds of years before Jesus rocked the Roman Empire. The lead actor in this two-volume potboiler is Odysseus, king of Ithaca, some backward, brown, stony island in the Ionian Sea. There he is snoring under the shade of an olive tree when out of the Mediterranean blue a messenger

Two shoppers in a Bloemfontein Spar, stocking up for the Covid-19 siege, try to decide if one 18-roll pack of toilet paper will be enough. Picture: Sebabatso Mosamo

The thought of going three weeks without booze was too ghastly to contemplate. Picture: TimesLive

arrives with call-up papers from the king of Sparta. Odysseus and his troops are ordered to buff their boots and get their togas dry-cleaned. Some pipsqueak prince has run off with the king of Sparta’s wife. This missus is the hottest pin-up in all the ancient world, hot enough to launch a thousand ships, and he is as mad as a hornet. The cuckold with the reddest cheeks in the Peloponnese intends dragging his wayward spouse back home by her curlers. (Who else would darn his socks? ) Sick of Sparta’s miserable cuisine and her husband’s incessant snoring, the queen had bolted with the handsome toyboy whose postal address happened to be located in the walled city of Troy. An armada of 1,000 catamarans stuffed with toilet paper sails off to Troy to haul the runaway bride back home. Easier said than done. Odysseus and his allies spend 10 years getting an impressive suntan and whacking stray adversaries over the head, but the inhabitants of the city work like Trojans to prevent its fortifications being breached. Zweli Mkhize would have been proud. Eventually our hero has a lightbulb moment. He comes up with a scheme to build a giant wooden horse as a pretend peace offering. What the Trojans don’t know is that the Greeks have hidden their finest warriors inside the horse. (Consult your copy of Homer if you’ve forgotten what happens next, but let’s just say the Trojans really should have known to be suspicious of Greeks bearing gifts.) After clobbering their adversaries into porridge, the Greek warriors finally pack away the SPF 50 and start the trek home, the panic-buying a distant memory. But the epic journey is far from over for Odysseus. He suffers 10 more years of dodging petulant deities and sick weirdos before he finally makes it back into the arms of his missus. The odyssey the wildebeests undertake each year is through two renowned game reserves in East Africa, the Serengeti in Tanzania and the adjoining Maasai Mara in Kenya, an area of about 25,000km². The wildebeests face death and starvation. They wait on barren plains for signs of rainfall. It only takes one wildebeest to start running and hundreds of thousands follow. Predators pick them off at will. Crocodiles wait at the Mara River to tear their prey apart. In the stampede, many are mutilated, or drown. Of the 1.5-million wildebeests that set off on the annual journey, 250,000 will perish. This journey will be repeated for eternity. Nigerian author Ben Okri wrote this week about the many possibilities our current plight offers us as a species. “One should not make the situation worse with the negative imagination that is fear. For, like fire, imagination can create or it can destroy. It can make us act from our worst selves,” he said. “Perhaps it is time to develop another mental contagion to counteract the force of the deadly one. Perhaps it is time to develop a contagion of courage, good health, and solidarity.”

Sunday Times

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Insight Quiz

HISTORY

1. Hitler invaded which country in 1939, leading to the start of World War 2? 2. Who succeeded Shaka as king of the Zulu nation? 3. Demetrios Tsafendas assassinated which South African prime minister in 1966? 4. Which country was the former colonial power in Brazil? 5. Haile Selassie was the emperor of which country? 6. Who, in 1959, founded the Pan Africanist Congress? 7. What is the name of the Irish nationalist organisation? It literally means “ourselves alone”? 8. Adam Kok was leader of which group of people in SA during the early 19th century? 9. Montezuma was the last king of which ancient civilisation? 10. Which platteland town (situated about 120km from Johannesburg) was the first capital of the South African Republic?

GEOGRAPHY 11. In which city would you find Tiananmen Square? 12. How many hours is SA ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)? 13. Upington is on the banks of which river? 14. What “M” describes treed wetlands located on the coastlines in warm tropical climates? 15. Port Elizabeth flanks the western side of which bay? 16. Which island country has its capital at Port Louis? 17. Which river lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? A. Mississippi B. Yukon C. Potomac D. Colorado 18. The Horn of Africa is situated in which country? 19. What country is known to the locals as Magyar? A. Finland B. Mongolia C. Hungary D. Iceland 20. Name the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea? A. Crete B. Sardinia C. Sicily D. Cyprus

COVID-19 21. In which country is it thought Covid-19 first passed from animal to human? 22. What is the origin of the 19 in Covid-19? A. 19th coronavirus B. 19 spikes per virus cell C. Replication rate per minute D. The year 2019 23. Coronaviruses are so called because the virus resembles: A. Bull’s horns B. Fish scales C. Hedgehog quills D. A crown 24. What word, originating from the Greek for “all people”, refers to a disease that is prevalent across the entire world? 25. What word, originating from the Italian for “forty days”, means “to isolate”?

C. American Civil War D. Vietnam War 44. Who directed the films Chasing Amy, Clerks, Dogma and Mallrats? 45. Who is due to succeed Ben Affleck as the next Batman (due to debut in 2021)?

MUSIC

QUESTION: The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match took place in which city?

QUESTION: Which late South African singer had hits with ‘Pata Pata’ and ‘The Click Song’? Picture: Gallo Images/Getty Images

Tom Maydon, AKA Trivia Tom from our weekly quiz in the Sunday Times Careers section, has compiled a two-part bumper brain-teaser to challenge the entire family (everyone should excel in at least one category). We hope it helps keep you sane and thinking through the lockdown. See the Sunday Times next week for the second part

Lockdown leisure time QUESTION: Coronaviruses are so called because the virus resembles: A. Bull’s horns; B. Fish scales; C. Hedgehog quills; D. A crown. You’d have to zoom in a lot closer to get the answer from this pic of a positive blood sample taken in Ankara, Turkey. Picture:

TELEVISION

Aytac Unal / Anadolu Agency

26. In the cartoon Tom and Jerry, what animal is Tom? 27. Which actor member of Monty Python played Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers? 28. Who played the title role in the TV series Fresh Prince of Bel Air? 29. What links a spicy Indian yoghurt drink to a TV show from the 1950s starring a rough collie dog? 30. What “L” is a British crime series starring Idris Elba as a murder detective?

FILM 41. Which South African actress won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for best actress for her role in Monster? 42. The film What’s Love Got To do With It? depicts the troubled life of which popular musician? 43. The film Jojo Rabbit is set during which armed conflict? A. World War 1 B. World War 2

SPORT 56. What colour is the final flag in Formula One motor racing? 57. In cricket, the bowlers Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram represented which country? 58. The Reds Super Rugby team play their home games in which city? A. Sydney B. Wellington C. Melbourne D. Brisbane 59. In which African country were the rugby players Corné Krige and George Gregan born? 60. In which city were 11 Israeli athletes and coaches murdered in the second week of the 1972 Olympics? 61. For which Portuguese football club did Benni McCarthy play? 62. Former Bafana Bafana and late Orlando Pirates star Lesley Manyathela was known by which nickname? A. “Slow Poison” B. “Telephone Exchange” C. “Teargas” D. “Lost and Found” 63. The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match took place in which city? A. Tripoli B. Kampala C. Manila D. Kinshasa 64. From 1936 to 1979 in Australia, in 1939 in England, from 1938-1958 in SA, and from 1968-1979 in New Zealand — how many balls were there to an over in a Test cricket match? 65. With which country would you associate Formula One great Niki Lauda?

SCIENCE AND NATURE 31. From which flower is opium derived? 32. How many sides does a hexagon have? 33. Along with oestrogen, what is the other major female sex hormone? 34. What are male bees called? 35. In which galaxy is Earth situated? 36. What part of the body is affected by periodontitis? 37. By what name is solid (frozen) carbon dioxide better known? 38. Which of the following was not invented by a South African? A. The Kreepy Krauly B. Pratley Putty C. CAT scan D. Van der Graaf generator 39. What is the term used to describe the constant erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a fluid or a gas (discovered by the botanist Robert Brown)? 40. What is the name of the law that states the computing power (or the number of processes a CPU can perform) should double every 18 months?

46. With which musician would you associate the 1986 Graceland album? 47. Name the South African music genre that originates from the Afrikaans word for angry. 48. Which of the following bands is not Swedish? A. Roxette B. The Cardigans C. Abba D. A-ha 49. Which late South African singer had hits with Pata Pata and The Click Song? 50. “We’re beautiful, like diamonds in the sky” are lyrics to a 2012 song performed by whom? 51. What nationality are/were the following musicians: Oliver Mtukudzi, Andy Brown and Thomas Mapfumo? 52. Andrew Taggart, Alex Pall and Rhett Bixler are all part of which band that had hits with Closer, Something Just like This and Don’t Let Me Down? A. Chainsmokers B. Imagine Dragons C. Panic! At The Disco D. Mumford & Sons 53. What “M” is a US state (home of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard) and is also a Bee Gees hit? 54. Which 28-year-old Swedish DJ died suddenly in Oman in April 2018? (He had a hit with Wake Me Up.) 55. In what year in the 1970s did the following occur: Eagles have a hit with Hotel California; Fleetwood Mac release their album Rumours; Dire Straits are formed; Elvis Presley dies?

Did you crack it? Here are the answers

QUESTION: What is the name of the Irish nationalist organisation that translates as ‘ourselves alone’? One of its longest serving leaders (from November 13 1983 to February 10 2018) was GerryAdams, who played an important role in the Northern Ireland peace process. Picture: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

QUESTION: By what name is solid (frozen) carbon dioxide better known? Picture: Digital Light Source/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

1. Poland 2. Dingaan 3. Hendrik Verwoerd 4. Portugal 5. Ethiopia/Abyssinia 6. Robert Sobukwe 7. Sinn Fein 8. Griquas 9. Aztecs 10. Potchefstroom 11. Beijing 12. Two 13. Orange 14. Mangrove swamp 15. Algoa 16. Mauritius 17. D) Colorado 18. Somalia 19. Hungary 20. C) Sicily 21. China 22. D) The year 2019 23. D) Crown 24. Pandemic 25. Quarantine 26. Cat 27. John Cleese 28. Will Smith 29. “Lassie” 30. “Luther” 31. Poppy 32. Six 33. Progesterone 34. Drones 35. Milky Way 36. The gums 37. Dry ice 38. D) Van der Graaf Generator (American invention) 39. Brownian Motion 40. Moore’s Law 41. Charlize Theron 42. Tina Turner 43. B) World War 2 44. Kevin Smith 45. Robert Pattinson 46. Paul Simon 47. Kwaito 48. D) A-ha (Norwegian) 49. Miriam Makeba 50. Rihanna 51. Zimbabwean 52. A) Chainsmokers 53. Massachusetts 54. Avicii 55. 1977 56. Black and White 57. Pakistan 58. Brisbane 59. Zambia 60. Munich 61. Porto 62. A) “Slow Poison” 63. D) Kinshasa 64. Eight 65. Austria

SUNDAY TIMES - March 15 2020

News

Sunday Times

Sponsored content

Speaking to the tribes To appeal to today’s youth, it’s all about the social message of the brand, says HDI

ow quickly things can change. Last month, we all had plans for Easter and beyond. But the Covid-19 coronavirus arrived on our shores, bringing an abrupt halt to life as we know it. It has also brought into stark relief how interconnected we are. We may come from different countries, backgrounds, cultures and creeds, but our humanity — in all its strength and vulnerability — is the thread that unites us, even as we practise social distancing. When it comes to youth marketing, a similar type of unity in diversity applies. Youth can no longer be seen as a homogenous group of people, thanks to our fast-transitioning society, the influence of social media and its plethora of online forums, and the tensions that prevail in African society. As such, more and more tribes have formed — people with common passions, behaviours, values and interests. These shared aspirations are what unify them into small communities who relate more to brands for what they represent than for the commoditised items they present to the world. For each tribe, then, it’s more about the social message of a brand than the hard sell. Given this woke stance, advertisers have had to re-examine their brand promise by asking this question: How do brands speak to tribes? They do so in various ways. We look at just some of these ways by considering three tribes: sneakerheads, esports gamers and members of the #MeToo movement. 1. Digital natives — sports fans The recent collaboration between Adidas, EA Sports and Google's wearable sensor technology, Jacquard, centres on the idea of connecting football players in the real world with players in the virtual space. The three brand leaders — in sport, gaming and technology — teamed up to create the Adidas GMR, a smart inner sole that you place in a soccer shoe. You then insert a small power sensor, called the Jacquard Tag, in the inner sole. Using advanced machine-learning algorithms, the tag enables the Adidas GMR to recognise the actual physical movements footballers make on-pitch, including measuring kicks, shot power, distance and speed. Players record their performance data on the EA Sports Fifa Mobile app. The connection to Fifa Mobile allows the players to complete unique challenges and hit milestones each week, including improving their ranking in global leaderboards. The more they play in the real world, the better their virtual teams’ performance in the video game becomes. Thus, the GMR project is able to enhance the experience for players of Fifa Mobile worldwide, becoming an innovation that leverages technology to improve the experience of

football fans. Connecting physical football with digital gaming in such a seamless, clever way brings together various tribes — soccer players both amateur and professional, and soccer fans in the real world and the virtual space — by offering them a novel way to extend their enjoyment of the game. Ironically, the Covid-19 coronavirus is doing the same: Following the cancellation of Formula One motorsport races worldwide, an F1 Virtual Grand Prix series has been launched that has fans, drivers and gamers all revved up as they watch real-world racing greats such as Max Verstappen and Lando Norris compete with the virtual stars in online races. 2. Gamers in esports Once a niche market, esports is steadily becoming part of the mainstream as fans pack stadiums to cheer on their favourite players and millions more watch online. The Fortnite World Cup, an annual esports competition based on the game Fortnite, saw the winning gamer — a 16year-old — bag a cool $3m at last year’s

event, which took place at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York. While many marketers are only now starting to take note of this cultural phenomenon, some, like Coca-Cola, got in early by sponsoring tournaments as far back as 2013 so have built a strong loyalty base among gamers. The gaming space is an interactive one, so it stands to reason that brands need to tailor their products accordingly. For instance, Pizza Hut inserted its branded presence into a video game that allowed players to place their orders and pay, without having to leave their virtual adventure for even a second. In an inspired move, KFC converted its iconic representative, Colonel Sanders — the fast-food chicken icon with the southern American accent — into an AI commentator called Colonel KI, and placed him as a character on the battlefield of a PSP video game. The southern accent was still there, the white beard was there too, but the white coat was replaced with a white tech suit as he boldly addressed viewers during battle, offering them a great fried chicken deal. It’s a cheeky but charming sell that

exemplifies clever, immersive in-game advertising. It’s the colonel we know — in an alternative reality, but still familiar. Fashion house Louis Vuitton spotted a gap in the esports market last year by coming up with a designer collection in partnership with game developer Riot Games, best known for its League of Legends series of fantasy battle arena games. The clothes, tailored for the youth market, feature references to the League of Legends universe. The fashion brand also designed a few character skins (outfits for playable characters). Its high-end, futuristic streetwear creations have been well received, but they don’t come cheap. Well, given the pots of cash gamers can earn and the fact that it’s Louis Vuitton, the brand identity remains intact and the fashion house has succeeded in appealing to a whole new tribe. I see other, cheaper brands entering this space soon. 3. The #MeToo movers and shakers The movement, which supports survivors of sexual violence and campaigns against sexual abuse, quickly

Page 17 - 29 March 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

gained momentum after it went viral in 2017, and it continues to generate much discussion and action around tackling gender-based violence. #MeToo has also elevated conversations around equal pay and the need for men to behave better. Brands are playing their part by becoming more sensitised to the way they influence culture. Nike has been a prominent social commentator for many years, using advertising to deliver inspiring messages. In 2018, it ran a campaign championing female athletes like Serena Williams and Caster Semenya, who have broken barriers by achieving phenomenal success despite an unequal gender playing field, and hailed them as role models for female empowerment. But last year Nike missed the mark when it emerged that its maternity policy penalised female athletes by not guaranteeing protection during and after pregnancy. US Olympic athlete Allyson Felix called out Nike, her sponsor since 2010, for wanting to pay her 70% less after she gave birth to her child, and a public outcry ensued. Felix found another sponsor. Nike soon backtracked

and revised its contract to include more protection for pregnant athletes. Another brand that courted controversy last year was Gillette. It changed its brand identity from “the best a man can get” to “the best a man can be” in response to the #MeToo cause. It did so by creating an advertisement that showed men taking a stand against bullying and sexist behaviour. The advert ended with an appeal for men to look beyond macho stereotypes and redefine their masculinity in more positive ways. Gillette received both high praise for showing up toxic masculinity, as well as fierce criticism for the shift in messaging, which many saw as contrived and a cheap ploy to cash in on the popularity of the #MeToo movement. Like Gillette, Carling Black Label was galvanised by the #MeToo movement. It launched a campaign in 2017 aimed at reducing alcohol abuse by highlighting the link between drinking and genderbased violence — a brave move for a beer company. To this end, it launched #NoExcuse, “a movement, not a campaign”, aimed at driving awareness and promoting responsible drinking. Carling Black Label challenged men and consumers of the brand to take action in support of its slogan, saying there was no excuse for men to perpetrate violence, and no excuse for people to do nothing when others commit abuse. The brand emphasised engagement on all levels with a broad campaign that took on various forms. It distributed #NoExcuse branded beer cans across South Africa, flighted a powerful advert on TV showing the link between irresponsible drinking and woman abuse, communicated its message on local radio stations and social media, set up education drives in taverns and communities across various provinces to encourage men to be role models, and organised events such as round-table discussions and a man’s march to parliament in support of ending violence against women. And, at the Chiefs-Bucs Soweto derby in March 2018, players wore #NoExcuse armbands during the match, while a #NoExcuse female choir sang the well-known football song Masambe Nono just before kick-off, adapting the lyrics to highlight the effects of gender-based violence — and relaying this all-important message to the 80,000-strong crowd as well as the massive TV audience the derby attracts. The campaign is ongoing and the brand promises more on-the-ground activations to come. See how powerful tribes can be? Let’s channel this power in fighting Covid-19. Wishing you safety, strength and health over the lockdown period. Bongani Chinkanda CEO of HDI Youth Consultancy

To remain updated on the latest news about the Sunday Times Gen Next youth marketing conference, interactive showcase and awards taking place on August 21 at the Sandton Convention Centre, keep popping online to www.sundaytimesgennext.co.za or contact Cortney Hoyland for more information at hoylandC@arena.africa or 082-442-0624

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

Insight Opinion

Covid-19 is unprecedented, as is the need to help

Invest in knowledge to address the pandemic’s impact

The Solidarity Fund is a way for all of us to support the most impoverished By GLORIA SEROBE

● South Africans are set to confront one of the toughest moments of our history. Fortunately, all indications are that we will do so united. It is a country defined by various struggles, and I do not make this comment lightly. Our nation and the world face an unprecedented threat, one that is oblivious to identity and demographics and is enabled by the hyper-connectedness of our modern world. That menace is the Covid-19 coronavirus, a highly contagious respiratory illness that spreads from person to person; mainly between people who are in close proximity to one another (within about 2m), but it can also be contracted by touching surfaces that have been touched by infected people. In SA, Covid-19 represents a grave and pressing danger to an economy and society already under strain. Furthermore, it threatens to deepen the impact of inequality in our country, a side effect we can ill afford. As The New York Times recently pointed out: “In societies where the virus hits, it is deepening the consequences of inequality, pushing many of the burdens onto the losers of today’s polarised economies and labour markets. Research suggests that those in lower economic strata are likelier to catch the disease.” It is within this context that President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the formation of the Solidarity Fund as one of the measures to combat the anticipated impact of Covid-19. The fund has been set up to create a platform for all South Africans, from the public and private sectors, as well as the general public at large, to contribute to one consolidated effort to assist those least able to weather the financial consequences of the pandemic. The fund will be a rapid response vehicle through which pooled contributions can be deployed to fund four key initiatives: ● Preventative and supporting measures to “flatten the curve” by lowering infection rates; ● Detecting and understanding the magnitude of the infection problem; ● Assisting with the management of those people in hospital or medical care; and ● Supporting those people whose lives are disrupted by the virus. Covid-19 infects people regardless of wealth or colour, threatening the livelihoods of everyone, but particularly the livelihoods of the poor and the working classes. In SA, a significant number of the poor live with chronic, underlying conditions, such as tuberculosis and diabetes, and the coronavirus threatens to compound these pre-existing health challenges. These are people likely to be at higher risk of severe symptoms, complications, and potentially

The virus and lockdown will affect all South Africans, but will be hardest for the millions at the bottom of the economic ladder. Picture: Werner Hills

death if infected by the coronavirus. They live in environments where social distancing is difficult, if not impossible. For them, the extra vigilance we all must take in terms of hygiene comes with difficult trade-offs. The most vulnerable members of our society also face the increased prospect of lost income, deepening poverty and hunger, as a consequence of measures we are initiating to fight the virus. They will pay a higher price for the steps we need to take to protect us all. There are 3-million people who earn a living in our informal sector. They do not have savings and have limited security of income. They include domestic workers, street vendors and waste pickers. The families of these people will already be running out of money as we enter the early stages of the lockdown that is necessary to protect all of us. It is clear that the situation of these people means they cannot effectively protect themselves, and this is where we hope that the fund can play a role, not just with financial aid but by harnessing collaboration, collective action and innovation. The response from South Africans to the announcement of the fund has been extraordinary. The scale of the challenge is enormous, but we have already begun receiving contributions and of-

fers of assistance. As the pandemic continues to evolve at a rapid rate, we are moving with urgency to establish the systems needed to ensure efficient and transparent allocation of resources to cushion the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the most vulnerable members of society. While it will work closely with the government and Business Unity SA’s response teams, the fund is separate from both. It will, however, provide a nimble and agile platform to augment government and business interventions. The private sector has responded positively, with donations of over R250m so far, alongside government’s initial contribution of R150m. There are more companies indicating interest in making donations. What is really encouraging is that we are seeing a steady drum beat of small but significantly symbolic contributions from ordinary South Africans. Covid-19 is a reminder that we all have the same biology, that we are all connected beyond identity and class. We are all human beings who ultimately share the same planet and all that it throws at us, be it the coronavirus, climate change or the degradation of our habitat.

The virus is already disrupting the way our societies and economies are organised, and there is a real chance that some of these changes could be permanent in a world defined by new models of work. In this enormous threat lies an opportunity to redefine our present and our future, to build a genuinely inclusive society and a political economy defined by social solidarity and co-operation, not simply a Darwinian winner-takes-all survivalism. In the long run, this may be an opportunity for us to think more creatively about the different types of institutions that could enable us to allocate and distribute public resources and goods more effectively. For the time being, as demonstrated by our president, this is a time for collaboration and consolidation. We hope that all South Africans will unite with us in this fight against the Covid-19 virus. The Solidarity Fund is a vehicle through which we can all contribute to a single effort that will enable our country to quickly and comprehensively deal with the challenges we are currently facing. Simunye. ✼ Serobe is chair of the Solidarity Fund

here have been many questions and fewer answers about the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic on health, the economy and society. The world was already undergoing multiple transitions as a result of mega trends such as globalisation, demographic shifts, climate change, rapid urbanisation and technological change. But M DUDUZ I those who have made predictions M BADA based on modelling about globalisation and population growth could not have predicted the world would face Covid-19. Pandemics are like volcanoes and earthquakes; you know that they will happen, but you don’t know when, where, and how bad they will be. They are part of human history, but not part of the relatively better understood laws of economic systems. There might have been voices that made predictions about the virus, but their voices were not audible. One of those was Bill Gates, who in 2015 said the greatest risk of global catastrophe was not from nuclear war but from a highly infectious virus. Be that as it may, the world is now on rest mode as a result of the pandemic. It has come to a standstill. Humanity must press the reset button. This is because humanity is being challenged to, among other things, change its behaviour and socialise differently. This includes a return to basic hygiene, like washing hands and taking care of nature. The need to press the reset button is also because the impact of Covid-19 on the economy is seemingly catastrophic. As Harvard University economist Carmen Reinhart said, the global economy “hasn’t looked this fragile since the Great Depression of the 1930s”. The World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund have called on official bilateral creditors to suspend debt payments from International Development Association (IDA) countries that request forbearance. The bank says this will help with IDA countries’ immediate liquidity needs and allow time for an assessment of the crisis impact and financing needs for each country. The International Labour Organisation has estimated that 25-million people could lose their jobs due to the pandemic. This is indeed a catastrophe. The question, therefore, is what policy proposals are being put forward to mitigate this? Do those who are in leadership today, especially in the US and China, have the leadership capability to steer the world to sustainable development? Do they invest in knowledge and consider knowledge a strategic resource, to ensure evidencebased decision-making as we seek to build a better world? The events that have been occurring as a result of Covid-19 require a return to the question, what is knowledge? This we must ask because despite investments made in research and development in response to the demands of the knowledge and digital economy, it seems that the world has no answers to the impact of Covid-19 on society and the economy. This is a challenge across the globe, in the developed and developing world. It is also a challenge across ideologies, whether neoliberalism or a state-led policy approach. It might therefore be prudent for humanity to take a few steps back and ask simple yet difficult questions: how could we not have seen this coming? Are we investing in the right knowledge? Are we investing in sustainable policy programmes? These questions are important because knowledge is the sum of human-centred assets, intellectual property assets and market assets. Knowledge is a critical resource in the success of economies and institutions. For economies and institutions to succeed and become globally competitive they must invest in knowledge, both tacit and explicit. The answer to the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic lies in investment in knowledge as a strategic resource. The world must continue to embrace knowledge by investing in research and development to fight this outbreak and find lasting solutions. ✼ Mbada is head of the policy research and advisory services unit in the

office of the premier of Gauteng

Food supply secure, but exporting farmers in for tougher time This was shaping up to be a recovery year before Covid-19 hit By WANDILE SIHLOBO

● The Covid-19 pandemic is fast changing the way we live our lives. The virus has affected every facet of life — health and safety, travel, school and work, and access to basic provisions such as food. Many supermarkets were in a frenzy ahead of the 21-day lockdown as people scrambled to secure basic needs. This scramble was mainly by those fearing the worst — food shortages. Should South Africans be afraid? From a national perspective, I doubt that SA will experience food shortages, at least for most food products, over the next 12 months. SA is an agriculturally endowed country, generally a net exporter of agricultural and food products. There are high prospects for an abundant harvest of staple grains and fruit this year, which will increase local supplies. Nonetheless, there are essential imported food products that SA is dependent on, such as; rice (100% dependent on imports), wheat (50% dependent on imports) and palm oil (100% dependent on imports). Key palm oil suppliers are Indonesia and Malaysia. The typical suppliers of rice are Asia and the Far East, namely Thailand, India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam, some of which are hard-hit by the pandemic. In the case of wheat, the suppliers are usually Germany, Russia, Lithuania, the US and the Czech Republic, some of which are also hard-hit by the pandemic. But some of the countries that have reported cases of Covid-19 have not taken drastic measures to limit business activity to reduce the spread of the virus. This

means the importation of some agricultural products mentioned above into SA could continue unabated, barring any unforeseen eventuality. Aside from the major products, SA also imports poultry products and sunflower oil, but these are products that can be replaced by local suppliers should there be disruptions in global supply. In the unlikely event of potential shortages, they will be due to glitches in the logistics of shipping imports rather than a decline in global essential supplies. The 2019/20 global wheat production could amount to 764Mt, up 5% year on year, according to data from the US department of agriculture. Moreover, the estimated 2019/20 global rice production is 499Mt, which is roughly unchanged from the previous season. The global palm oil market is also well supplied, with about 8Mt, according to data from Sunseedman. It is the domestic food supply chains that will perhaps be tested in the coming weeks and months. The implications for Covid-19 on food price inflation are unclear in the near term. Suffice to say, SA has ample food supplies for 2020. At the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA, we forecast food price inflation this year at about 4% year on year compared with 3.1% in 2019. The uptick in food price inflation compared with the previous year is associated with a potential increase in meat prices rather than the Covid-19 pandemic. Where negative pressures of the virus are likely to hit are on farmers and agribusinesses, through the potential slowdown of export demand, and a likely subsequent decline in agricultural commodity prices. SA’s agricultural sector is export-orientated and heavily reliant on global markets. Nearly half of the value of what the country produces is exported. Asia and Europe, which accounted for half of the $10bn (R176bn at current rates) of SA’s agricultural exports in 2019, are the areas hardest hit by Covid-19 thus far. There are

Cattle in feeding pens before being loaded onto trucks. SA’s beef farmers could take a hit with the closure of steakhouses and other restaurants. Picture: Russell Roberts

likely to be disruptions in supply chains in these regions as governments strive to limit the spread of the virus. This is at a time when SA’s agricultural sector is heavily in debt. As at 2018, the total farm debt was at a record R168bn. About 60% of the debt is with commercial banks, with 29%with the Land Bank and the rest spread between agricultural co-operatives, private persons and other institutions. The escalation of debt, particularly in more recent years, was because of the expansion in area farmed, specifically in horticulture, and to some extent the financial pressure brought by frequent droughts, which have limited agricultural output in the recent past. Also worth noting is that some agricultural industries’ performance is interlinked with some sectors that are hard-hit by Covid-19. A case in point is the wine industry, whose performance is somewhat influenced by tourism. The decline in tourism will hurt this sector. Essentially, the financial impact of Covid-19 will

vary across agricultural subsectors, depending on the debt overhang from the previous seasons and also the stage of production. For example, deciduous fruit and table grape exports might not be badly hit as most exports have already been processed by this time of the year. Meanwhile, in the case of citrus, the harvest and exports have recently started. While so far there haven’t been glitches, a lot depends on the measures the European countries adopt in terms of commerce amid Covid-19 intensification in that region. The wool industry has just returned to the market following a ban placed by China, where 70% of wool is exported in a normal season, because of foot-andmouth disease. This year was set to be a recovery phase from this event, and from the drought that hit parts of the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Any major disruptions in trade and suspension of auctions in the domestic market could negatively affect this industry and thereby farmers’ financial posi-

tions. Already, wool prices have declined notably over the past week, in part due to fears of potential slowing global demand. The red-meat industry is in a somewhat similar situation, the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak towards the end of 2019 having led to a ban on exports, which negatively affected the financial conditions of farmers. With limitations in restaurants, we can see a decline in demand for beef, which people tend to consume away from home and which is more expensive than other protein foods. This will negatively affect beef farmers’ finances. Overall, while lower agricultural commodity prices, which we anticipate, are favourable for consumers, the opposite is true for farmers. Under such a scenario, the question is whether farmers will be able to generate sufficient revenue to service their debts. Admittedly, there are still a lot of unknowns about how the Covid-19 pandemic will play out and the various levels of indebtedness among farmers, but a proactive policy response could help prevent financial ruin for farmers, particularly those of a small to medium scale. So far, the recent 100 basis points cut in the interest rate by the South African Reserve Bank has helped to reduce the cost of debt. In the UK, financial institutions have set mortgage payment holidays of up to three months. However, the unpaid interest will still be recovered later. It is unclear if such a policy response would be plausible for SA, but in these extraordinary times it might be something worth considering and drawing lessons from. Perhaps the measures taken to support small and medium enterprises should be extended to the farming sector, given its significance to food security. ✼ Sihlobo is chief economist of the Agricultural Business

Chamber of SA (Agbiz) and author of ‘Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity and Agriculture’

SUNDAY TIMES - March 29 2020

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GAUTENG Credo Mutwa at his home in 1980, years after he had fled Soweto after being accused of being supportive of apartheid ideology. Picture: Mike Mzileni

Credo Mutwa: Misunderstood traditionalist and prophet 1921-2020 Champion of African history lived most of his life as an outsider â&#x2014;? Credo Mutwa, who has died in Kuruman in the Northern Cape at the age of 98, was a legendary prophet, mystic, sangoma, champion of African history, author, painter and sculptor. His fame was by no means restricted to the black community. His book, Indaba, My Children, which was published in 1964, sold more than 250,000 copies in SA alone and had pride of place on â&#x20AC;&#x153;whiteâ&#x20AC;? bookshelves across the country. But for all the tributes pouring in after his death, for most of his life he was an outsider. In his introduction to Indaba he said that being a guardian of tribal history had made him â&#x20AC;&#x153;an outcastâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I fought for black African tradition,â&#x20AC;? he said in an interview in 2016. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was ridiculed and two attempts were made to kill me.â&#x20AC;? His views on African culture and traditionalism were seen to be supportive of apartheid ideology and therefore opposed to the progressive values of the struggle. He believed that the struggle for liberation, with its emphasis on communism, was drawing Africans away from their cultural roots. He advocated a separation between races in order to preserve black traditional customs and way of life. He became a hugely controversial figure within the liberation movement and faced a dangerous backlash. He was accused of being a false prophet and collaborating with the apartheid regime. He said he was not a politician but a healer whose duty was to preserve the greatness of his people regardless of whether they were ruled by the apartheid regime or the ANC. During the 1976 student uprising in Soweto, an African cultural village heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d built on a piece of land obtained from the Oppenheimer family was burnt down by youths who believed it promoted tribalism and separate development. His house in Diepkloof was also burnt down. His eldest son was killed and he was forced to flee. Ironically, as he recounted in his 1986 book, Let Not My Country Die, a fellow sangoma, Dorcas Danisa, had a vision in 1975 of coming death and conflict in which Mutwa, as High Sanusi, or senior sangoma, would go into the streets and try to save black children from being killed. When violence erupted on June 16 1976, he and Danisa in full regalia walked to Phefeni station, where the rioting was fiercest, and tried to persuade school children to go home. Their mission failed dismally, he wrote. Adding insult to injury, he found himself ac-

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ST Mutwa claimed to have foreseen several historic events, including the assassinations of JF Kennedy, HF Verwoerd and Chris Hani. Pictures: Pat Seboko, above, and Andrzej Sawa, left

cused by some residents of having advised the government to order the police to shoot the marching pupils, which further explained the torching of his home. Mutwa claimed to have foreseen several historic events himself, including the assassinations of JF Kennedy, Hendrik Verwoerd and Chris Hani. After fleeing Soweto he was invited by the Bophuthatswana president, Lucas Mangope, to build a traditional village near the Lotlamoreng Dam resort in Mahikeng. He and his wife lived in a nearby cave un-

til evicted by Mangope, either envious of or concerned about the political ramifications of all the attention Mutwa was getting. He settled in Hartbeespoort, west of Pretoria, before relocating to Kuruman, where he eked out a parlous existence in a dilapidated house furnished with a tattered sofa and three plastic chairs. Royalties from his bestseller, Indaba, My Children, and other books found their way to other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pockets and not his own. Only a couple of years ago, after countless delays, were he and his wife, Virginia, moved into a home built for them by the department of arts & culture. Mutwa was born on July 21 1921 in Msinga in KwaZulu-Natal. At the insistence of his father, a staunch Christian, he was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church and given the name Credo, Latin for â&#x20AC;&#x153;I believeâ&#x20AC;?. His mother, Nomabunu, was the daughter of Ziko Shezi, a royal counsellor and veteran of the Battle of Ulundi, the historic 1879 conflict with the British that ended the AngloZulu wars and paved the way for British colonial domination in the region and other parts of Southern Africa. The ongoing enslavement of African minds as a legacy of colonialism was a perennial theme of his books and lectures. A Zulu traditionalist, Mutwaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother refused to convert to his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s religion and they separated shortly after his birth. He was raised by Shezi and initiated as his apprentice, with the sought-after task of carrying the revered muthimanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s medicine bags.

His father obtained custody of him when he was seven and he went to live with him in the Transvaal, where he worked as a carpenter on the mines. According to Mutwa, he was gang-raped by some miners when he was about 15. White doctors couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t heal his trauma so he was taken to his grandfather, who said he needed spiritual healing and arranged for him to be initiated as a sangoma. During his subsequent and extensive travels around SA and elsewhere in Africa he was exposed to eye-opening stories about African history and culture that were fast being forgotten. He committed himself to preserving them and challenging the tendency to relegate African cultural practices and beliefs to the realm of myth and superstition. Although he did himself no favours by strongly advocating the use of traditional African medicines to treat HIV/Aids, cancer and tuberculosis, he became an icon of African spirituality and heritage. In 2018 he made an emotional return to Lotlamoreng Dam in Mahikeng. Addressing a packed press conference he exhorted the government to preserve African history. â&#x20AC;&#x153;History should not be thrown away like an old pumpkin, history should not be scoffed at, history should not be mocked, especially the history of Africa,â&#x20AC;? he admonished his audience with a shake of the finger. Death would have come as a welcome release to Mutwa. â&#x20AC;&#x153;God is an ugly woman who wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let me die,â&#x20AC;? he said when he was 93, frail and unable to walk without the support of his life partner, Virginia. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Chris Barron

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March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times ESTABLISHED 1906

Opinion

Stay locked down, there is no other way to kill this virus

he US has become the first country to record 100,000 coronavirus infections. On Friday, deaths in hard-hit Italy reached 9,000, while SA recorded its first death and 1,000 infections. The world is locked down, from Europe and Asia to the Americas and parts of Africa. Lockdowns are not easy to bear and can devastate economies. On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced what must have been the most difficult decision he has had to make as president. He put the country under total lockdown for 21 days, allowing movement only for emergencies, and to buy food and medicine. The army and law enforcement officials have been deployed to enforce the lockdown. Visuals from around the country have reminded us how hard it is to police a curfew as wide-ranging and diverse as ours. Commuters whose industries are essential and have to remain open were stuck for hours in Marabastad, Tshwane, waiting for taxis to ferry them to work. From Mthatha to Kimberley, people did not adhere to social distancing as they formed queues outside supermarkets in their attempts to buy food. Authorities had to deal with annoyingly brazen attempts to cheat the lockdown. We congratulate the police for acting quickly in apprehending a man in Hammanskraal, north of Tshwane, who posted a video of revellers at Temba location breaking the ban on gatherings and openly drinking alcohol in public. But as frustrating as such behaviour may be, our law enforcement officials must act with restraint. Another disturbing video emerged on Friday of a soldier assaulting a man who was drinking in public. The incident apparently took place in Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats. Such overreaction is condemned. Soldiers are on the streets to enforce the lockdown and keep the peace; they are not authorised to skop, skiet en donner. The effects of the lockdown on the economy are already being felt. Clothing retailer Edcon reckons it will lose R800m in sales during the lockdown and might not reopen its stores after April 16. Governments have put together stimulus packages to inject life into economies that are being strangled by the shutdowns. The departments of trade & industry and small business development have announced financial incentives for industry as well as small and medium businesses. Banks have implemented payment holidays for small and medium enterprises, and reduced payments on loans and credit cards. The Unemployment Insurance Fund — through its Temporary Employee Relief Scheme — is helping employees who are not getting full salaries. Lockdowns not only restrict personal movement, they choke the life out of economies. Our economy, which was downgraded to junk by Moody’s Investors Service on Friday, will need urgent resuscitation when the lockdown ends. However, as painful as it is, we must reiterate our support for the stance that the government has taken. The lockdown was necessary because the cost of not acting would have been huge. SA has a fragmented health system that is overwhelmed by communicable and noncommunicable disease burdens in the form of HIV/Aids and TB, diabetes and strokes. An uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 would decimate the system. SA would not have enough isolation wards and ICU beds to treat thousands of Covid-19 patients if the virus got out of hand. Bodies would pile up. It is better to spend 21 days in curfew than years battling a pandemic that is passed on by merely touching an infected person or surface. Selfisolation is already proving difficult for millions in just the first three days of the lockdown. How will people self-isolate from their family members and neighbours should they become infected? What if the infection rate rapidly increases? Our Covid-19 infection curve keeps rising daily, and the only way to flatten it is for us to remain isolated and respect the lockdown. There is no alternative.

The only way to flatten the curve is for us to remain isolated

We can be grateful for the quality of this leadership

he 21-day lockdown in which SA finds itself as part of a collective national and global effort to combat the Covid-19 pandemic is undoubtedly a bitter blow to a country recovering from the ravages of state capture and the apartheid legacy inherited almost 26 years ago. The effects of this scourge will be felt for decades to come, its awful legacy compounded for future generations to endure. It’s no coincidence that the great revolutionary upheavals of history have happened in conditions imposed by war, pestilence, famine, hyperinflation and even drought. We are living through tumultuous times. It is for this simple reason that politics as we’ve come to know it in SA has been set aside, put on hold, in this extraordinary time that requires nonpartisanship and unity to combat the scourge of Covid-19. Badly handled, the coronavirus presents a real threat to SA’s collective future, and not the least casualty could be the whole democratic project. South Africans, aware of these dangers, will be taking some comfort in the surefooted performance of President Cyril Ramaphosa in this crisis. In an era in which populism and playing to prejudice encourage a jeering and combative style of political engagement, Ramaphosa’s calm and steady demeanour has shown South Africans a steel they might not have imagined he possessed before the health crisis began about a month ago. Criticised before for lacking vigour, we now praise him for keeping his cool. As fate would have it, Covid-19 and its disruptions may have saved Ramaphosa in a more practical way, too. Off the calendar for the foreseeable future is the ANC’s national general council, previously due for June, and at which, dark rumours had it, Ramaphosa would be deposed by a Jacob Zuma-inspired “radical economic transformation” factional comeback. That’s the end of fightback, for now at least. There’s a real battle to be fought. Against the bumbling buffoonery of US President Donald Trump, with his barely masked disdain for the scientific facts of the pandemic, one feels all the more grateful for having a leader of measured intelligence at the helm. Covid-19 will pass, as it must, and the knives will be sharpened anew. For now though, Ramaphosa has earned our respect and gratitude — and the benefit of any doubt.

Sunday Times

LOOKING BACK FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

South Africans last year consumed 304-million gallons of liquor — an average of 16 gallons for every one of the country’s 19-million people. The cost of this liquor was about R21 per person. These figures, which include sales of 205-million gallons of Bantu beer valued at about R70-million, show that South Africans are drinking more and more. Excluding sales of Bantu beer, which last year showed no rise, South Africans drank well over 12-million gallons more liquor last year than in 1968. Much of the increase was in lighter beverages such as beer and wines. Best performer last year was beer, which rose 24.6% to almost 45-million gallons. — April 5 1970 FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

After only 19 days of publication, the Argus company has abandoned its attempt to sell Business Report, its highly touted challenger to Business Day, in the Johannesburg market. It will now be provided to some readers free. The supplement was originally marketed with some copies of The Star at an extra cost of 50c a copy, raising the price to R2. Now the price of The Star, with or without Business Report, has reverted to a uniform R1.50. Only a small proportion of readers will get the supplement. This retreat follows talk in the marketplace that sales of Business Report had slumped to below 20,000 copies a day while sales of Business Day had continued to soar. — April 2 1995

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Comrades dithering is hard for runners to endure I wish to express my disappointment in the Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) for delaying its decision to either postpone or perhaps cancel the 95th edition of the race following the outbreak of Covid-19. According to the CMA statement on March 17, “the CMA board will review the situation by April 17 and advise Comrades athletes and stakeholders on the way forward, depending on the status of the virus in the country at the time”. This seems still to be its stance. I expected the CMA to be more decisive. Athletics SA has correctly taken a decision to suspend athletic activities in light of the epidemic. The Two Oceans Marathon was cancelled, as was the Forever Loskop Marathon series. Even before lockdown, athletic clubs took the decision to cancel activities. The races mentioned above happen to be Comrades Marathon qualifiers. Their cancellation means that prospective Comrades runners, particularly novices, will not have the opportunity to qualify for this year’s race. Another problem with the CMA’s deferral of a decision is that most runners are training hard — or were before lockdown — paying for their substitution applications, paying for their accommodation and travel arrangements. It will be grossly unfair to athletes and their supporters to go to all that expense and trouble only to be informed in April that the race has been cancelled. I do appreciate that the CMA is being cautious and has the best interests of all

participants at heart, but in uncertain times like these decisive action is required. PB Kgaphola, Parktown

Avoid anti-social panic buying Days before lockdown, I went to a supermarket to purchase a product. I was surprised how consumers were filling their trolleys. It is one of the most disappointing and unthoughtful things I have seen in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Panic buying in the time of an epidemic is more about fear then fulfilling needs. Panic buying is not about preparing; it is about wanting to be in control. Believing that there will not be food and other essential shortages, people panic buy. There are enough essential items for everyone. Keep everyone else’s needs and necessities in mind and purchase items as per need and not according to wants, desires and fears. Anxiety and stress need to be acknowledged and managed, but there is no need to panic buy and hoard. It puts vulnerable people at risk as they may not find a product they need to treat a chronic illness. Stop being selfish. Mohamed Saeed, Pietermaritzburg

Both a threat and an opportunity I wish to add my voice to that of President Cyril Ramaphosa and of opposition, business, church and other leaders urging us to work together to contain the global and national virus pandemic. We support the president’s decisions, thorough planning and goal-oriented

leadership to form a united front. Seeing political leaders with widely opposing convictions standing next to him was memorable. I am particularly excited about the creation of a nonracial solidarity fund, with the respected Gloria Serobe and Adrian Enthoven in control. It will bring essential economic restitution, small businesses will benefit and hopefully it will help to ensure that many of their employees retain their jobs. Apartheid probably still bears a major share of the blame for the socioeconomic and particularly educational shortcomings in SA. There is no better time than now, when we all have to face up to a huge new challenge together, to correct the errors of the past as well as address the many other more recent problems.

person to go up a skyscraper using the stairs. Vodacom is not alone in its insensitivity to people like me. Many moons ago, Woolworths invited me to open an account. When I went to a Woolies branch, the person who “helped” me told me that I would have to speak with the relevant department by phone. As with the Vodacom case, my pleas for help fell on deaf ears, no pun intended. But at least I was able to walk away from the unsavoury Woolies incident without looking back. I can’t do the same with Vodacom. Maybe [Vodacom CEO] Shameel Joosub has something to say about the ethics of using a person’s disability to bind them to a contract that they no longer need. Ivan Roji, Cape Town

Willie Esterhuyse, Stellenbosch

Nostalgia for The Space Callous corporations I’m at my wits’ end. I have a cellphone contract with Vodacom that is expiring next month. I do not wish to renew it, and I communicated my decision with a Vodacom employee. He told me that I would have to phone the cancellations department and inform them of my decision. The problem is that I have otosclerosis — I’m hard of hearing and cannot communicate over the phone. When I told him this he said he understood my problem, but I would still have to make the call. This is like asking a wheelchair-bound

Thanks Chris Barron for the obituary “Brian Astbury: Driving force behind The Space” (March 22). I am 72 and in my heyday I used to frequent The Space, especially on a Sunday night. They even brought bands from Johannesburg to play there. It was a multiracial crowd of people who all came to enjoy a good play and good music. Those days will live with me forever and defying apartheid was a victory for all of us. Allister Hansby, Bellville Write to PO Box 1742, Saxonwold 2132; SMS 33662; e-mail: tellus@sundaytimes.co.za; Fax: 011 280 5150 All mail should be accompanied by a street address and daytime telephone number. The Editor reserves the right to cut letters

Cyril more than repays the trust some placed in him

ormally there is a quiet hum about the tiny village where I live. A liquidate the airline and would if they could find a court to hear their case. tractor over there, the dog next door barking at people and other These are just high-profile reflections of what is happening throughout dogs passing his gate, a sanitation truck moving up the hill. the country. Ramaphosa has the establishment, the banks and the mining Today, day two, there’s nothing. Not even the church clock. I’ve houses at his back, but their combined inability to drive reforms to fix suffered from tinnitus for most of my life so I can’t say for certain, but I problems we can see all the time all around us is the main reason we are swear there is literally nothing going on out there today. now junk in the eyes of all the main global ratings firms. On the first day, a detective warned us on the village Facebook page: And I would not be holding my breath if I were a small business “Good morning people of Stanford. Please note that if you don’t comply dependent on the ministrations of Ramaphosa’s small-business minister, with the regulations with the national lockdown, as per our President’s Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who, at one stage of putting together a lifeboat for order, you will be arrested and you will be detained at the Police Station. small businesses in the Covid-19 grip, seriously considered rescuing only Once you appear in court you will then be in custody till you can apply to black-owned ones. be released on Bail by the Court.” How gormless could she and her officials possibly be? White-owned PET E R Small towns are easy to police. Apparently, my degenerated home town, small businesses employ millions of black people. But don’t worry, dear, by B RUCE Mthatha, was stuffed with shoppers and taxis on Friday morning. There’s the time the coronavirus and junk status are finished with your empire, you violence in Johannesburg. How you bring wild places to heel I have no idea. won’t recognise much of it. Police minister Bheki Cele may be a political accident just waiting to happen but his His lesser cabinet members aside though, Ramaphosa is finally leading. The virus is an threatening tone at a press conference last week around, among other things, dog easier enemy than his own party. It was on these pages that I punted him ahead of the last walking, might have been necessary. general election, to much abuse from the gallery. But I know what a decent man he is. He Who knows? The fact is we are flying blind. We have no real idea how many of us are will be as disappointed in himself for not acting on reforms sooner as the rest of us are. sick or infected and three weeks is obviously not enough time to take the virus by the His decency showed in the addresses he made to the police and to the military on throat. The prime minister of Italy has conceded that he has lost control of the virus. In Thursday, just ahead of their lockdown deployments. “This is no time for skiet and the UK, Boris Johnson waited so long to act decisively he cannot escape the vast suffering donder,” he told them both. “Your task now is to go and save the lives of the people of SA.” that is to come, perhaps also to himself. We know he is often unsure of himself and he now finds himself thrust into a double In SA, President Cyril Ramaphosa acted relatively quickly, but he doesn’t have the crisis that came from both far away and from his own office. And while he can’t control financial armoury of an Italy or Britain to help him. Three weeks of lockdown will everything, he will feel responsible for everything. He understands what the economic devastate this economy. At midnight on Friday Moody’s, the ratings agency, downgraded consequences of the lockdown and the downgrade will be. our sovereign debt to junk, which will only make recovery harder. “It could not have He knows that the real number of South Africans infected today is a multiple of come at a worse time,” wailed Tito Mboweni, the finance minister. What did he expect? whatever the official figure is and that we may be in recession for years. Already one of our largest retailers, Edcon (Edgars), has fallen to the lockdown. It But for the first time in a long time, we are being led by someone who is scared for us, cannot pay its bills. The South African Express business rescue practitioners want to and not scared of us.

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SUNDAY TIMES - March 29 2020

WISDOM FROM THE AG ES

Sunday Times

A wise woman recognises when her life is out of balance and summons the courage to act to correct it, she knows the meaning of true generosity, happiness is the reward for a life lived in harmony, with a courage and grace SUZE ORMAN (1951-) American financial adviser and author

The securocrats overrule the experts and a bully barks at apprehensive people about dogs

Q&A HOGARTH

heki Cele, the conceited and overbearing minister of police Maybe the government believes that allowing people to go for a who has — like a small-town gangster — made the wearing walk would be the thin end of the wedge; that if you give people a of a hat a singular part of his trademark, has probably the finger they will demand the whole arm. But it should also be wrong type of headgear on. He should be wearing a realised that one is dealing with adults and that in a democracy it is homburg, much beloved by apartheid ideologues. He often sounds always advisable to take people along with you, to get their buy-in. like the likes of Magnus Malan. One can almost imagine him licking One cannot just ram things down their throats. You have to make a his lips and wagging that finger like PW Botha used to do. very convincing case if you’re going to limit people’s rights. Which And judging by what comes out of his mouth, there doesn’t seem is what President Cyril Ramaphosa seems to have successfully to be much under that hat either. done. But unfortunately that sort of approach does not seem to This week at a ministerial briefing on the lockdown, Cele was in have percolated to some of his ministers. his element as he elaborated on how the police would go about Cele got quite animated and contemptuous when it came to the enforcing the curfew. He was feeling his oats. Earlier in the day, idea of people walking their dogs. “There shall be no dogs that will health minister Zweli Mkhize, who’s been leading the public be walked,” he barked. “You can walk your dog around your BA RN EY campaign against the coronavirus, had, in answer to a question, house.” said people were free to go for a walk or a run and walk their dogs It is not so much what he said that is troubling, it is how he said M T HOM BOT H I during the lockdown as long as they walked alone or kept a safe it. His tone was contemptuous and dismissive. Shape up or ship distance from each other. out: that is the language of an autocrat. He seemed to relish the Mkhize’s comments were welcomed by those who had undemocratic environment that has inadvertently presented itself. anticipated weeks of inaction with some apprehension, especially as gyms are also That should not be the attitude of a government official in a democratic society. closed. The relief was short-lived, however. By the afternoon when the briefing was The role that dogs have played in society is an unexplored subject. There’s a held, the situation had changed. It was left to Cele to relay the bad news. Walking belief among many black people that whites have for years treated their dogs better and running during the lockdown were out, he said. than they have treated their domestic workers. Which is why the idea of walking It is significant that it was Cele who made the announcement: the securocrats one’s dog in the middle of a national crisis sticks in some people’s craw. But there had overruled the experts. are many black people who now partake in this pastime, as it were. In fact not so Although one can understand the logic behind banning walking and running, long ago Jacob Zuma got a lot of push-back when he mocked black men who that should be the least of people’s concerns when it comes to spreading the walked their dogs. And elected leaders need to learn to treat people’s concerns with disease. There’s more likelihood of people catching the virus when mingling in some respect, no matter how small or trivial they may appear to be. shops where they’ll have to go to buy food than when walking or running alone or Cele’s jackboot approach could likely have set back the good work Ramaphosa with members of their families. Come to think of it, even prisoners are allowed has done in creating a national consensus over the lockdown. And the president some form of exercise every day. clearly had his police minister in mind when, in sending the police and soldiers out In fact many of the countries that have enforced some form of lockdown thus far to man the barricades on Thursday night, he warned against adopting a skop, skiet have emphasised the need to keep fit and exercise all the time. British Prime en donder approach. Minister Boris Johnson made exactly that point when he announced the UK’s We’re used to minions cleaning up after the boss. Underlings, on the other hand, lockdown on Monday. There’s also research that seems to suggest that people who get fired if they make a hash if things. One wishes Ramaphosa had the courage to are obese and unfit are more likely to catch the virus. give Cele the boot. But that won’t happen. It’s complicated, as they say. But there’s a mistaken belief that running or jogging is an elitist preoccupation The country is entering an extraordinarily difficult period and people or indulgence. It isn’t, and it shouldn’t be. It’s an activity that everybody should be do understand that, in the all-out campaign to defeat the virus, some of their encouraged to take part in. If the government were to make sure that a gym or a rights will have to be curtailed or compromised. It is therefore important fitness centre was built in every village and township, many preventable diseases that such measures are undertaken with care and understanding by would be dealt with before they could clog the country’s health facilities. those in government.

Coronavirus pandemic marks end of the world as we know it Post-coronavirus world should be a post-capitalist global order premised on the principles of egalitarianism as well as co-operation

Waiting, waiting … for handouts

M Gauteng local government MEC LEBOGANG MAILE has put Tshwane under administration, which the DA is challenging in court. Chris Barron asked Maile …

Why have you put Tshwane under administration? Because it was not working. In what sense wasn’t it working? In many ways. They did not deliver services. Which services? The services municipalities deliver. Specifically, which services? I’m saying to you the services that the municipalities must deliver. People are getting electricity, aren’t they? Not the way they’re supposed to be. There are many problems. What are the problems? Like electricity. Like water supplies. Hammanskraal people are not getting water there. Doesn’t that affect only a small part of Hammanskraal? Oh, so if it’s small then it’s not a problem? The people affected are still being supplied with water, aren’t they? No, man, you’re a journalist, don’t talk like a politician. I just want to know why you’re putting it under administration. I’m telling you. Otherwise I’m not going to talk to you. I’m trying to clear up my confusion. No, you’re not confused, you’ve got an agenda. I don’t have a problem talking to you even with your agenda. So unless you’re saying we are mad, we don’t know what we are doing, I’m saying to you that position was not just taken by us. It was endorsed by the minister of Cogta [co-operative governance & traditional affairs] and the National Council of Provinces.

By FLOYD SHIVAMBU

● The outbreak of Covid-19 represents the end of the world order as we know it. The outbreak is of the same proportions, if not more, than World Wars 1 and 2. Both wars gave rise to the militarisation of nation states in such a way that the collective psychology of nation states is underpinned by the need to assemble huge armaments in preparation for another war. The period after the world wars positioned the whole world to expend trillions of dollars in stockpiling armaments, building geopolitical alliances and establishing command centres in different parts of the world in anticipation of another war. The world’s most powerful economy, the US, currently expends more money on its army than the nominal annual national budgets of all African economies combined. The alliances the US supports and keeps in different parts of the world are not premised on shared values but on an imaginary anticipation that if another war occurs, those allies will fight on the side of the US. The outbreak of the coronavirus has illustrated in less than 60 days that the enemy of the 21st century is not and will not be global war but a virus that poses one of the most dangerous threats to humanity. If not contained and eliminated, the coronavirus has the potential to kill millions of people the world over. The ease with which it gets transmitted might lead to unmanageable fatalities. As of this March the highest fatalities are still in the most industrialised and economically advanced nation states. The reality is that if the virus can infect poorer people in Africa, parts of Asia and South America, the fatalities will be unparalleled as millions of people will die due to the reality that the healthcare systems of poorer nations are not capable of addressing even the present disease burdens. Schools and universities are closed, public spaces are locked down, millions of people across the world are instructed by governments to stay at home. The coronavirus is the biggest disruption of the present capitalist order and globalisation. The fictitious capital hoarded in stock markets globally is possibly the biggest casualty as trillions of dollars have already been wiped out. Huge corporations will be forced out of operation for a period of time, thereby disrupting their sustainability. This will create, and in some nation states, worsen unemployment levels. The base from which governments collect revenue for basic services will be significantly affected, meaning that governments will have less money to build additional health-care facilities, schools and provide basic social assistance to those who cannot sell their labour to gain income for subsistence. The coronavirus outbreak calls for a discontinuation of the capitalist logic of resource distribution and allocation. The post-coronavirus era should make all

WRITE TO HOGARTH@SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA

Surely, taking over the functions of a council should be a last resort? Yes, it is. It is a last resort. I’m sure you know that those guys have not been having meetings.

Sifundo Mkhize walking on a deserted road in Sandton is a stark sign of the coronavirus’s capacity to be the biggest disruptor of the present capitalist order, argues the author. Picture: Thapelo Morebudi

of us conscious that there are many essential services that do not need to be categorised as commodities; these include health care, education and access to food and decent shelter. As a first and essential step towards the post-coronavirus world order, governments should guarantee all their citizens access to basic necessities like clean water, health-care services, education, shelter and food. Governments should build capacities to feed their own people, meaning that they should have some acceptable degree of food sovereignty. Furthermore, governments should build health-care reserve capacity in the same way military reserve capacity was built in the post-world war era. A healthcare reserve capacity will entail that all governments should train not less than 10% of their populations with basic but necessary health-care skills and capacity, which will give the population some intermediary skills to provide health-care services in the era of pandemics. There is no guarantee the world will not be confronted with another health pandemic, so we need an army of health-care practitioners who can administer basic health care as and when needed. Governments should build independent wealth and capacity to take care of all their people during crises. Governments should not be charity cases of rich capitalists who accumulated wealth, avoided real taxes, and only commit a small fraction of their wealth when there is a crisis. The reality is that there are no capitalists in the world who make donations without expecting something in return. In the case of SA, two capitalist families have offered to help small businesses during the lockdown period. What this entails is that they have expropriated the government’s right to hold them accountable for

wrongdoing in the past and future. There are various options through which the South African government and other governments can build independent wealth. Instead of total reliance on taxes, which are recurrently disrupted by capitalist and now natural global crises, the government should permanently have capacity to generate non-tax revenues. The combination of how this occurs should be clearly defined but must include state strategic ownership and control of key sectors of the economy. Additional to state ownership should be strategic equity partnerships in areas where the state does not need total ownership and control. Importantly, governments should maximally collect taxes from all businesses that are required to pay tax. Tax avoidance and profit shifting should be combated. No government should be a charity case of rich individuals. In SA’s case, the rich individuals who made a donation of R2bn are families whose wealth was built on the sweat and blood of black people. The Oppenheimers own the mines where mine workers are not paid. The Ruperts sell cigarettes, alcohol and food which are mostly consumed by black people. If we had a decisive government the charity contributions made would not have been necessary because the government would have maximally collected taxes and generated independent wealth. The coronavirus has demonstrated that a capitalist system of resource allocation and distribution does not carry the capacity nor will to insulate all the people. We should all work towards stabilising a global order that is premised on the principles of egalitarianism and co-operation. ✼ Shivambu is deputy president of the EFF

Is that because ANC and EFF councillors have not been coming to the meetings? No, it’s because the DA speaker has been frustrating councillors and not giving them an authority that they deserve, and the power, and running away with it. So this ANC EFF nonsense is just a DA story that you are buying. That’s why we have asked that we must take it to DC [disciplinary committee], and the council was supposed to deal with that matter. She sabotaged that. We appointed a senior counsel to deal with her matter. She did not cooperate. Is the speaker in violation of … The speaker and the DA. Not the ANC and EFF councillors. If they were not harassed, they would not have walked out. And that’s why they complained to me. If councillors are not at council meetings, how can it function? Councillors went to the council meetings and had to walk out because of the conduct of the speaker and the DA abusing their authority. When councillors walk out, aren’t they in violation of their code of conduct? There’s context. Councillors have never just gone to council and walked out. They’ve been asking the speaker to recuse herself and she’s refused. We asked for meetings with all parties but the DA refused. We wanted to avoid where we are today and work with them. So if you’re asking was this a last resort, yes it was, because we’ve done everything.

cBuffalo kept the nation waiting more than 24 hours before announcing his decision to shut down the country. His most anticipated address to the nation was supposed to take place on Sunday. It was moved to Monday morning, then shifted to the evening. In closing down the country, he unveiled a Solidarity Fund to help companies and workers affected by the lockdown. Oh, and he told us the Rupert and Johann Rupert, left, and Oppenheimer families — Nicky Oppenheimer they of White Monopoly Capital infamy — had agreed to donate R1bn each. Hogarth must have missed the announcements from the radical economic transformation group (RET) and other critics of these families about how much they are donating to their fellow citizens in need.

Let’s keep those billions coming

oon after Ramaphosa locked down the country and kept the keys in his back pocket, people started asking about his own family and what they are contributing to the fund set up to help those in need. Most notably, his megawealthy in-law Patrice Motsepe. Not about to be outdone by the other billionaires, Motsepe called a press conference over the weekend to announce he was also donating R1bn to the cause. God forbid, we don’t need another outbreak, but the country can do with more billion-rand donations. Where’s the rest of the Stellenbosch Mafia?

Biting the firm that feeds

n RET trooper reckoned he was making a profound input to the debate when he pointed out that, after making the donation, the Rupert-owned RCL Foods would not be affected by the lockdown because its operations would continue. But witty tweeps reminded the toy soldier that food remained essential for his own survival, and that of others. “When RCL Foods shuts its doors, what are you going to eat?” That was the end of the debate.

This teacher has no pets

ld habits die hard. McBuffalo appointed a former teacher as police minister. So Bheki Cele got all animated as he spelt out the rules around the Covid-19 lockdown to a group of scribes. It was as if he were talking to unruly school kids. “This time you’re not buying liquor between 9am and 6pm, you shall not buy liquor at all,” said Ndosi with his arms behind his back. “There shall be no food at restaurants. You buy food at these outlets [supermarkets], you go and cook at home, so there’s no need to move around.” And then he delivered a devastating blow to the suburbans. “There was a little bit of a story earlier on that you can walk your dogs. There shall be no dogs that will be walked. The cluster met and discussed, and we agreed that it doesn’t enhance the call made by the president. “If you really need to walk your dog, do it around your house. It ends there.” Hogarth couldn’t help but feel sorry for those kids who went through the torture of being shouted at by Ndosi during his teaching days.

For one hack, it’s a dog’s life

f it was up to Old Hog, members of the fourth estate would never feature in this column; they are his colleagues, after all. But when they commit ridiculous acts, he will be the first to call them out. One scribe this week behaved badly during a press briefing. Ministers in the cabinet’s security cluster were outlining rules to be observed by the nation during the coronavirus lockdown. “You’re announcing the biggest clampdown on civil liberties in SA since the end of apartheid. You’re telling us we can’t walk our dogs, you’re telling us that you’re driving to drink [whatever this means] but you can’t buy booze after Thursday night. “Has it occurred to any of you ministers that you’re going a little bit too far?” screamed the journo. Whingeing over the frivolous is the last thing we expect from a scribe in the middle of a crisis of this magnitude. Unless, that is, the gentleman values his dog’s health more than human life.

MAMPARA OF THE WEEK

Lindiwe Zulu Soldier of misfortune

omeone should have told Lindiwe Zulu, the social development mampara, to better camouflage her pathological insensitivity to those in whose name she serves in the cabinet by not arriving at the Covid-19 ministerial briefing this week looking every bit the Gucci revolutionary who got lost on her way to a pre-lockdown coronavirus fancy-dress party. Her mock military fatigues — with gaudy tropical dictator-style gold epaulettes, topped by a peaked cap sporting a star — struck a queasy note in a week in which our president (her boss!) ordered our real soldiers onto the streets. Coming soon after “apologising” for her crass “stay at home if you can, I’m finding it difficult to stay at home” video during a recent leisure recce to Melrose Arch, this soldier of fashion needs to get into line.

March 29 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

Opinion

QUOTE OF THE WE E K “This is extremely dangerous for a population like ours, which has a large number of people with suppressed immunity because of HIV and TB, and high levels of poverty and malnutrition.” President CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, on why a 21-day lockdown is necessary to halt the rapid spread of Covid-19

We will be a different nation after this, whether good or bad depends on us

t is only day three of the 21 days in lockdown tweeted the heartbreaking news that the weekly for our country and already it feels like a very may not be able to pay salaries next month due to long time. As a colleague remarked a few days “advertising going up in smoke and events after President Cyril Ramaphosa made the cancelled” as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. announcement of the shutdown in the bid to There are many other companies in a variety of arrest the spread of Covid-19, we have entered a sectors who are going through the same pain. In dark tunnel. What matters, he continued, is that the midst of all this, Moody’s finally announced we come out on the other side still breathing. the news we have all been dreading for a while: it As doors of businesses and public institutions has downgraded SA to junk status. prepared to close down, the country’s secondWe are in a long and very dark tunnel indeed. largest clothing retailer, Edcon Holdings (which As finance minister Tito Mboweni put it in his own Edgars and Jet), announced that it may not be reaction to Moody’s: “… to say we are not able to reopen at the end of the three weeks. concerned and trembling in our boots about what ST H EM B I SO Although the retail group has been struggling might be in the coming weeks and months is an for a while, there was still hope at the beginning of understatement”. M SOM I this year that most of its clothing stores would However, as Mboweni pointed out in the survive. But the 21-day lockdown has shattered statement, every crisis presents an opportunity. those hopes, with Edcon management saying the What the Covid-19 crisis has reminded us of is that group stands to lose R800m in sales during the period. we are intimately connected to each other, that our individual health “What we are experiencing at Edcon is an early indicator of the and wealth are also dependent on the wellbeing of others. challenge that both government and many other businesses will Therefore it is important that we find ways of working together if have to face after the lockdown,” said Edcon CEO Grant Pattison in a we are going to pull through this crisis. statement. Already there are wonderful examples of human solidarity that Within hours of this statement, Khadija Patel, the editor of one of have been displayed by South Africans since the virus reached our the country’s most respected newspapers, the Mail & Guardian, shores.

We have individuals, rich and poor, contributing to the Solidarity Fund that has been created to cushion the negative economic impact of the outbreak on the poor. We have seen cash-strapped NGOs working tirelessly to provide accommodation for the homeless in this period of lockdown. Business, the government, organised labour in the clothing sector, for instance, worked together on a scheme aimed at ensuring that workers continue to get a percentage of their salaries even though they are forced to stay at home. We will come out of this dark tunnel as a nation. Sadly, some businesses, especially in the small and medium sectors, have been forced to close down and jobs will have been lost. But we should not lose the opportunity presented to us by the present crisis. That is the opportunity to reboot and to enter into a new social compact that involves deep structural reforms of the economy. All partners in this new social compact will have to make some sacrifices for the greater good. Ramaphosa is currently getting all the praise for the manner in which he has led from the front ever since Covid-19 hit SA. It should not end there. He should seize the initiative to get everybody thinking about the kind of SA we want to become after the crisis. Certainly, we will be a different country. Whether good or bad depends entirely on our willingness to work together and the president’s ability to lead us.

Don’t let lockdown be an ordeal, but use it to cultivate self-discipline and compassion We must accept that desperate times require these stringent measures By RAY McCAULEY

● Once in a generation we might be called upon to do something so difficult, so challenging and so daunting that we feel overwhelmed. As South Africans we know how to fight; we fought against the evil of apartheid and we won. Now we have a battle on our hands to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. This global crisis has caused multiple economic and social problems as nations reel under the health burden, and attempts to stop the spread of the virus are bringing entire countries to a standstill. This week, the reality of the pandemic hit home as we were sent into a state of lockdown. This unusual situation will disrupt our lives and cause many to feel frustrated and unsure. But it is a moment in which we need to pull together, instead of pulling apart. This is a moment for unity in the midst of our nation’s diversity. This moment of lockdown is an opportunity to demonstrate how we as South Africans, from all walks of life, from all races and all communities, can stand together, each in our own home. The lockdown is not about preventing one group or one community from meeting and going about the business of their lives. Rather, it is about our entire country protecting itself from the Covid-19 virus. It is an aggressive measure to protect the national interest. We must take this call by the president seriously, and stand shoulder to shoulder against the onslaught, to protect those who are most vulnerable. Each and every one of us, every family and every community, must do what is required of us. In particular, the police, the army, medical workers and those providing critical support services in our food system must serve their country in this moment with commitment, dignity and endurance. Those of us called upon to stay in our homes must cheer on those on the frontlines. This lockdown, as difficult and frustrating as it is going to be, is the right thing to do. Scientists and

Pastor Ray McCauley urges everyone to observe the lockdown rules. Picture: Simphiwe Nkwali

medical experts tell us it is the best way to protect the nation. Morally, we have a responsibility to protect one another in this way. Spiritually, we have a duty to stand in prayer and care for one another in this time. We must give President Cyril Ramaphosa and the leadership of the nation our full and enduring support. These will be 21 days that define the future of our country. We call upon all South Africans, during these three weeks, to adhere to the laws and conditions imposed on us. We must preserve the peace in our nation and ensure that law and order are maintained. This means avoiding gatherings of groups of people and not venturing out in public for any reason other than to buy food or medical supplies or for emergencies.

To those thinking of breaking the rules and acting opportunistically, beware — you will face the full might of the law. Don’t be selfish. Be sensible. You will suffer the consequences if you don’t, and you will endanger those around you. Instead, we must use the time to reflect on the important things in life, such as family and friendship, and to pause and reflect on the path we are on personally, and to make the adjustments in our values and decisions that this crisis is likely to demand. Let’s turn our homes into prayer sanctuaries for our country and for those in the frontline of this battle. Each of us must consider our responsibility to put in place the food supplies and the financial help that will be needed to sustain ourselves, our

community and those under our care. This also applies to businesses, which have a responsibility towards their workers — especially informal workers who are paid by the day or by the week. While the government is doing its part through the creation of the Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund (solidarityfund.co.za), and business leaders have begun to donate resources towards the support effort, we too as ordinary citizens must think about how to support those near and dear to us in our immediate communities. Our president has assured us that there is enough food for everyone during this period and therefore there is no need for panic buying and stockpiling. This will only lead to stock shortages, which can be prevented if we act like responsible citizens. Remember, this is not a time for fear and panic, but for hope and action. We need to focus on the solution, and on being part of the solution by avoiding infection, preventing ourselves from infecting others and supporting those in need. Instead of obsessing about the pandemic, read a book, study an online course, phone up an old friend, share some of your resources with a neighbour. Be proactive and use the shutdown to better yourself. This too shall pass! We must use the lockdown as a period of practising the spirit of patience and kindness, of generosity and of solidarity. Let us not hear of the abuse of women or children, or the neglect of the elderly, at this time. Protect them. Make social responsibility and solidarity your mantra. Step in the gap for those who are vulnerable. If you are concerned about the safety of a child or a woman, take them into your care. Take social responsibility for one another’s wellbeing, as this is mark of a true follower of the faith. I’m reminded of the maxim, “short-term pain, long-term pleasure”. This is the time to show great maturity, to put some of our freedoms on hold and delay the gratification of our desire for the pleasures of life, in favour of contributing to a much greater benefit. Imagine a SA free from the coronavirus, a SA economically strong and inclusive. Let us endure this period of pain, and then commit ourselves to building one SA for all.

More Cyril, please, and less of the cabinet confusion

ur world, our country, our lives, all our assumptions and prejudices now divide in two. Globalisation pundit Thomas Friedman defines it as “BC” (before coronavirus) and “AC” (after coronavirus). With SA and much of the world now imprisoned at home, TO N Y we can add a third L EON acronym: “DC” — during Covid-19, the state we are in right now. At least it lends perspective: most of our old problems seem quaint and entirely manageable. Remember load-shedding, state capture, Jacob Zuma, emigration? We are paying a big price right now for those excesses and lost opportunities. But at least they were navigable. In the BC world, we were told that our sophisticated financial markets had shock absorbers and safe assets. And that artificial intelligence meant that the only secure human jobs of the future were those requiring physical contact, such as physiotherapy and fitness coaching. Now those careers are at risk, as physical distance doesn’t just lend enchantment, it can save your life. Ideology back then divided around how much state and how much market, and every government intervention had to weigh the cost to the economy and the state balance sheet. But in Britain, a Conservative chancellor is throwing unlimited cash from the “magic money tree” — a term of abuse that pummelled Labour just three months ago. In the US, $2-trillion (about R35-trillion) is allocated by “small-state” Republican senators for direct transfer to businesses and workers to prevent total economic collapse. Here at home, it’s a field day for the central planners and the ideologues, who can ride the crisis to perfect their schemes of Utopia. But in reality, the frail state, looted and short of key expertise, is — if the virus is to be conquered — entirely dependent on the co-operation of the private sector, from hospitals to logisticians to manufacturers. “All in it together” is not just a slogan, it is the reality that will see us through. Remember in “BC” when the disgraced Brian Molefe called “white monopoly capital” the “monster in the room”? Happily in “DC”, Cyril Ramaphosa could announce that the two leading WMCists, the Oppenheimers and the Ruperts, had emerged from the Molefe swamp to stump up R2bn between them to aid the nation. That is why at the commencement of “DC” the presidential leadership of Ramaphosa is so important and he is backed by the opposition and the whole of society. Just a pity that he pops up only about once a week, and then fades and leaves the stage to the cabinet he has, not the government the country deserves. There was huge goodwill and reassurance on Monday night when — a day late and many dollars short — Ramaphosa announced decisive measures to suppress the virus and stop it in its tracks. Forty-eight hours later, at a dog’s dinner — well no dogwalking allowed, actually — of a press conference, various lesser emissaries queered the pitch and mangled the message. The authoritarians — including minister Lindiwe Zulu sporting faux military epaulettes which made Carl Niehaus seem unimaginative — were having a field day. No home food deliveries, soldiers to be deployed everywhere and no exercise outside your flat or shack. Reason and logic seemed to fly out the window, along with crashed government websites. It is of course entirely correct that the government should, for example, have access to all cellphone data to fight Covid19. But as Yuval Noah Harari reminds us, harvesting biometric data en masse into the future “means governments can get to know us better than we know ourselves”. In our country, where obeying the law is often an optional extra, maybe this is immediately justified. But it needs defined limits and oversight. We have shut down our country to reduce the risk of catastrophe. Fair enough, even though we are dealing with uncertainty, something unknowable right now, not risk that can be measured. That is what happens with a virus that is novel, not known or pre-existing. Since we have all become armchair immunologists, I am struck by the term “iatrogenic” — a medical treatment that has unintended, sometimes fatal, consequences. So the decisive broad-stroke approach rightly praised in Ramaphosa needs to be followed with calm, pragmatic and constitutional steps by his lieutenants. That will mean there will be light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. Not a greater darkness.

✼ McCauley is president of Rhema Family Churches and

co-chair of the National Religious Leaders Council

✼ Leon, a former DA leader, heads a communications consultancy

A phoenix can rise from these ghastly ashes — along with thousands of babies

he bad news is ubiquitous and manifold. Havoc bandwidth. One hopes this will not be only in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. temporary. Calamity for the informal sector. Education The poor will suffer most, but the quarantine hamstrung. Widespread loss and ruin. period might have permanently and profoundly But as it is with all ill winds, precious-metal-lined uplifting effects, in some ways, for everyone in SA. clouds and myths involving women called Pandora, It’s not just louder birdsong and faster internet we somewhere in every box full of rotten stuff can be found have to look forward to — without discounting the at least one small flutter of hope. economic catastrophe that awaits us, these strange There are countless bad, sad and downright days also provide an unprecedented opportunity to terrifying things associated with the Covid-19 cast out some of the demons that torment us. lockdown, but one doesn’t have to dig very deep to find Theoretically, it should now be easier to flatten SUE DE a handful of positives. the curve of SA’s crime epidemic. Criminals should G ROOT Apart from a dramatic reduction in road accidents be easier to identify and arrest, since there will be and (hopefully) murders, many have pointed out the fewer civilians and more crime-busters out on the potential benefits of the lockdown period, two of which are a streets. All the law-abiding people living in SA today (and quite a projected increase in reading and a reduction in noxious emissions. few of the law-breakers) would like there to be less crime. The evenNot to mention the chance Eskom has, with decreased pressure handed way the quarantine lockdown is being enforced, judging by on the grid, to perform overdue maintenance and regenerate itself early observations, is probably the closest thing to true equality that into an entity that more closely resembles a competent national SA has ever seen, that’s if unprovoked violent assaults by soldiers on power provider. citizens — of which there have been reports —can be swiftly dealt In the communications and information world, providers are with and further such incidents prevented. (finally) lowering the prices of data and increasing the speed of The combining of police services with other armed forces and the

ramped-up demand for lawful conduct might have the added benefit of reducing police corruption. It is unlikely that any officer accepting bribes in return for ignoring quarantine violations will not be reported. Lower tolerance for deviation from duty could, if adhered to once this lockdown is over, completely turn the tide on police corruption. If communities are more united and people are more neighbourly, as they are likely to be, then they will work as never before with the authorities to bring down those who kill, harm and pillage with impunity. On a political level, party leaders and apparatchiks for once seem to be putting aside their differences and pulling together for the good of the country and its people. And there has never been a better time to hunt down and punish the corrupt. Anyone caught looting, lying or cheating will be guilty of far more than the usual sort of treason. As for the rest of us, philanthropy does not come naturally to most humans, as I pointed out in last week’s column, but there is already enormous anecdotal evidence of people looking beyond their own four walls, if they are lucky enough to own walls. Neighbours who had never greeted one another are organising buddy systems for the weak, elderly and vulnerable in their midst;

all manner of organisations are collaborating to arrange the delivery of care packages; and those who might never before have dreamed of doing so are collecting old computers for disadvantaged children who must now be home-schooled, and are achieving remarkable things. On a wider social scale, street children and adults who are homeless, abandoned, alone and derelict will have to be taken care of if we are to fulfil the demands of isolation. This means that empty state shelters, built and equipped but never opened because of bureaucratic bungling, will at last be put to use. Administrative red tape will be shredded post haste as the need for such services becomes fiercely urgent. There is no reason this spirit of efficiency and charity should not continue. Addiction experts say it takes less than three weeks to form or break a habit. These thoughts might seem of small comfort as we contemplate the looming crisis. In many ways this pandemic will cripple us. In other ways it might set our nation free to follow a more flourishing path as we pick up the wreckage in the wake of Covid-19. Let us not lose heart, and for heaven’s sake let us never lose our humour. Incidentally, maternity hospitals should prepare for a rash of lockdown babies to be born in December — I didn’t hear of anyone stockpiling condoms, did you?

SUNDAY TIMES - March 29 2020

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2003: Bafana Bafana beat Madagascar 2-0 in a friendly at FNB Stadium. Lesley Manyathela scored in the second half and Ando Ramarojaona was credited with an own goal in the 82nd minute. 2007: Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling compete in the final of the men’s 100m freestyle at the world championships in Melbourne. The duo had won the silver and

● That ours is a crazy country is without question. After all, it is home to Steve Hofmeyr and a mayor who has discovered a mysterious “vaccine” for coronavirus when all of us thought there was none. This Covid-19 scourge which has completely turned the world upside down has really delivered the numbskulls and nincompoops from the back row right to the front seats. The world is under siege from an unseen enemy. People are dropping like flies yet there are some among us who are all the rage because they cannot walk their dogs. Dogs. Dogs. Really? Before dog lovers bark up the wrong tree, I have three Alsatians. They are my first line of defence to dissuade potential housebreakers from practicing their nefarious activities on my property. But more than that, Spraks, Rocky and

bronze medals at the previous swimming showpiece in Montreal in 2005, but this time they ended second last and last respectively. But it was no disgrace. The gap between last-placed Neethling and the gold medal — shared by defending champion Filippo Magnini of Italy and Canadian Brent Hayden — was a mere 0.38sec, making it the closest 100m freestyle final since before the championship became a biennial event in 2001.

2015: Bongani Zulu scores in injury time to steal a 1-1 draw against Nigeria in a friendly at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit. 2016: Bafana Bafana play to a goalless draw against Cameroon in an African Nations’ Cup qualifier at the Moses Mabhida stadium. This all but thwarted their hopes of getting to the 2017 tournament in Gabon.

Sport General

It’s a crazy mixed up country, I tell you Blacky are fully fledged members of the family. They have rights in terms of the Kortjaas family Bill of Rights. For example, the first thing my sons do when they wake up every morning is to feed the dogs and remove the pooh from around the yard. That’s what I did growing up in my grandfather’s matchbox house. It is a tradition I’ve passed on to them. Sometimes they do it grudgingly. But do it they will because it is the law which I’ve decreed as the president of the family — with the borrowed powers from the real boss, my wife. Lockdown is the law that is the new normal in SA.

Unplugged by BBK

It is motivated by the need to do everything humanly possible to contain and curb the spread of this invisible enemy that has struck a blow at the very heart of humanity. But there are those who are hot under the collar because they can’t let the dogs out.

Jeepers creepers. Even more bewildering is that they have fellow travellers who’ve hallucinated out loud that even under apartheid there were no drastic measures. Of course, there were no drastic measures. There were Draconian laws. Alsatians were not walked during apartheid. They were let loose on unarmed people who protested against being taught in the language of the oppressor or for not carrying a dompas. Over and above the dogs, those people were mercilessly mauled down in rapid gunfire on June 16 in 1976 and in Sharpeville on March 21 1960 to name but two of the crimes against humanity (hear that De

Klerk) committed during apartheid. That was untold mayhem and misery. There are people who will lose their livelihoods in these 21 days of lockdown and all you are concerned with is your dog. Have you stopped for a second to think about the security guard who won’t be able to provide for his family because the programme of the Premier Soccer League has ground to a halt because of Covid-19? What about the women who solely depend on selling pap and stew at the stadiums to feed their families? And then there are dimwits who are hellbent on doing dumb stuff like the ones who were arrested live on national television for drinking and

Sunday Times

driving in Umlazi yesterday. We come from a culture of defiance. We revolted against officialdom. That was apartheid authority shored up by an army of brutality, the SA Defence Force (SANDF). This government has made grave mistakes, chief among them being the massacre of miners in Marikana on August 16 2012. But this time, the measures that they’ve put in place are for us, not against us. It is our collective responsibility that will ensure we have as few corona graves as possible. People are perishing. But the stubborn ones can go ahead and walk your dog or go for your jog and let the SANDF catch you and frogmarch you. Now that would be fun and games. It’s a crazy mixed up world. It is a doggy dog world Twitter: @bbkunplugged99

Paying the price of corona Franchises are struggling to count the cost By LIAM DEL CARME delcarmel@sundaytimesw.co.za

● Some of SA’s rugby franchises are preparing for unpalatable, but necessary, conversations as the sport languishes in limbo. Uncertainty continues to enshroud the sport and the franchises are struggling to count the cost of the time spent on the sidelines. As the country went into a 21-day lockdown as a result of the coronavirus, they did not know when players will get the all-clear to pull out of their garages, let alone return to the playing field. Some are desperate to cut their losses. “We run like a normal company. We are not a union,” said Lions chair and equity

Our match against the Lions is usually a big draw-card Willem Strauss Blue Bulls president

partner Altmann Allers. “You have to look at this like any business entity would. Tough decisions will have to be taken to ensure that we protect the business and in fact the industry,” said Allers. Western Province president Zelt Marais also used a sobering tone. “I think if we take our cue from the European clubs, their players have bought into the fact that we are living in an abnormal time. We might have to apply abnormal or exceptional measures,” said Marais after some English clubs’ decision to slash their players’ salaries by 25%. The cuts however cannot be legally enforced unless the players agree. On the home front, the Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee cut a more benign tone. “We all have to stay one step back and say: ‘This is

not an ideal situation. Let’s deal with the pandemic at hand and we’ll find a way afterwards’. “There will be a financial impact, the extent of it we don’t know. It will put us under pressure. It is difficult to come up with an answer if we don’t have all the facts. “The moment people start giving answers without the facts then it is speculation, and speculation creates fear, then anxiety and then it becomes just a negative spiral,” said Coetzee. Blue Bulls president Willem Strauss doesn’t know what the eventual impact will be and said they are not about to make hasty decisions, even after two revenue streams dried up. “ We have a relationship with Sundowns so no soccer matches can take place at Loftus either,” Strauss pointed out. “It has had a huge impact. We haven’t hosted a derby match yet. Our match against the Lions is usually a big draw-card. We can’t meet the terms of our agreements with suit holders and sponsors.” He said that the amateur arm of the Blue Bulls is also suffering. “In March and April during the holidays a lot of schools tour or play in tournaments. Parents have literally paid millions of rands for their kids to be on these tours.” Although they are no longer part of the Super Rugby landscape, the suspension of the Pro 14 will have a huge effect on the Cheetahs’ revenue streams, according to their MD Harold Verster. “We already slashed our budget so there isn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre. When it comes to cutting wages you are dealing with people and their livelihood. That is something that will have to involve serious discussions with MyPlayers but we are not there yet.” Eugene Henning, CEO of MyPlayers, did not respond to the Sunday Times’ calls. Allers insisted it won’t be business as usual when competitions resume. “The world has come to a standstill,” said Allers. “It is as if earth has stopped turning. When it starts again it will turn slowly. “We are trying to save everyone’s job. But we also have to understand that decisions will be made that won’t suit everyone. We will be irresponsible if we don’t look at all the options. The president has said it will have an impact on the economy,” said Allers before delivering a stark warning. “It won’t just be players. We are talking coaches, support staff, the bloke who mows the grass.”

Sundowns celebrate being PSL champions last season. There may not be a picture like this at the end of the current campaign because of the coronavirus . Picture: Gallo Images

By SAZI HADEBE

● With each passing day the chances of the 2019-20 Premier Soccer League (PSL) season being completed shrinks. The season has two and a half months to run but the outbreak of the coronavirus has grounded all sport in the world. PSL chiefs are still hoping to complete the campaign by June 30, having pencilled in April 4 as the date to reassess the situation after last week’s Board of Governors (BoG) meeting in Johannesburg that resolved to put everything to a complete stop. The league’s legal head Michael Murphy told the Sunday Times this week that the PSL may well have to take its cue from other big leagues. The April 4 deadline was hit for a six on Monday when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that SA will go into a three-week lockdown from March 26 to April 16 to try to contain the virus . This means the PSL may, depending on whether the situation improves after the lockdown, start discussing the new date on which the league may resume. “It’s too soon,” Murphy said yesterday morning on the issue of resuming the league. “The resolution of the BoG is that we’re going to do everything in our power to finish the

Chances of finishing season diminishes season by June 30. “Everything in our power will include the safety and the health of players and all other employees. As part of that we’ve got two committees that are looking at regulatory issues on how we can do that. “Let’s say tomorrow everyone was healthy and we still have to play behind closed doors, but how will we do that with the categorising of issues with the national commissioner? We want to engage and find out how we can do that in a quick way if the lockdown is lifted.” With the lockdown having been announced most PSL teams have taken a decision to allow their players to train individually at their homes. The decision not to complete the season will mostly hurt teams like Absa Premiership log leaders Kaizer Chiefs and second-placed Mamelodi Sundowns, who were gunning for their third straight league title and 10th in the

Players have got rights and we won’t compromise on that Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe SA Football Players Union president

PSL era. But for teams battling relegation that include AmaZulu FC, Polokwane City, Baroka FC and Black Leopards, the cancellation of the season may prove to be a huge relief. Ajax Cape Town and Swallows FC, the current leaders in the National First Division (NFD), may also benefit if the PSL takes a decision to expand the league to 18 teams

next season. But Murphy cautioned against such talk as the PSL was yet to even start contemplating cancelling the season and what it will mean for every team in the PSL and NFD. “No one has spoken about what happens if we can’t continue. It’s just too much going on, too much up in the air and too many things to think about. It will all depend on your circumstances and on a lot of things,” said Murphy. The fitness of the players is another factor that may pose a lot of questions about when it may be proper to resume, with doctors warning of players getting injuries if rushed back into action. “I can guarantee you that the players will not be fit when they come back,” said Bafana Bafana’s former doctor Mogoru Ntlopi this week, adding that many don’t even have proper equipment to train on their own at home. President of the SA Football Players Union Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe said they have a duty to ensure that every health issue is strictly followed before the players take to the field again. “Players have got rights and we’re not going to compromise on that. The players want to play under enabling conditions that ensure they’re taken care of,” he said.

Outbreak could hit SA’s overseas cricketers’ pockets By KHANYISO TSHWAKU

● SA Cricketers’ Association CEO Andrew Breetzke said the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t affected domestic players yet, but will affect those who play overseas. The English County Cricket season was supposed to start on April 12, but that’s been provisionally moved to May 28. SA’s domestic season was nearly at an end before it was curtailed last week. “The SA players who play club and county cricket could be affected. I don’t know what the contractual arrangements are for the county players. They may not even be affected, but the club cricketers who can earn about R100,000—R150,000 could be affected. They may not even play and most of them are junior provincial cricketers who

supplement their income with the cricket,” Breetzke said. “There’s no impact on the domestic players’ remuneration and most of them are busy signing contracts. All the domestic players’ contracts are ending at the end of April and contracting is taking place. A nationally contracted player won’t be affected as the payment stands, but where they lose out is on match fees because when a match is cancelled they lose those fees.” India’s money-spinning Indian Premier League (IPL) has also been affected. It’s been pushed back to April 15 from today’s original start. The proposed start date presents a significant problem for South Africans. The national lockdown that started on Thursday ends on April 16. Players who need to leave SA will require a no-objection

State of play SA Cricketers’ Association CEO Andrew Breetzke, left, and Cricket SA acting CEO Jacques Faul.

certificate (NOC) from Cricket SA. Breetzke said players prepare for tournament cancellations, but leaving the country could be a challenge. India also has a lockdown. “If the IPL doesn’t take place, those play-

ers aren’t going to be paid. That’s a global T20 league standard. Players are able to take out insurance on those contracts because if they don’t take place there won’t be payments,” Breetzke said. “It’s too early to say, but that date is soon and it falls within our lockdown. Any SA cricketer who gets released to play cricket overseas needs a NOC. Part of the approval is the player has to be healthy and it needs to be safe for the player to go overseas from a health and security perspective.” CSA’s acting CEO Jacques Faul said the pandemic-enforced break will have a significant effect on sponsors and freelancers. However, he said the players are safe from the virus-induced financial fallout. “A business’s capacity to sponsor will be impacted. I can’t say we’re fortunate with the

A business’s capacity to sponsor will be impacted Jacques Faul Cricket SA chief executive

timing of the virus, but the rights in terms of the current agreement will flow from about September next year. That’s the same with the franchises,” Faul said. “You can actually compete for market share when there’s less money, you’re going

to compete for market share and you’re going to invest more in your brand. That actually stimulates a lot more sponsorship. The flip side is when the businesses say they don’t have sponsorship capacity and they have to look after the core business.” Faul though said they’re planning to have a sports industry support fund in place to mitigate losses for freelancers. That includes those who were going to work at end-of-season awards functions that have fallen away, but Faul said they’ve yet to make a call on the CSA Awards that generally take place in August. “People who only get paid during events are in an unfortunate position, but we’re in the off-season, so there wasn’t going to be a lot of cricket for a while but we’ve got annual awards that have been cancelled so there are companies that stand to lose,” Faul said.

ST MARCH 29 2020

www.sundaytimes.co.za

Bill of rights Players want to play under enabling conditions that ensure they’re taken care of

Sport Abnormal times Cricket and rugby in the doldrums

BBK Unplugged It’s a crazy mixed up world, it’s a doggy dog world Page 23

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Corona scare for sports bosses Leaders across sports bodies isolate, go for tests after meeting

How it happened

Top EPL clubs ‘could go bust’ if no pay cuts

By DAVID ISAACSON, SAZI HADEBE AND BARENG-BATHO KORTJAAS

● SA’s pantheon of sports leaders were potentially exposed to the coronavirus at a recent ministerial meeting attended by their netball boss Cecilia Molokwane, who subsequently tested Covid-19 positive. Molokwane attended a meeting of about 50 sports leaders — from soccer bosses Danny Jordaan and Irvin Khoza to athletics head Aleck Skhosana — called by minister Nathi Mthethwa in Pretoria last Tuesday to discuss the effects of the virus on sport. “I sat right next to her,” said SA Rugby president Mark Alexander, who holed up in a room at his Northcliff home after learning this past Tuesday that she had tested positive. “I was gobsmacked. It’s scary, it’s very scary.” He went for a test later on the Tuesday and learned on Friday he was in the clear. It

I had a terrible flu. My eight year old boy, 17-year-old daughter and my wife, we all had flu Jeff Maluleke

1 Mark Alexander (South African Rugby Union president)

Cecilia Molokwane

(president of Netball South Africa) came into contact with…

Jack Maluleke (Safa technical committee head)

Jacques Faul (Cricket South Africa acting CEO)

Danny Jordaan (South African Football Association president)

Graphic: Nolo Moima Pictures: Gallo Images

Safa technical committee chairperson

was the second time he had been tested in a matter of weeks, following a trip to Paris and London on World Rugby business. Sitting on the other side of Molokwane was Jack Maluleke, the head of Safa's technical committee, who subsequently went down with ’flu-like symptoms. “I had a terrible flu [after the meeting] at home. I've got an eight-year-old boy and my daughter is 17 and together with the wife, all four of us we were down with flu. So we were not aware of anything until we got the news that [Molokwane had tested positive]. “So we immediately went to the doctor to check ourselves but we were advised to go and do the tests ... The whole family has done the test and we thought we should quarantine ourselves,” he said. Maluleke and his family got their results yesterday and they

were all negative. Safa acting CEO Gay Mokoena, Natasha Tsichlas, Mxolisi Sibam and Dominic Chimhavi were part of the Safa delegation. “We learnt of the positive status of [Molokwane] and as part of the initial precaution, decided all of us to go into self-quarantine,” said Chimhavi. Durban-based Skhosana said he underwent a test the day after the meeting having spent time at a Johannesburg airport hotel with lots of foreign travellers. “I did the test and I’m fine,” he said on Friday morning, soon after training in his back yard. Premier Soccer League (PSL) chair Khoza was self-isolating. “The safest thing is to isolate yourself. You can’t do anything, if there are no signs you can’t test.” Swimming SA president Alan Fritz and

I sat next to her. I was gobsmacked. It’s very scary Mark Alexander South African Rugby Union president

Tsholofelo Lejaka, CEO of professional boxing, took no chances despite greeting Molokwane with elbow shakes. “It was still a fresh and exciting thing,” recalled Lejaka, who went for a test. His too came back negative. Fritz decided not to take the test unless he

developed symptoms. “I’m going to sit it out and see what happens. I’ve got no symptoms.” Cricket SA CEO Jacques Faul also is at home. “My wife actually checks my temperature every half an hour,” he said. Mato Madlala, acting CEO of the PSL, is getting house calls from his doctor. “So far I am fine.” Molokwane, who learned she was infected after travelling to the UK for 2023 Netball World Cup meetings, also attended a SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) board meeting. Acting Sascoc president Barry Hendricks had gone into self-isolation and advised his executive to do the same. “Of course it’s a concern for me and my family. My wife is asthmatic.” He said he had questioned safety practices

at the ministerial meeting. “I asked why we were signing the register with the same pen.” Alexander also questioned the wisdom of having physical meetings instead of using technology to link up. “To have a meeting like that in a confined space [was not a good idea].” Mthethwa had attended a meeting on Wednesday, his spokesperson, Masechaba Ndlovu, confirmed. “As you know the minister does not have to test because he's not showing any symptoms of corona. He will only be required to test as and when he shows symptoms of corona. “I can just say that we’re all just self-isolating as best as we can but because of the fact that we’re special services workers, we’re permitted to move around and we have a job to do,” she said.

Disabled sports stars in dire ●InBrief straits as funding dries up

Decisions on grand prix, Wimbledon soon

By DAVID ISAACSON

We are completely dependent on funding Ravi Govender Sascoc acting CEO

● Several top disabled sports stars are in desperate financial trouble after nearly four months without support from the cash-strapped SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc). The Sunday Times has been told of athletes — among them Paralympic medallists — who have been unable to keep their medical aids going and, in at least one case, unable to afford petrol to get to training sessions. A few coaches spoke of one athlete who was months behind on his rent and was on the verge of being evicted. Other athletes have moved in with family to cut costs. “They’ve been through trying times, they’ve struggled a lot already,” said one coach. Athletes and coaches who spoke about their plights did not want to be named for fear of victimisation when Sascoc finalises their operation excellence (OpEx) contracts, aimed at supporting the nation’s Olympic and Paralympic medal contenders. Sascoc’s acting CEO Ravi Govender

said Sascoc was still waiting for money to come in before they could commit to the OpEx programme that would pay R1.2m a month. “We are completely dependent on funding ... I can’t sign them [the contracts] until I’m clearer about the funding inflows.” Sascoc has been under the screws since 2017, with Lotto and government tightening the taps. Already last year Olympic and Paralympic athletes felt the pinch with reduced funding and, at times, late payments.

Reimbursing athletes The contracts were supposed to start on February 1, and Govender was hopeful they might be backdated when they do kick in. OpEx funding works on a claims basis, with Sascoc reimbursing athletes for their expenses, which can include items from food and coaching to travelling, training and rent. “The last payment we got was in early December, but that was actually for November,” said one athlete. He added that in past years Sascoc had continued making payments over

December and January to tide them over until contracts were renewed, but not this year. The OpEx programme, started by Sam Ramsamy in the 1990s, was abandoned in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Games because of insufficient money. But it was reinstated in 2009 after Lotto gave Sascoc unprecedentedly high levels of funding. Some athletes quit their jobs last year to focus on their sports ahead of the Tokyo Games, which last week were postponed until 2021. Even the athletes who do work are having to juggle their finances. “I am behind now on a lot of my payments,” said one athlete. “I’m behind in my car payments, school fees. This could give me a bad credit record. Being an athlete is a very expensive lifestyle.” In some cases the coaches who are supposed to be paid by the athletes are helping to support those athletes. “We are medallists, we are highperforming athletes,” said an athlete. “We have made SA proud and this is how we are treated.”

Formula One fans could find out sometime this week whether this year’s British Grand Prix is going ahead. A further complication for British Grand Prix organisers is that the All England Club are set to hold an emergency summit in the next few days regarding whether this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships will take place. Wimbledon is meant to finish a week before the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, central England. — AFP

Dybala starts training again after virus Juventus forward Paulo Dybala, one of the highest-profile players to be infected with the coronavirus, has started training again after recovering from the illness which he said left him struggling for breath. — Reuters

All Blacks, Atletico Madrid take less pay The All Blacks and Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid became the latest casualties of the virus by taking pay cuts as they both look to limit the financial blow of the coronavirus pandemic. — AFP

● The Premier League has given its strongest indication yet that players will have to take pay cuts because of the coronavirus pandemic, otherwise, as one chair warned, “clubs could go bust”. Several clubs are privately suggesting that wage deferrals are inevitable, even in the top flight. The chair, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted he feared problems with cash flow and that the delay in “ladder payments” — from where they finish in the league — would cause significant pressure on finances, even in the Premier League. His club intend to propose that players who earn more than £15,000 a week should agree to a 50% reduction in wages to be repaid over a 12-month period, but first he wants to hear the Premier League’s ideas. Another Premier League club has suggested that 50% deferrals will be needed but the expectation is that the agreement would have to be much lower — probably less than 20% — to be pushed through. Though cuts will be the next step, players can be placed on furlough under the government’s coronavirus job protection scheme — where they remain on the payroll but cannot work and are not paid. Clubs would be eligible to claim 80% of an employee’s salary up to £2,500 per month from the state and a number of English Foot-

Outside the top six ... finances are tight. There is a widespread acknowledgement that a number of EFL clubs will go into administration ball League sides are exploring this option. The players would be allowed to train, as the treasury does not regard that as their primary work. The Professional Footballers’ Association, the players’ union, met the Premier League, represented by director of football Richard Garlick, and the EFL yesterday to discuss the likelihood of player wage deferrals. It is hoped that a proposal will be communicated to the Premier League clubs ahead of next Friday’s shareholders’ meeting, to be held by conference call.

Difficult decisions In a joint statement, the organisations said: “The Premier League, EFL and PFA agreed that difficult decisions will have to be taken in order to mitigate the economic impact of the current suspension of professional football in England, and agreed to work together to arrive at shared solutions. “The leagues will not recommence until April 30 at the earliest. They will only do so when it is safe and conditions allow. “Further meetings will take place next week with a view to formulating a joint plan to deal with the difficult circumstances facing the leagues, their clubs, players, staff and fans.”

Unified front There is a desire for the Premier League to come up with a proposal that can be agreed by all clubs, to present a unified front. The warning that even Premier League clubs may go bust may come as a surprise, but outside the top six and a handful of others, finances are tight. There is a widespread acknowledgement that a number of EFL clubs will go into administration. Premier League clubs are also struggling to work out their budgets and cash flows with, for example, season-ticket sales on hold for many and uncertainty about whether they would receive the amount they expected from broadcast deals. — © The Daily Telegraph, London

Newsmaker Martin Kingston on how the crisis has drawn business and government closer

Arthur Goldstuck The tech companies that will thrive under lockdown The Back Page

The Big Read Fundi Tshazibana on ensuring the economy functions

Money Are you entitled to refunds for travel bookings?

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Sunday Times

www.businesslive.co.za | MARCH 29 2020

Business Times

Covid-19: Worst still to come Trying to cash in on corona

Grim forecasts of economy shrinking 6%, downgrade to junk, job losses By HILARY JOFFE ● How low can we go? Economists were scrambling to revise down growth forecasts as SA entered its first day of lockdown on Friday. Estimates were that the economy could contract this year by 6% or more. The bestcase scenarios were a contraction of 2%-3%. This is a huge swing from the modest positive growth forecasts of a month ago, before the global impact of the Covid-19 virus and the oil price war. Then economists pencilled in mildly negative numbers, which are now being taken down further as they factor in the impact of an almost total shutdown of the economy that some believe could last longer than 21 days. A deep recession would severely affect employment and incomes and would likely lead to SA’s public debt spiralling way beyond the already unsustainable numbers pencilled into last month’s budget. Ahead of rating agency Moody’s scheduled announcement on Friday evening, most economists were expecting a downgrade to junk status — with downgrades by rivals S&P Global Ratings and Fitch also on the cards, taking SA’s rating further into junk territory. With such high levels of uncertainty about how Covid-19 will play out in SA, all that economists could be certain of this week was that their forecasts would prove to be wrong. Most cited “downside risk” even to their increasingly bleak numbers. One of the more pessimistic is Intellidex economist Peter Attard Montalto, who said on Friday that he now expected SA’s economy to decline by 6.8% in 2020, with the government having only limited capacity to provide fiscal stimulus. Standard Bank economist Elna Moolman said the economy could contract by 5% this year — much deeper than the recession during the global financial crisis. She expects, however, a 4.6% bounce-back next year. Stanlib economist Kevin Lings has the economy at minus 4.9%, though Absa economist Peter Worthington is still at minus 3%, with downside risk. The recession forecasts come as SA’s organised business community gears up to launch a new Solidarity Fund, which was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday evening. Companies have made significant contributions to the private sector-led fund, which is to be launched tomorrow. It will focus on a campaign to build national unity and encourage South Africans to help each other during the crisis. It will also augment government efforts in the health space and on helping some of the most vulnerable communities. Amid concerns that many businesses and households will struggle to service their

By NICK WILSON

CLIPPED WINGS A Delta Air Lines jet taxis past Southwest Airlines jets parked at the Southern California Logistics Airport as the coronavirus pandemic grows, exponentially increasing travel restrictions and the numbers of people in quarantine. Airlines around the world are scrambling to find places to park their fleet as they wait to see how the situation will play out. Picture: David McNew/Getty Images

loans and will face bankruptcy in the lockdown, SA’s banking industry this week promised that it would go out of its way to assist customers in good standing who were in financial distress because of the Covid crisis. But it warned that it would do this only so long as the banking system remained financially sound — and would have to approach the government for fiscal support to assist customers if this reached the point where the soundness of the system was at risk. “Customers in good standing … who experience financial challenges as a result of Covid-19 should contact their banks who will, on a case-by-case basis, assist with appropriate solutions,” the Banking Association said. The solutions could include payment deferrals, debt restructuring or the provision of

Customers who experience financial challenges as a result of Covid-19 should contact their banks Banking Association in a statement this week

bridging finance for SMEs. Particular attention would be given to the most vulnerable sectors, and banks are looking at ways to collaborate wherever possible to assist customers who may have more than one bank account. Banking Association CEO Cas Coovadia urged customers to contact their primary bankers sooner rather than later if they were feeling financially stressed. The banks will waive Saswitch fees so that any customer can use any bank’s ATM without additional charges. It’s also expected that about 50% of all bank branches might close until the end of the lockdown after social grants have been paid at the end of this month, but the banks will together ensure that there is one bank open in every area to serve customers.

The banks, which count as essential services, were last weekend given an exemption under the competition legislation, enabling them to work together on plans to ensure that customers will be able to access financial services during the lockdown. The banks will also help those in distress. Ahead of the lockdown, companies such as Mr Price and Edcon have already disclosed that sales have plummeted since the Covid crisis began, with Edcon warning it cannot pay suppliers and with business rescue looming once more. Global forecasts were also being revised down this week, with many — the International Monetary Fund included — now predicting negative growth for the global economy. The IMF has said 80 countries have asked it for assistance.

Not much relief likely from insurers By NTANDO THUKWANA ● Any local companies hoping that their insurance policies will provide some relief from the financial impact of the coronavirus lockdown are likely to be disappointed. Alicia Goosen, chief broking officer at Aon SA, this week said companies would have to prove physical damage to an insured property to be covered by their property insurance policies and the resulting business interruption cover. While the coronavirus may be seen as an unforeseen event, it is likely that insured property will not be covered due to standard policy exclusions, she said. “Insurers are likely to argue that the introduction of a virus does not constitute direct physical loss or damage to insured property, nor is it an insured peril,” Goosen said. If the physical damage criterion is not

met, the exclusion will also apply to most business interruption claims, she added.. “There are, however, some select policies for certain industries that will address losses caused by infectious and contagious diseases.” The consequences of putting their operations on hold during the lockdown — due to last at least three weeks — could be severe for businesses with inadequate policies and response plans. “We are expecting a huge rise in the number of companies filing for business rescue and expect a sharp rise in the unemployment figures,” Goosen said. Unemployment in the fourth quarter of last year was already 29.1%. Philippa Wild, head of commercial business at Santam, says the insurer’s commercial lines policies — which cover businesses, tourism and leisure — do not pay out for loss

of income as a result of an infectious disease, nor do Santam’s personal lines for items such as cars, homes and buildings. “However, there may be certain optional policy extensions where, depending on legal and factual interpretation, there could be cover,” she says. “This would depend on whether this cover was selected at original purchase of insurance, and the specific wording, and circumstances of the loss incurred by the policyholder.” SA’s largest insurer, Sanlam, says it doesn’t provide cover for specific infections — except, in some cases, HIV — but it will cover claims for temporary or permanent disability, severe illness and death where the

cause was an “infective organism or virus such as [the ] coronavirus”. Hennie de Villiers, deputy chair of the Association for Saving and Investment SA, says the life insurance industry will be able to withstand the fallout of the pandemic. The association says the industry had assets worth R3 trillion at the end of 2019 while liabilities amounted to R2.7 trillion. De Villiers says the ability of the life insurance industry to pay claims and benefits will be crucial for the South African economy in the coming months as the pandemic chokes off consumers’ income streams. Steyn McDowall at Indwe Risk Services says companies that can adapt to changing circumstances, for example by embracing

The lockdown could be construed as force majeure … a way out of liability

risk technology, will prosper in the current environment. McDowall says the lockdown could be construed as force majeure, a contractual clause that gives a company a way out of liability or obligations in the event of an unavoidable catastrophe. “A formal contract should specifically describe the trigger for the [force majeure] declaration,” he says. “Insurance can be a solution but only if the damage is triggered by an insured event of the business insurance policy.” Momentum says it will give clients early access to R26m in future no-claims and safety-bonuses in order to ease the burden of the virus. The R26m in future bonuses that would have been paid out over the next four years would be immediately available, Momentum says.

● Snake-oil salesmen throughout history have tried to take advantage of consumers’ anxieties over a new disease by selling fake cures. Dubious products likely emerged during the Black Death — the bubonic plague that raged across Europe and Asia in the 1300s. And now, with the global coronavirus pandemic, there will likely be scores of products emerging that are meant to either protect or “cure” you. Already in SA there are those who are trying to cash in on the panic. According to Bernadette Versfeld, a partner at law firm Webber Wentzel, the trademarks Covidban, Corona Guard and Corona Care were applied for at the South African Trade Marks Office between March 3 and March 16 in the pharmaceutical-goods category. One of these products is described as an antiviral sanitiser. “Not a complete surprise. There are always opportunists rushing to register a trademark and this time they are seeking to benefit from the biggest news story of our time,” said Versfeld. The Trade Marks Office, which is closed during the 21-day lockdown, should refuse the applicants these names, she said. If the Trade Marks Office allows the applications, the owner of the long-established beer label Corona should consider opposing them, given that its trademark is well known, said Versveld. “Companies like Absolut Vodka are making hand sanitisers, so there is also a strong argument to be made that the use of Corona for hand sanitiser will create confusion in the market. Of course the owner of the Corona brand could also consider proceeding against anyone using Corona as a trademark for hand sanitisers on the basis of unlawful competition.” Versfeld said the best kind of trademark is an “invented word that means absolutely nothing”, like the brands Kodak and Exxon, for example. “You want to distinguish yourself from your competitors. That’s what makes a successful brand. Covid will have such a negative connotation when this is all over. Why would you want to use it as part of your brand name?” Jeremy Sampson, MD of Brand Finance Africa, a global brand management group, said there will always be people who “try to cash in and take advantage” but that he believes the words coronavirus or Covid-19 will become increasingly generic terms, like cold or flu, that you will not be able to trademark. He said that even in other sectors there are certain names that one can never trademark because they are too generic, or fall into a “protected area”. For example, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle withdrew their attempt to trademark “Sussex Royal" because the brand is owned by the British royal family.

Covid will have such a negative connotation. Why would you want to use it as part of your brand name? Bernadette Versfeld Partner at law firm Webber Wentzel

March 29 2020 — BUSINESS TIMES

Sunday Times

Business Opinion & Bits

INSIDEview

by Hilary Joffe

The crisis and co-operation: this time may indeed be different

ne of the iconic books of the 2008 Lglobal financial crisis was This Time Is Different, in which economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff argued that it really wasn’t, reflecting on a long history of financial crises. But as the pandemic continued to wreak global havoc this week, Reinhart wrote that “this time it truly is different” — a “whatever it takes” moment for large-scale, outside-the-box fiscal and monetary policies. As SA went into lockdown people focused on how to survive the 21 days. Except it may not be just 21. When the lockdown ends, the economy will not be back at full steam. And once the pandemic is brought under control, the damage to SA’s already ailing economy could be catastrophic. Leaders in the public and private sectors are just starting to get their heads around what this pandemic might mean here. It is, as Absa economist Peter Worthington puts it, a health shock that has mutated into a supply shock, demand shock and financial shock. At the peak of the global financial crisis, SA’s economy contracted by 1.5%. We just don’t know how many Covid-19 infections there are in SA, and economic forecasting is hardly more than guesswork. Economists are pencilling in contractions of anything from 2%-5% this year. But it could be much worse (minus 20% anyone?) and the damage enduring. While the government has acted swiftly to try to contain the health shock, policymakers are not nearly at the “whatever it takes” moment. They will have to get there. Reinhart talks about “out of the box” monetary and fiscal policies. The Reserve Bank this week opened the door to unconventional monetary policy, even if it hasn’t walked through it yet. Whether it’s being wisely incremental or stupidly slow is a hot debate in the markets. Likewise fiscal policy, which hasn’t really done anything yet. With tax collections and growth crashing, the budget deficit could be anything from 10% upwards. The Treasury is relying on lockdownrelated underspending to fund the relatively inexpensive initiatives President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced, but as the crisis unfolds there will be greater calls on the money the government doesn’t have. And even if the Reserve Bank helps to keep markets orderly, the cost and availability of government borrowing could be a challenge, adding to the fiscal disaster. A Moody’s downgrade seems almost irrelevant in that context. SA does have significant lines of credit from the IMF, New Development Bank and World Bank, which it’s always been reluctant to use, and still is, with the Treasury apparently keeping them for a rainy day. But we will surely have to get there. Ramaphosa this week urged the G20 to make funds available to Africa. More immediately, however, it’s a “whatever it takes” moment that the government will seize to drive long-promised economic reforms, as well as — crucially — to work more closely with business, which has swiftly organised to respond collectively to the crisis and offer its resources to help. Under a new Business for SA banner, organised business has set up a project management office of 40-50 people, working full time and for free, seconded from the big consulting, accountancy, law, and communications firms as well as the banks and multinationals. It’s interfacing with government ministers and coordinating resources and responses in health care, labour and economy. A who’s who of experts and retired CEOs from listed companies is looking at short- and long- term economic measures. The crisis has prompted a spirit of co-operation, even if it’s not as rosy and collaborative as both sides make out. Nor is the government coherent or consistent; there are mixed messages from ministers. But with the economy effectively on war-time footing, a cash- and capacity-strapped government will have to work with, not against, business to mitigate the damage. If this moment forces a business-friendlier government and a more actively public-spirited business community, this time may indeed be different.

A ‘whatever it takes’ moment for fiscal and monetary policies

✼ Joffe is contributing editor

OUTSIDEview

SWEET CORO-ROLL Baker Tim Kortuem produces cakes in the shape of a roll of toilet paper in his bakery as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues in Dortmund, Germany, this week. Picture: Reuters/Leon Kuegeler

Hits&Misses Financial first aid for business as everyone stays grounded

THE government is implementing a range of measures from tax deferrals to targeted funding for distressed businesses, in the hope that South African firms can weather the onslaught of the coronavirus. The details outlined by ministers

SA’S largest coal producer has been approved for a secondary listing on the A2X from April 2, bringing the number of securities available for trade on the exchange to 36, with a

combined market cap of more than R1.5-trillion. Exxaro will be the third mining company to list on the A2X, joining African Rainbow Minerals and Tharisa. PRIVATE school and tertiary education provider AdvTech reported a 16% rise in revenue for the year to June, lifted by its tertiary segment.

COMAIR, the operator of low-cost carrier kulula.com, would suspend flights between March 26 and April 19 following the announcement of a three-week lockdown, said Comair CEO Wrenelle Stander. National carrier SAA also

said it would suspend domestic flights. The service will resume on April 17. Last week, SAA suspended international flights until May 31. CONSTRUCTION group Wilson Bayly HolmesOvcon withdrew R48m in dividend payments to shareholders to preserve cash reserves amid the coronavirus outbreak. A dividend of 80c a share

was due to be paid on April 20, but the company expects the 21-day lockdown to hit its operations in SA. FOOD delivery services such as Uber Eats and Mr Delivery would join in the closure of restaurants, bars and coffee shops during the lockdown, tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said.

by Kevin Davie

Readers’Views

To hesitate is to lose ground in the battle against corona’s devastation

f the corona crisis has taught us one thing it is that dithering has huge costs. In the US, President Donald Trump’s early denialism this week helped put it in the unhappy position of becoming the country with the highest number of Covid-19 infections. In health terms, days matter. You delay, you hurt. It is also evident that delaying a financial response can come at a very high cost. International Monetary Fund (IMF) MD Kristalina Georgieva noted this week that $83bn (R1.4trillion) had been withdrawn from emerging economies since the beginning of the crisis. She said 80 countries had applied for assistance. Petitions by economists this week called for global authorities to agree on a plan to ward off the worst potential effects on developing economies. This included getting the IMF to agree to co-ordinate the imposition of capital controls for developing economies. With 25% of the global population now living under some kind of lockdown, the virtual meeting of the G20 leaders on Thursday was a real opportunity to show leadership in crisis. President Cyril Ramaphosa put the case for Africa, saying it called on the G20, particularly the more developed economies, to support stimulus packages for Africa and to get debt relief from the IMF and World Bank so that African countries can halt interest payments to focus on fighting the virus. The G20 agreed to do “whatever it takes”, but stopped short of saying what the actual measures might be. It said its member countries were putting $5-trillion into tackling the crisis. Since the US Fed will be able to buy as much as $6-trillion in assets to help its economy through the crisis, it is easy to see where the G20’s $5-trillion will come from. Less clear is how it will make its way to needier climes. “On the day that Imperial College London has warned that close to 40-million lives could be lost without urgent action, the world’s richest governments are still only warming up to the scale of the task,” said Oxfam’s Chema Vera. “The wheels of global co-operation are moving and the commitment to do whatever it takes is welcome. But it’s not enough. G20 leaders need to set a truly ambitious plan with concrete actions for how they will work together to save lives, including a massive injection of funds into public health around the globe.” The financial fallout is moving as fast as the pandemic. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) this week, in an unprecedented intervention, said it would be buying government bonds in the secondary market, that is, not directly when issued by the Treasury. Market commentators immediately described this as quantitative easing, seen by some as creating money out of thin air, as the central bank purchases assets such as government bonds by creating a book entry on its balance sheet. But it is really no more than monetising an asset in the same way that a bank will provide a home loan linked to a residential property. The householder gets a loan, the bank gets the income stream. But why is the Bank buying government bonds? George Glynos of ETM Analytics explains that the bond market found itself distressed with sellers and no buyers. The stress extended to the money market. “The liquidity in the interbank market was just not there,” Glynos says, leading market makers in bonds and participants in the money market to withdraw and become extremely conservative. The rapid change in bond values has important implications for banks as they hold sovereign bonds as part of their capital adequacy requirements under Basel 3. Losses from sharp drops in the value of bonds held by the banks potentially lead to the need to recapitalise. The SARB’s intervention was “needed to liquefy the banking system”, says Glynos. He says that in normalised times this intervention would have been frowned on, but in the current state it is surgical, focused and helped calm markets. We have seen that the virus moves with destructive speed. The financial fallout, meanwhile, moves faster than global leaders who should be putting precise plans in place to alleviate the associated economic distress.

‘Leaders need to set a truly ambitious plan with concrete actions’

✼ Davie is a lecturer in financial journalism at Wits University

WARNING

followed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the disease.

READERS ARE ADVISED TO CAREFULLY SCRUTINISE ADVERTISEMENTS OFFERING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES The Sunday Times cannot vouch for the claims made by advertisers

Crucial Dates

MONDAY MARCH 30 Bell Equipment annual results; Rebosis Property Fund AGM (electronic format) TUESDAY MARCH 31 Stats SA releases December quarterly employment statistics WEDNESDAY APRIL 1 Absa purchasing managers index THURSDAY APRIL 2 No events scheduled FRIDAY APRIL 3 IHS Markit whole economy PMI ●

Dates are provisional

Quote of the Week While this measure will have a considerable impact on people’s livelihoods, on the life of our society and on our economy, the human cost of delaying this action would be far, far greater. President Cyril Ramaphosa, declaring a nationwide lockdown

A price freeze could be a lifeline after the coronavirus The article “Now or never for SA Inc” (March 22) refers. The time has come for business and the government to think about looking at a price freeze, on wages, salaries, goods and so on. A full-on price freeze for a minimum of one to two years, so that once we get over the coronavirus, business and the population will be able to better steer through the rough waters ahead. Janice Hellyer, on businessLIVE

A price freeze will not work. Many products are imported, or their component parts/ingredients are imported. Overseas suppliers will not accept a South African price freeze and will simply not supply, which, in turn, will lead to a massive upturn in shortages, smuggling and black-market activity. The system pronounced on last week by trade & industry minister Ebrahim Patel is the sensible way to handle it.

WRITE TO: PO BOX 1742, Saxonwold 2132. SMS: 33971 E-MAIL: letters@businesstimes.co.za.

wonderful, impressive and generous gesture — let’s see who else will open their hearts and purses. At this time, businesses are getting the support, but the real need lies with those without a business or a job. Putting even R200 a month on the table for every citizen with an ID — call it a minimum wage, if you like — would cost much less than the billions wasted on state-owned enterprises and could restore dignity and maybe get a few meals to the most destitute. If such a fund were to be created as a humane rather than political action, this could be the beginning of something great. Pierre Jordaan, on businessLIVE

This is a fantastic time for people to enhance their skills at home, especially in entrepreneurship and finance. Perhaps MTN, Vodacom and Telkom can provide free data for business learning and entrepreneurship courses. This will take a crisis and make it productive! Billionaire Moneymaker R, on businessLIVE

Stephen O’Hagan, on businessLIVE

Looking after small businesses is a

Hamba kahle to a visionary Sol Kerzner, the Sun King, will go

●InBrief

short takes

down in history as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. He was a man with amazing vision and astounding brilliance. An embodiment of Mzansi’s dream. His legacy is imprinted in the sand, soil and heartland of our vast country, and traverses oceans and swathes of the global village. As an entrepreneur, he saw the solution before others and had the guts to see it through. He navigated the difficult waters of his chosen journey, never hesitating to confront any challenge, with the stupendous skill, grit and immense energy at his disposal. Generations to come will remember his breathtakingly broad creativity and his pioneering work in turning a desert into a world-class mega complex. Hamba kahle, Sol Kerzner. Farouk Araie, Benoni

Domino effect for pizza chain The article “ ‘Worst decision in history of fast food’ ” (March 22) refers. The fall of Domino’s — an apt trigger for a chain reaction. Fat Toad, on businessLIVE

Amazon pulls accounts for price gouging

Cabin fever Corona maker drives Brits to scraps 2020 online casinos profit outlook

Amazon.com said it had suspended thousands of seller accounts for price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic. The operator of the largest US online marketplace said it had pulled about half a million offers and suspended more than 3,900 selling accounts in the US for violating its fair-pricing policies. It deployed a dedicated team to identify and investigate “unfairly priced” products, it said. — Bloomberg

Britons stuck at home due to the coronavirus outbreak are hitting the online casinos, providing a boost for operators of virtual games such as blackjack and roulette. Gambling company 888 Holdings said it had seen increased customer activity in the casino and poker operations that make up the majority of its revenue, echoing comments made earlier by gamblingtechnology firm Playtech. —

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, said this week it was scrapping its 2020 outlook as the scale of the coronavirus increased. The Belgium-based maker of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona beer had forecast at the end of February that core profit would decline by 10% in the first quarter and by 2%-5% for the full year. At the time, the coronavirus crisis was largely confined to China.

Bloomberg

— Reuters

Bored Britons turn to online gambling for relief.

BUSINESS TIMES — March 29 2020

In Numbers

Business The Big Read

The net value of SA bonds sold by foreigners since March 5, when SA’s first Covid case was announced

Keeping the money flowing Reserve Bank rolls out arcane but effective set of monetary tools By HILARY JOFFE ● The South African Reserve Bank has opened a door for the first time to using the unconventional monetary tools that other central banks used to stimulate their economies out of the global financial crisis — and are using again as the Covid-19 pandemic brings pandemonium to markets and a sudden stop to economies. The Bank’s decision to intervene to stabilise SA’s markets and keep them liquid is not quite the “quantitative easing” that central banks in the US, UK and Europe are implementing, even if the tools are similar. Nor will it directly help to cushion households and businesses from the crisis. But it should help to restore the orderly functioning of the bond market, ensuring that the government and other big borrowers can access funding. And it should help to lessen the regulatory strain the commercial banks might feel once they have to assist customers in the crisis, as they have undertaken to do. Said Reserve Bank deputy governor Fundi Tshazibana in an interview on Wednesday, after the Bank announced a second, unprecedented package of measures to pump

liquidity into the market: “We are ensuring that the financial economy functions, so that the financial economy doesn’t present stresses that would transmit into the real economy.” “Stresses” is putting it mildly. The bond market was in free fall by the time the Bank came out on Wednesday with a second set of changes to its liquidity management strategy, after the first set on Friday failed to stem the tidal wave of selling. The government’s weekly bond auction on Monday morning had all but failed. Though the foreign and local banks who are the primary dealers in government bonds are generally obliged to take up their allocations at the auctions, no-one wanted to buy more at a time when everyone was selling. Investors everywhere have been fleeing from risky assets and moving into cash, preferably dollars. The foreign investors who owned almost 40% of South African government bonds had sold off a net R43bn of bonds since March 5, when SA’s first Covid-19 case was announced. Added to that was a tidal wave of selling by domestic fund managers who wanted to be in cash or nearcash, with many of their unit-holders wanting out. The banks also needed cash to refinance the selling by the fund managers. It was a level of selling the market simply couldn’t absorb, and the pricing reflected that — bond yields (which are the inverse of prices) blew out by more than 200 basis

We are just providing a backstop as the central bank … we won’t allow market liquidity to dry up Fundi Tshazibana South African Reserve Bank deputy governor

Fundi Tshazibana, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, headquartered in Pretoria, says the central bank is ensuring that the financial economy functions — to keep its stresses from affecting the real economy. Picture: Russell Roberts

points in just a few days last week and by Monday morning the benchmark 186 bond had spiked up to 12.07%, compared to around 9.5% just a week earlier. Nor was it about the fundamentals — the uncertainty was such that liquidity had simply dried up. The orderly functioning of the markets is part of the Bank’s mandate. Yet it was initially slow to act, say market participants, many of whom had hoped for the Bank to announce something on liquidity when the monetary policy committee announced its 100-basis-point interest rate cut. It was only on Friday that the Bank announced changes to its money market management strategy to provide more overnight intraday liquidity

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Sunday Times

and refinancing to the commercial banks. But that proved to be not nearly enough. In the face of significant stress in the government bond market, the Bank came back with a further announcement on Wednesday, undertaking to provide liquidity for up to 12 months. But this time it also did something SA’s central bank has never done before — it undertook to buy government bonds on the secondary market. The announcement immediately steadied the market, with the yield on the 186 falling back to 9.70%. Buying bonds looks just like quantitative easing (QE), but the Bank has resolutely denied that this is what it is doing, prompting heated debate in the market. Of course the Bank would say that, say some — QE is a deli-

cate one for the Bank, given the populist attacks it has faced on inflation targeting and ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule’s call last year for “quantity easing”. But if SA was expecting QE US Fed-style it will be disappointed. In the US the central bank is intervening in the primary market, buying newly issued government bonds in order to provide the government with the money for the huge fiscal stimulus it is putting into the economy. That’s called monetising the deficit — or printing money. In SA there’s no big Covid-19 fiscal stimulus — and the Reserve Bank is prohibited from buying government bonds in the primary market. Rather it will buy bonds from investors or banks in the secondary market, though it will in the process inject cash into the mar-

ket and ultimately into the economy. That’s potentially inflationary, though there’s little inflation risk in a stalled economy. The Bank also doesn’t yet need QE to provide monetary stimulus to the economy — unlike advanced economies with their zero bound interest rates, SA still has relatively high inflation and interest rates and space to do further interest rate cuts. And as the Bank sees it, the intent of the latest monetary measures is not to provide stimulus: “We are just providing a backstop as the central bank,” says Tshazibana. “It’s in our mandate and we will not allow market liquidity to dry up. Having well-functioning markets is an important line of defence we have as an economy against any shocks.” Yet these arcane financial market measures will translate through to the real economy. First, they promise to provide the increased liquidity banks will need. Said the Banking Association: “We welcome the announcement by the … Bank of monetary policy interventions which will assist customers, while maintaining the soundness of the financial sector.” Second, and crucially, the “Not QE” will keep the government’s access to the bond market open, especially at a time when its borrowing requirement is set to climb and global markets will be rough. And it will bring some rationality to the cost of government borrowing — which tends to be the benchmark against which all other borrowing in the economy is priced. As SA went into lockdown and the economy hit the skids, at least the Bank has now opened the door to a range of new, unconventional monetary tools for monetary policy. There will surely be calls to make more use of them as the crisis unfolds.

Sunday Times

17.5

March 29 2020 — BUSINESS TIMES

Business News

In Numbers

Lockdown in China hurts RFG declined by 1.7%. Lester Davids, a trading desk analyst at Unum Capital, said RFG’s trading update reflected a satisfactory performance in the context of the high competition in the fastmoving consumer goods industry. “In terms of second-half performance, much will depend on whether we see a reBy PENELOPE MASHEGO covery in China amid the outbreak, while other international markets should be moni● Cake decorations and parties took a back tored closely as the virus has since spread seat in China as consumers stopped socialis- and has seen most major global markets being in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak, ing affected by Covid-19,” said Davids. and the change in demand has been costly Gryphon Asset Management portfolio for food company RFG, which saw an 11.3% manager Casparus Treurnicht said although decline in exports of its canned fruit. there should be a recovery in exports to ChiThis week RFG Holdings, which changed na, other logistical problems could emerge its name from Rhodes Food Group, released for RFG locally. a trading update that showed it had made “There is also a marked slowdown haplimited exports to China since January. pening in global growth, which will weigh RFG’s eastern hemisphere market in- on its performance,” said Treurnicht. He cludes Australia and Asia, which make up added the current global environment had 50% and 35% of the company’s sales respec- generated more competition as food productively. ers fought for market share. In an investor call after the update, RFG As for the company’s performance, he CEO Bruce Henderson said at least 17.5% of said: “RFG underperformed investor expecthe company’s canned fruit exports went to tations for multiple years in a row and it still China. appears to be expensive. Good dividend reRFG produces fresh, frozen and turns never materialised.” long-life food brands, which inRFG’s regional segment, made clude Bull Brand, Magpie and Ma up of SA and the rest of the contiBaker. nent, increased its turnover by The company’s canned 9.3%. peaches are its biggest seller in In SA, RFG saw a spike in China and are mainly used for demand this month due to condecorative purposes on cakes sumers stockpiling goods as the or in products that are convirus outbreak spread. sumed in social settings outside The company will continue to homes. provide products during the lock“It’s really a premium product RFG CEO Bruce down and will meet urgent deHenderson that goes into that market and mands should they arise. largely into cakes and into the RFG’s competitors, Tiger Brands trendy emerging coffee shops,” said Hender- and Pioneer Foods, have also put measures son. in place to ensure that retailers don’t run out He explained that the decline in demand of supplies. over the past few months had had a big imTiger Brands spokesperson Nevashnee pact on the business and it was unlikely that Naicker said: “Tiger Brands is in a position to there would be a recovery in the second half increase production capacity on key food of the year. products if this is required. We have process“There’s no way that is going to be made es in place to meet demand on a national levup in the balance of the period — those cakes el and are working with all our partners to have simply not been eaten and it’s unlikely manage this in a co-ordinated and calm everybody’s going to rush out and eat two fashion.” cakes in the second half,” Henderson said. At Pioneer Foods, business is continuing The group has attempted to compensate as normal but the company is ready to ramp for the loss by exporting its excess canned up production if necessary. fruit volumes that were destined for China to Pioneer Foods CEO Tertius Carstens said: other Asian markets. “The big drive for us now is to plan for the Henderson said the move had paid off so lockdown period because as an essential far and the canned fruit had fetched “good service we are intent on keeping supplies of levels of profitability”. all food and beverages intact”, while keeping He added that RFG will have to move staff safe. He said that load-shedding was a some of the products into less profitable risk for the company but as electricity usage markets in the second half of the year. would be lower during the lockdown it was Turnover for RFG’s international segment unlikely to be a problem.

The percentage of RFG Holdings’s canned fruit exports that go to China

Economists issue dire warnings on US jobs

Canned exports fall — but demand spikes on local stockpiling

The wool industry will be hurt by the 21-day lockdown as auctions will be cancelled. Picture: Alexander Pogozhevvia/Getty Images

Virus hits wool farmers on heels of foot-and-mouth By PENELOPE MASHEGO ● The next three weeks will be especially tough for SA’s wool industry, in which sales have already dropped by 12.5% in the past week due to a decline in global demand because of the Covid-19 outbreak. Costly diseases are nothing new for the industry, which is still recovering from a foot-and-mouth outbreak that led to China banning wool exports from SA. The ban was lifted in May last year but exports worth R700m sat unsold while it was in effect. This time the threat comes from the coronavirus and SA’s 21-day lockdown. “Due to the escalating global crisis of the coronavirus and the accompanying market uncertainty, the wool market had to endure a 12.5% drop on last week’s sale [auction],” said Deon Saayman, GM for Cape Wools SA. The drop followed a 2.6% decline in the previous week’s auction. The South African Wool and Mohair Buyers Association said President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that the country would be under lockdown for 21 days would affect trading as it would not be able to continue with crucial auctions. “Despite looking at all available options, it is unavoidable that the receiving, packing, testing, containerisation and shipment of wool will come to a standstill from Friday 27 March 2020,” the association said in a state-

ment on Tuesday. It said it was aware of the “dire impact” of its decision on farmers and businesses but had decided to respect the government’s decision and support the efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The wool auctions will resume as soon as the lockdown is lifted. Saayman said although farmers will be able to catch up on the 10 remaining auctions for the season, they will be under financial pressure during the lockdown. “There’s a cash-flow issue for everybody now,” he said. SA exports 74% of its wool to China and the rest to the Czech Republic, Italy and India. The wool often ends up in the products of premium fashion designers in Europe or the shops of interior designers in the US, af-

The wool market had to endure a 12.5% drop on last week’s sale [auction] Deon Saayman GM of Cape Wools SA

ter going through a long and complex value chain that usually begins in China. Saayman said the industry usually has a turnover of between R150m and R180m a week during its auction season. Wool producers, like other farmers in the country, would need assistance from the banks with their loans. Banks have indicated they may offer support to distressed farmers. FNB said it would announce its Covid-19 relief measures in the next few days. “The bank continues to work with the Banking Association of South Africa in engaging with the South African Reserve Bank and government on a variety of solutions aimed at supporting both consumers and businesses through these difficult times,” said an FNB spokesperson. Standard Bank said it is looking at the impact of Covid-19 on farmers on a case-bycase basis to determine flexible and practical assistance. Nico Groenewald, head of Agribusiness at Standard Bank, said the assistance the bank could offer could vary from rescheduling or extending payments, capital moratoriums or consolidation of debt. Wessel Lemmer, senior agricultural economist at Absa said the bank previously assisted farmers during the foot and mouth outbreak and continues to assist farmers on a case-by-case basis.

● US unemployment will hit a post-World War 2 record high as the world’s biggest economy is ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, economists warned after millions of Americans filed for benefits in the space of one week. A record 3.3-million people signed up for unemployment benefits last week, four times higher than the previous record high in October 1982 and 12 times the 282,000 in the previous week, the US labour department said. The enormous increase in jobless claims puts an end to an employment boom that has fuelled US growth for a decade since the 2008 financial crisis. It suggests that US unemployment has already surpassed 5%, after sitting at a 50year low of 3.5% as recently as February this year. Economists warned this represents only the start of weeks of layoffs that could see the jobless rate approach 13% by May — higher than the 10% seen during the financial crisis of 2009, or the 10.8% record set in 1982. James Bullard, the Federal Reserve ratesetter, has said the jobless rate could even hit 30% — equivalent to about 50-million Americans out of work, and above unemployment rates during the depths of the Great Depression in 1933. The rapid pace of layoffs is pushing the world’s biggest economy into recession, as a lockdown in several parts of the country cripples businesses. The true scale of last week’s job losses could be even worse, as many workers who have become unemployed in recent days have been unable to file for benefits because state websites were overwhelmed with traffic and phone lines jammed. — © The Daily Telegraph, London

Hundreds of people queue outside an Australian government welfare centre, Centrelink, in Melbourne, Australia. In the US, a record 3.3-million people signed up for unemployment benefits last week. Picture: William West /AFP

Activists oppose switch from pine to gum trees over water use By TONY CARNIE ● The timber industry is under pressure from civil society groups and government water regulators to halt “unauthorised” land conversion from pine to gum trees in the sprawling Mpumalanga timber plantations because of growing concern over regional water scarcity. It is also under pressure to reduce the size of some newly established gum tree plantations by as much as a third, to compensate for the increased water use by these trees. This is because extensive national and international research by scientists has shown that, with some exceptions, eucalyptus (gum) trees use significantly more water than pine trees — on average about 30% more and in some cases as much as 51% more. The plantation industry, however, is focused on the growing global demand for wood fibres from gum trees to produce dissolving wood pulp, including increased production at the massive Sappi pulp mill at Ngodwana, about 50km from Mbombela.

Forestry SA (FSA) — representing the plantation industry — contends there are no legal mechanisms to prevent timber companies from converting from pine to gum, and further claims that there is a “negligible” difference in water use between the two tree types. FSA argues that should companies be compelled to reduce the area of new gum plantations by up to one-third, or if any plantations were to lose accreditation from the international Forest Stewardship Council, this could threaten the financial viability of numerous growers. Over recent months, civil society activists in Mpumalanga have been urging Sappi and other timber growers to halt any further conversion due to low river and dam levels in the wake of the recent drought. Philip Owen, head of the water and environmental conservation group GeaSphere, also wrote to Sappi CEO Stephen Binnie, urging the company to immediately halt current and planned conversions. “We have been experiencing less than usual rainfall for the past number of years … this is leading to a serious situation where some areas are experiencing acute water shortages, even though we are now at the end of the rainy season.” The department of water affairs was adamant this week that timber companies are obliged to obtain formal authorisation when changes occur between the two tree species. Spokesman Sputnik Ratau said his department required tree

Pine forests in Mpumalanga, where activists oppose their replacement with gum trees, which they say use more water. Picture: Masi Losi

conversions to be based on stream-flow reduction tables published by the Water Research Commission. Ratau stressed that these tables do not require a blanket reduction of 33% when land use is converted from pines to gum, as there were different ratios for various water catchments. He acknowledged that a moratorium was likely to hit the industry economically as it would not be able to replant, or would be re-

quired to replant pine, a crop for which they did not have a market. “We understand the concern regarding the impact on the domestic use and economy of downstream users as a result of the ‘over-abstraction’ of water by the planted trees and do not regard the forestry industry’s economy as more important than that of other users.” According to Ratau, Sappi and FSA are aware of these authorisation processes, de-

spite the fact that draft genus exchange regulations published in 2015 were suspended a year later following lobbying by FSA. But Sappi and FSA are adamant that such conversions are lawful. Sappi spokesperson Mpho Lethoko said: “There is no requirement in the legislation to obtain an authorisation prior to switching genera. “Similarly, there is no requirement in the legislation to reduce area when doing so.

“At the outset, let us assure you that Sappi takes a serious view of its neighbours’ concerns and remains committed to working with local stakeholders and to collaborate on issues, including the issue of water and conversion … “Sappi believes that our investments into SA will earn more foreign revenue, create jobs, contribute to environmental sustainability and will consequently be of great benefit to SA and its citizens. “It should be mentioned that in recent years, several catchments have seen an exponential increase in the establishment of irrigated crops and an increase in human settlement in small towns such as Barberton, which is experiencing water shortages.” FSA chief Michael Peter did not respond to questions sent last week, citing increased responsibilities due to the coronavirus crisis. But responding to similar queries by the Mpumalanga NewsHorn newspaper on March 19, Peter repeated the legal positions outlined by Sappi. “The most recent hydrological research done by the country’s erstwhile leading hydrologist instead demonstrates that the difference in the total water usage between the two genera is negligible, and in some cases pine trees can use more water than eucalyptus,” he said. Last week he also threatened to sue Owen or seek a court interdict to prevent him from making “libellous allegations” against the timber industry. Owen denies he has made any libellous statements and suggested the justice system “would not look kindly on such an attempt to silence criticism, or to curtail my or any other activist’s constitutional right to free speech”.

BUSINESS TIMES — March 29 2020

In Numbers

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Business News

Edcon’s likely loss in turnover during the 21-day lockdown

Airlines ask for state aid Costs of recovery after losses from lockdown ‘too high’ to carry

There are 22 international passenger airlines that fly to SA and this week the last ones to maintain flights were forced to cancel them because of SA’s lockdown. Picture: Alon Skuy

Treasury for funding to cover costs over the lockdown but had renegotiated payment with suppliers. Although liquidation looms if the business rescue is unsuccessful, Dongwana said: “As of today there is nothing that says our opinion around a reasonable prospect of rescue has changed.” Aviation economist Joachim Vermooten said: “None of the domestic airlines would actually be able to survive unless there is state aid granted.” The combination of being forced to ground planes, losses incurred to restart operations and a possible extension of the lockdown would be “too large for airlines to actually make it”. Other governments globally had started processes to bail out their airlines, although “it’s probably too early at this stage for South Africa to consider it”, he said. But assistance will be necessary as the recovery period for airlines after an outbreak of a communicable disease is between six

and seven months. This is according to research previously commissioned by the International Air Transport Association (Iata) after other disease outbreaks. In an open letter on Thursday, Iata pleaded with leaders of the G20, a group of major economies that includes SA, to encourage governments worldwide to give direct financial support, loans or loan guarantees and tax relief to airlines. It said airlines were taking strain from the pandemic and that the average two-month cash reserves held by airlines were being “rapidly exhausted”. Iata itself has an estimated cash shortfall of $200bn (R3.5-trillion). There are 22 international passenger airlines that fly to SA and this week the nine that were hanging on until the last moment were forced to halt flights for the lockdown. SA’s airline industry contributes about 3% to global air passenger volumes and revenue.

Recovery for airlines after outbreak of a communicable disease is six, seven months

Condor airlines, which had already stopped flying to SA, said on Thursday it was launching several special flights to return stranded Germans. Lufthansa and Qatar Airways said SA remained an important destination and they would monitor the situation to resume flying as soon as possible. David King, Cape Town Air Access project manager, said at a conservative estimate, international flights add more than R13m in direct tourism spending a week to the Western Cape’s economy. “We are confident we will be able to quickly restore and even grow our network once the crisis is over,” he said.

‘PIC needs independent chair ’ By CAIPHUS KGOSANA ● The interim chair of the board of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), Reuel Khoza, has backed growing calls for an end to the practice of having a politician chairing the board of Africa’s biggest asset manager. Khoza — whose interim board is in charge until the end of July — told Business Times on Friday that in future the PIC board should have an independent chair. “The board should not be, in my opinion, chaired by a political figure. It does appear that stance is supported by a good number within government,” he said. “There are those who for some reason, it could be cultural lag, might be open to manipulation; perhaps it’s easier to manipulate a political colleague as opposed to an independent person.” Until the interim board was appointed in July last year with Khoza as chair, the deputy minister of finance would automatically be chair of the PIC, which manages R2-trillion on behalf of the government pension fund and other state entities. But the commission of inquiry into malfeasance at the fund manager, led by retired judge Lex Mpati, has strongly recommended that this practice come to an end. During the hearings, former PIC executives complained that cabinet reshuffles destabilise

the board when the post of deputy finance minister changes hands. Those who testified also pointed out that the people in this post often don’t have the requisite skills to chair the board of a complex financial entity. In its final report, the commission said: “The deputy minister of finance should not be the PIC chairperson. This has caused considerable instability. Skills needed to chair the board may well be different from those that the deputy minister of finance brings. The role of the chairperson should be defined, and the skills and personal qualities needed, codified in the memorandum of incorporation.” The Mpati commission found that the PIC had made some questionable investment decisions, which had cost the asset manager billions of rands. These included investments in Steinhoff, Independent Media, Ayo Technologies and VBS Mutual Bank. It found that former CEO Dan Matjila (who is seeking judicial review of the report) wielded considerable influence in deciding where PIC money should be invested and exerted pressure on investment panels. Khoza said an advisory panel is being set up to

expedite investigations and bring those responsible to account. The panel will be chaired by a retired judge and will include members of the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority, who will advise the PIC on which transgressions to prioritise for prosecution. “Part of the brief is that there have been culprits in the form of individuals, in the form of corporations, and both of those categories of offenders will have to be pursued,” he said. Khoza said that even before the Mpati report was released the PIC board had begun fixing some of the governance and administrative failures, for example by separating the positions of CEO and chief investment officer, which Matjila had held simultaneously. A new CEO has been identified, whose name has been submitted to the cabinet for approval. The interim board is also re-introducing the position of COO and is in the process of establishing an ethics office, which will provide guidance and deal with issues of conscience and morality. “Unless you have a chief ethics officer who is the compunction of the organisation, then you are likely to fall foul of ethical conduct. That’s why we have insisted that this position be established,” Khoza said.

There are those who for some reason might be open to manipulation

Recruitment stalls as posts frozen By NICK WILSON ● With SA on a knife edge as the country shuts down to try to slow the spread of Covid-19, companies are freezing posts they previously advertised. Even before the coronavirus pandemic cut a swathe through the world in February and March, companies in SA were already cautious about hiring as they struggled in a creaking local economy. Now, as the spectre of a global recession looms, companies both foreign and local prepare to batten down the hatches. “There was tremendous fear in many employees’ minds prior to Covid-19; however their fear is doubling with the lockdown and companies struggling to operate,” says Nicole Long, MD of Be Different Recruitment, which specialises in placing highly skilled candidates in the financial services, banking, IT and legal sectors. “The majority of our clients are placing their positions on hold that were previously advertised due to

Covid-19. This does not just apply to local companies we work with.” She says that even before the emergence of coronavirus, SA was “already under so much pressure” with companies fearful of hiring due to the economic uncertainty predicted for 2020. Within the banking sector, Be Different Recruitment has noticed some banks are stating “it is business as usual”. “However, they [the banks] are working from home and will do meetings and interviews online’. “We have to encourage each other in business to keep the wheel moving, even if it is slowly.” She says it’s important to remember that talented employees can make a “business happen” and that companies that may be closed at the moment need to start thinking about what they will need to “get up and running again” when the pandemic has been brought under control. “Forward thinking and planning is not negotiable in business in SA, it’s essential for our survival. We

need positive thought processes and conversations on how to do business differently,” says Long. Stacey Bossenger, director of Ad Talent, a 46year-old company that focuses on the digital and IT sector, public relations, advertising, creative industries and marketing, says that “companies are pulling jobs or putting recruitment on hold until further notice”. “That being said, there are still some fairly senior roles that people are continuing to recruit for, such as digital marketing managers, heads of communications, designers, strategists and heads of marketing,” says Bossenger. The events industry has taken a bad knock and candidates who had recently been employed are now facing retrenchment, she says. “It is very quiet at the moment, with a job or two trickling in. We are concerned, but a number of clients continue to see candidates via Zoom and there are some last-minute interviews,” says Bossenger.

Sunday Times

Covid-19 could be Edcon death blow By NTANDO THUKWANA

By ASHA SPECKMAN ● The airline industry wants government aid to help it weather the loss of revenue or some companies may go bust after all aircraft were grounded for the three-week lockdown this week. Chris Zweigenthal, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa, said although the industry supported the national shutdown “it’s going to have a devastating effect on the airline industry and the tourism industry in this country”. “There is definitely going to be a need for assistance,” he said, and this could be in the form of provision for costs, or the reduction of airport charges and other fees. The industry body did approach the government before the lockdown although its request may have been shelved in lastminute preparations for the shutdown. “We do know they [the government] are aware of the request,” he said. But Zweigenthal, who said the industry would finalise the amount needed “within the next couple of days”, also wants the state to ensure a way for each domestic airline to remain in business and a plan to get the industry and tourism “up and running” soon after the lockdown is lifted. However, due to the demand on the public purse, airlines may languish at the back of the queue. Dondo Mogajane, National Treasury director-general, said although he was unaware of a request by the airline industry, other sectors may have to be prioritised even after the lockdown period. “What if money is going to be needed to boost the health sector? That decision is not now, it’s going to be much, much later if it needs to happen. But it will depend on the impact on the economy as a whole. It’s too early days now.” Domestic airlines are experiencing tough times with a decline in travel. SAA is the most affected and is in business rescue after accumulating losses of R26bn over six years. Siviwe Dongwana, one of the two business rescue practitioners, said on Thursday the practitioners had not approached the

● The bell may be tolling for Africa’s biggest non-food retailer after Edcon CEO Grant Pattison told suppliers this week the company would not be able to honour its contracts. The retailer’s already-fragile state has been exacerbated by the coronavirus. Edcon’s turnover has declined 45% since President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration of a national state of disaster on March 15, a emotional Pattison said on Thursday. “We find ourselves in uncharted waters, where each day seems like a lifetime ago … By the end of today [Thursday], when we will lock down all our South African stores, we will be about R400m below forecast for sales and cash for the month,” said Pattison. The lockdown would mean the retailer stood to lose a further R800m of turnover, he said, which would result in a significant cash shortage by the end of next month and presented a threat of permanent closure. Pattison said the group would look to the government for business support as well as from other agencies and funders in a bid to keep trading when the lockdown ended. “The timing of the lockdown could not have been worse,” Pattison said. “We had, in normal circumstances, anticipated and planned for a tight month-end. The sales miss and the expected drop in collection of the debtors’ book means we only have sufficient liquidity to pay salaries, which we deem a priority during the extreme, uncertain times. As a result we are unable to honour any other accounts payable during this period.” Edcon underwent a strategic review of its business in February last year and was given a R2.7bn lifeline by the Public Investment Corporation, creditors and landlords. It has since offloaded some assets, includ-

ing Edgars Active, bought by Footgear, and CNA, sold to Astoria Investments last month. Edcon has also shrunk its store footprint as it aims to focus on positioning itself in regional malls rather than in every mall. Evan Robins, portfolio manager at MacroSolutions and Old Mutual Investment Group said. Edcon failed not because of Covid but because they’ve had long-term problems. “It has been on life support before. Everybody was wondering whether they would survive,” Robins said. Finding new tenants to replace Edgars in city malls would be less challenging than malls in outlying areas where they depend on Edgars as an anchor tenant, Robins said.

Timing of lockdown could not be worse Grant Pattison CEO of Edcon

“Often you think of an Edgars as a big box … it won’t be the easiest space to deal with, it might be expensive changing it” he said. In reference to suppliers, Pattison said: “For your own planning, it would be prudent for you to consider that orders already placed with you may be cancelled. I encourage you to work with the buyers and planners in this respect, and the DC [distribution centre] will remain closed, and that any future trade between us will be dependent on your assessment of our ability to pay for both arrears and future purchases, and orders and services.”

Call for Expression of Interest: Provision of Business Services to SMME’s and Cooperatives: Business Mentorship, Consulting, Post Business Support and Coaching The agencies of the Department of Small Business Development, Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa) seek to establish a shared National Database of Service Providers that will provide various support services to SMMEs and Co-operatives. The database aims to provide efficient business development and support services for SMMEs and Cooperative through the national network. This serves as an invitation to all competent and experienced service providers (professional firms, associations, retired, semi-retired, active business people, experienced business mentors and coaches) to register on a shared national database of service providers to provide mentorship, consulting, pre- and post-business support and coaching services to identified enterprises. The services will be offered with a view to facilitate growth of SMMEs and to build sustainable enterprises that will create jobs. The Call for Expressions of Interest is open to suitably qualified and experienced service providers with a minimum of five (5) years practical experience in their field of expertise. The database will serve as a repository of service providers with the capacity to support small businesses in the selected sectors:

• Renewable Energy (green economy) • Marine or Fishery • Engineering and Construction Services • Marketing Services • Import and Export Market • HR Services • Retail and Wholesale Services • Food and Franchise Specialist • Quantity Surveying and Project Management • Agricultural Development (crop and farming) • Agro-processing • Freight and Logistics (Transport) • Manufacturing

• Financial Management and Bookkeeping • Textile • Hotel Management and Food Services • Tourism and Leisure • Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals • Mining • ICT • Regulatory Compliance • Automotive Industry • Environmental Management: Recycling and Waste Management • Property Development and Property Valuations • Petrochemical and Fuel Stations Expertise

Interested Service Providers who wish to respond to the Call for Expression of Interest, are required to comply with the full criteria available via the listed link:

https://bit.ly/Call4ServiceProviders For more information on Seda and Sefa, visit: www.seda.org.za and www.sefa.org.za

Submission Deadline: Tuesday, 21 April 2020

Sunday Times MARCH 29 2020 money@arena.africa

Money

In Numbers

160

Are you entitled to refunds for travel bookings? By NEESA MOODLEY ● With the country in lockdown and all travel restricted, many people are scrambling to rearrange their holiday bookings. So, what recourse do you have if you need to change the accommodation booking for your trip? Consumer goods and services ombud Magauta Mphahlele notes that the declaration of a state of disaster and subsequent lockdown has forced both consumers and suppliers to cancel advance bookings and reservations due to the travel bans and restrictions on various types of gatherings. “It is common cause that, in most cases, none of the parties are at fault where a cancellation must be processed,” she says. What does the CPA say? According to the Consumer Protection

Act, the company supplying your accommodation may not impose a cancellation fee if you are unable to honour the booking due to either the death or hospitalisation of any person for whom the booking was made. Mphahlele points out that while many consumers have not been tested for the Covid-19 virus, the restrictions imposed by the president and the health department treat everyone as being “ill”, hence the restrictions. “As a result, it is our interpretation, based on the intentions … of the CPA, that consumers are entitled to full refunds when they cancel due to the travel bans and restrictions on gatherings.” Mphahlele says that under the CPA and taking the current circumstances into account, you should request a postponement

of your booking. She says this option is preferred to a full refund because a refund has an impact on the hotel, which is also not at fault. “We encourage suppliers to treat each case on its merits and develop incentives to encourage consumers to accept postponements where possible,” she advises. Lee Zama, CEO of hospitality body Fedhasa, says the organisation cannot dictate how individual companies such as bed-andbreakfasts deal with the situation but strongly advises that they are understanding of the current situation. “You can’t just enforce cancellation policies in light of the current situation and, in the end, it’s just going to lead to reputational damage for the supplier,” she says. Fedhasa advises that wherever possible, a

softer approach is used by the suppliers and that bookings are moved rather than cancelled. Zama confirms that booking cancellations are governed by the CPA and notes that Fedhasa is encouraging its members to show empathy and look beyond the coronavirus period. “We are encouraging international travellers to postpone their trips … some hospitality establishments are giving a 12-month postponement period. This goes a long way to ensure that the industry survives this pandemic,” she says. What happens to international accommodation bookings? Booking.com has a disclaimer on its landing page, notifying users that “due to the current situation related to the coronavirus, we

understand you may need to change your travel plans. Contact the property you booked to check if they can accommodate you. Also visit our help centre … to make changes to your booking.” However, Money reader Thulaganyo Mthombeni, who is trying to move her April booking for Amsterdam and Paris, had a different experience when she contacted booking.com. She received an e-mail informing her that because it was a partner booking, booking.com did not have access to her booking or her details. Booking.com advised her to directly contact the hotels in Amsterdam and Paris to try to waive the cancellation fees considering the recently announced travel bans. The Westcord Fashion Hotel in Amster-

The increase in the cost of electricity since 2010. Inflationary pressures like these require returns higher than money market funds deliver

● CONTACT For complaints that fall under the Consumer Protection Act, contact the consumer goods and services ombud. Tel: 0860-000-272 or 011-781-2607 E-mail: info@cgso.org.za

dam is refusing to move her booking or refund her because her booking is for late April. She has been advised to wait until the first week of April before any action is taken. “Emirates has been very gracious, and we can move our flight bookings out to June 30 at the latest, but we will have to reapply for our visas and there is no guarantee that they will be reissued. “I’m never going to use booking.com again. They even told me they have no customer service desk,” she says. Unfortunately, the CPA only applies within the South African jurisdiction and cannot be applied to international bookings.

Covid-proof your personal finances A range of measures may see you through this testing time By ANGELIQUE ARDÉ ● The coronavirus is as much a test of financial resilience as it is a test of immunity. People in the most adversely affected sectors of the economy have been or could be retrenched while others are facing a sudden drop in income. In the absence of emergency savings, what can you do to pandemic-proof your personal finances? Take a payment holiday For most of us, accommodation is our biggest monthly expense. A payment holiday — when a lender gives you a break from repayments on a credit agreement — could provide huge relief to anyone struggling. More than a week ago, Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders announced payment holidays of up to three months to help customers survive the coronavirus. The UK’s financial conduct authority followed by banning lenders from repossessing homes during the crisis. Although our regulator and banks haven’t yet made any such announcements to protect mortgage borrowers, it’s worth asking your bank for a payment holiday. You will typically be charged interest during a payment holiday, which will increase your interest repayments. Use it only if you need it. You may even be required to repay the interest part of your repayment — meaning, your relief is only from repaying the capital. If your home loan is fairly new, this means the relief will be small. Nedbank says it is offering its clients with any loan agreement “suitable individual solutions to cash-flow challenges”. This could include deferring payments in full or in part for a period, extending loan periods or extending additional credit to manage short-

Stay covered with insurance ● If money is tight, but you support family members, do everything you can not to let your life policy lapse. Although coronavirus deaths are low, they will be a reality for some. If you cannot pay your premiums, check how long your grace period is and try to meet the payment thereafter. If you are retrenched, check for premium waiver cover. As a last resort, you could also ask your assurer to reduce your cover and premiums while you are in financial difficulty. If you are self-employed and have income replacement cover, with cover for temporary disability and a short waiting period – especially if you are self-employed – you may be able to claim for days you cannot work. Suspending short-term insurance for your car, home or contents is also not a good idea, unless you enjoy a “pause” feature like that offered by Naked, which enables you to pause accident cover when you aren’t driving your car for a few days or weeks but continues cover for theft and fire. Find out from your insurer if they will pass on to you a reduction in premium owing to your car being off the road. MiWay has announced that it will automatically apply a 10% premium reduction to April debit orders on its personal lines and business insurance clients.

term cash flow shortfalls. The bank encourages clients to contact it to restructure debt or change payment arrangements if they are struggling. An Absa spokesperson says the bank is “looking at various possible scenarios and related actions that may become necessary”

and called on customers to approach the bank if necessary. Standard Bank announced a payment holiday for full-time students with student loans. This applies from April 1 to June 30, during which time the bank will not charge interest or fees. The payment holiday is automatic, so you need not apply for it. Asked if the bank would be offering such relief to mortgage borrowers, Standard Bank spokesperson Ross Linstrom says customers in financial distress should contact the bank as soon as possible for both parties to find a workable solution to address the issues. If you have vehicle finance, Wesbank says it is working with the Banking Association of South Africa which is engaging with the South African Reserve Bank and the government on “a variety of solutions aimed at supporting consumers and businesses, and will make further announcements on the nature of this support in the days ahead”. If you’re renting, be warned: rent is still due Michelle Dickens, MD of Tenant Profile Network (TPN) credit bureau, says a false document was distributed on social media this week claiming health minister Zweli Mkhize had barred landlords from collecting rent for the next 90 days. “This is fake news,” Dickens says. “Tenants are still bound by their rental agreement.” But if you’re having difficulty paying your rent due to the pandemic, TPN has developed a free “rental recovery pack” to help landlords and tenants negotiate. The pack is available online at shop.tpn.co.za and consists of a declaration of earnings, a deposit utilisation agreement, a deferment payment agreement and a lease extension agreement. In the declaration of earnings form you need to state on what grounds you are applying for relief from your landlord. It may be due to you being retrenched, placed on unpaid leave, being a commission-only earner or self-employed, Dickens says. The deposit utilisation agreement can be used if you and your landlord agree that your deposit will be used as rental, Dickens says. Once the state of disaster is lifted, you agree

Money saved now that you can’t go to restaurants can be channelled to paying off short-term debt. Picture: Gallo Images/ER Lombard

to reinstate your deposit by making payments in instalments until the lease ends. You can use the deferment of rent agreement if your landlord agrees to a payment holiday, Dickens says. Once the state of disaster is lifted, you agree to pay instalments for the loss your landlord suffered during the payment holiday. If you default on the agreement, it’s easy for the landlord to take legal action against you, she says. If your lease comes to an end at the end of the month or the next month, but you’re in self-isolation or in quarantine, use the lease extension agreement to enter into a monthto-month agreement on the same terms as the existing lease, Dickens says. She says TPN recommends that if tenants default and have a history of partial or nonpayment, landlords should continue with the collection process.

ing the lockdown, use it to repay expensive short-term debt, such as a credit card or store accounts. You may save money on transport costs. If you’re in the habit of dining out and spending on fast foods, you’ll save with restaurants and takeaways being closed for the present 21-day period. You may also be able to save by doing disciplined online shopping. Some gyms allow you to freeze or suspend your membership. Virgin Active charges you a non-refundable freeze fee to suspend your membership, which might be worth it if the whole family belongs to the gym and the fees are steep. Use these opportunities to redeploy that money to pay off short-term debt or start or replenish your emergency fund.

Get your house in order ● Pandemics remind us how vulnerable we are. Make sure your financial house is in order should you be taken ill or die. Check if your will is up to date and your family knows where to find it. If you are in lockdown with only people who will inherit from you, you will not be able to amend your will, because heirs cannot sign as witnesses, and still inherit, says Harry Joffe, head of legal at Discovery Life. Seek professional advice before doing any will amendments or new wills during this extraordinary time.

Pay off short-term debt If you are able to save money anywhere dur-

Get advice If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your financial situation, financial advice may help. Some independent financial advisers are re-

maining open for telephonic advice and at least one financial planning practice, Cape Town-based Crue Invest, is offering pro bono services during the state of disaster.

When this unwinds, it could have a very material impact on subsequent returns, particularly for investors who recently entered these parts of the market. On the other hand, the cheap stocks have become cheaper over the past few years, specifically large parts of the JSE and parts of the offshore market like the UK, Japan and emerging markets, Le Roux says. He says the US market has recently been on a price-to-earnings ratio of 30 times, which puts it firmly on track to deliver low returns in the future. The panic that is happening around the virus is a potential catalyst for the status quo to unwind, and quality businesses now trading at below what they are worth are instead offering “fertile ground for patient investors to extract long-term returns”, he says. Le Roux says he is not suggesting the

South African companies will not suffer profit declines, but companies that are resilient in the tough times ahead are now on incredibly low valuations and PSG believes starting valuations determine future returns. Karl Leinberger, chief information officer at Coronation, says investors’ large-scale moves into fixed-income funds is concerning because equities are better able to protect one from the low-road scenario many South Africans fear as they give currency and inflation protection. Leinberger says that Coronation believes the risks in the local fixed-income market are high as the credit cycle is “stretched”, with lots of credit at low interest rates, which does not make sense in a recessionary environment. Though Coronation supports healthy diversification and offshore assets have be-

come cheaper since the selloff, they were sold off from fully priced levels, so are not as cheap as many of the local shares, he says. As much as the news in SA is bad and Coronation is not bullish about the longterm future of the economy, starting valuations matter most and many South African stocks are stunningly cheap, he says. Five years ago, Coronation could only justify buying three of what it regards as the 12 best companies in SA (see list above). Today it owns shares in nine of these 12 great businesses because they are trading at fair or cheap prices and recent results show they are resilient in a very weak economy. “In tough times strong businesses get stronger and weak businesses get weaker. These businesses will in time prove good businesses for those prepared to invest,” Leinberger says.

Past winners’ days are over, managers say By LAURA DU PREEZ ● Three leading fund managers have warned investors about the dangers of chasing yesterday’s winners during presentations for a recent investment conference. The managers — from Coronation, Ninety One (previously Investec Asset Management) and PSG — warned that many South African investors had given up on poorly performing balanced funds in favour of cashlike investments or were taking money offshore where they were now vulnerable. The managers were addressing financial advisers through presentations made available online as part of the Investment Forum. Attendance at the event was cancelled by its organiser, the Collaborative Exchange, and sponsoring asset managers as the virus spread. Duane Cable, portfolio manager at Ninety One, says the manager does not believe it is prudent to be heavily invested in cash through the likes of money market funds given the opportunities arising in equities and bonds to outperform these funds over the next five years. Hiding in cash is very comfortable in this incredibly volatile time, but there are significant inflationary pressures from which cash will not protect you. The cost of electricity has increased al-

most 160% since 2010, health-care costs are up almost 140%, education costs have doubled and petrol is up almost 80%, he says. Pressure on these tariffs are likely to continue for the next five years. Over this period the average money market fund — a proxy for cash — would not have kept pace with these inflationary pressures (see graph alongside) and remaining in cash is likely to reduce your purchasing power over the medium term, Cable says. In addition, Cable says the South African Reserve Bank is cutting interest rates reducing interest on cash balances and diminishing the prospects of earning inflation-beating returns, he says. Shaun le Roux, portfolio manager at PSG, says these are challenging times for investors and given the poor returns they have enjoyed from local equities, it is no surprise that investors have favoured the winning asset classes of cash and offshore equities. But a lot of the money that has gone offshore has been invested in crowded parts of the market that people are comfortable to own, particularly very highly priced US equities, he says. The top five shares in the S&P500 now make up over 18% of the index – a higher concentration than there was during the Dotcom bubble of the early 2000s, Le Roux says.

The impact of this is that some stocks have reached valuations or prices relative to expected earnings that are very elevated. Le Roux says some investors are beginning to realise that some of the stocks they are investing in, particularly through passive investments, may not be as bulletproof as they thought. Another trend that could unwind is that for the past 12 years growth stocks (those with earnings rising faster than the average company) have outperformed value stocks (shares that are priced at less than the value of company) on a rolling three-year basis. In recent months that trend has accelerated, Le Roux says. A market that is increasingly configured to chase high and rising prices has given rise to very extreme valuations in parts of the market, Le Roux says.

BUSINESS TIMES â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 29 2020

In Numbers

Business Tribute

The age at which Sol Kerzner built his first hotel

Sunday Times

Bold, brash course of a 5-star tycoon Kerzner transformed an industry, building his â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sun Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; brand By CHRIS BARRON â&#x2014;? Sol Kerzner, who died in Cape Town last week at the age of 84, was a flamboyant, vulgar and mercurial hotel and casino tycoon who started SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two biggest hotel groups, Southern Sun and Sun International, which owned all but three of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s five-star hotels. He set the tone with a hotel he built at the age of 29 in the quiet fishing village of Umhlanga, near Durban, in 1964, against advice that he was spending too much on something that would never fly because the place was too isolated. He gave his crooked smile, spent even more and with his soon to be trademark swagger called it the Beverly Hills. It became SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first five-star hotel. In 1969 he started Southern Sun with the backing of South African Breweries. By 1983 it operated 30 luxury hotels with more than 7,000 rooms. In 1979 he created Sun City out of an unprepossessing piece of scrubland in the homeland of Bophuthatswana. When he outlined his concept, which included an artificial lake, a 6,000-seat superdome and the Palace of the Lost City, his executives and architects thought he was a megalomaniac, which, of course, he was. But he was also a cold-eyed pragmatist who knew how to do the maths. He sold the concept to Bop president Lucas Mangope, who was â&#x20AC;&#x153;blown awayâ&#x20AC;? and

Sol Kerzner in 1992 during construction of the Palace of the Lost City.

granted him exclusive casino rights and generous tax privileges. Soon Sun City was ranked with the Cape winelands and the Kruger National Park as one of SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top three tourist destinations. Along with hordes of South Africans starved of the porn, interracial sex and gambling they were denied at home, came international showbiz stars like Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey and Rod Stewart, denied the chance to perform in SA by the anti-apart-

heid boycott. Kerzner attained celebrity status thanks to a sycophantic press he charmed, bullied and bribed with generous freebies. Behind the adulatory â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sun Kingâ&#x20AC;? image he could be ruthless, vindictive and manipulative. Although he hated yes-men he screamed and swore at those who disagreed with him before quietly following their advice. He was autocratic and had no time for boardroom niceties. When the Lost City and Carousel required board approval he walked in and informed his directors the budgets would be R650m and R350m respectively. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Can I record it as approved?â&#x20AC;? No-one dared disagree. Meeting over. In fact the Lost City came to more than R1bn. In 1983 he went to Atlantic City, the second-largest gambling market in the US, to take on the household names of US gambling including Donald Trump, who joined with local anti-apartheid activists to have him thrown out. When this became less of an issue, a warrant of arrest against Kerzner for bribing Transkei leader George Matanzima denied him the casino licence he sought. In 1992 the government of the Bahamas, which had blocked him, was replaced and the new one gave him a licence. In 1994 he bought the then bankrupt Paradise Island resort. Only one of its previous four owners, Trump, had managed to make a profit out of it. Kerznerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Paradise Island Atlantis resort with a 5.6ha waterscape park, caves, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest outdoor open-water aquarium and a â&#x20AC;&#x153;predator lagoonâ&#x20AC;? with sharks and barracudas, put everything he or anyone else had done before in the shade. In 2010 he received an honorary knighthood from Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Queen Elizabeth after

Kerzner, seen here in 2009, was a global resort visionary who set up casinos in SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;homelandsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

being nominated by the Bahamas government as the largest employer in the islands. He expanded his Atlantis brand globally, including into Dubai and Morocco. In 1996 he opened the hugely successful Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, in the US, and followed it with a second phase four years later in a joint venture with the Mohegan people called Trading Cove Associates. TCA relinquished its management of the resort in 2002 but Kerzner, the first nonAmerican to be inducted into the US gambling hall of fame, received a 5% dividend on the gross revenue generated by the Mohegan Sun, one of the largest gambling and entertainment complexes in the US, until 2014. In 2002 he launched One&Only Resorts in Cape Town, the Bahamas, Mauritius and

the Maldives, among other places. His son Butch was killed in a helicopter crash while scouting for a One&Only site in the Dominican Republic in 2006. Kerzner, whose philosophy was â&#x20AC;&#x153;go big or go homeâ&#x20AC;?, had a genius for turning projects into money-spinners but was assisted by generous tax breaks and monopoly gambling rights. When Sun International SA lost its monopoly gambling privileges after the homelands were incorporated in SA, its share price more than halved in a year. By then he had sold out of SA and listed Sun International on the New York stock exchange where the share price rocketed. In 2014 he sold his interests in Kerzner International, which heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d started in 1994 after moving to London.

Kerzner, who wanted to be a mechanic but did a BCom honours at Wits university instead and became a chartered accountant, had an appetite for hard work. He slept four hours a night and drove his executives relentlessly â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a brain that processed numbers with electrifying speed and extraordinary negotiating skills. He surrounded himself with the best talent money could buy. Born in the tough working-class suburb of Troyeville in Johannesburg on August 23 1935, he said his drive came from his JewishRussian immigrant parents who worked seven days a week running a cafe in Johannesburg and a modest kosher hotel in Durban. His achievements were never about money, he said, but about â&#x20AC;&#x153;having some fun and being able to create thingsâ&#x20AC;?.

Life After Lockdown Ä&#x2020; #LifeAfterLockdown â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne â&#x20AC;&#x201D; bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.â&#x20AC;? - Karen Blixen

Ä&#x2020;

Sunday Times

29.1

March 29 2020 — BUSINESS TIMES

Business Book extract

In Numbers

The unemployment rate in SA in the fourth quarter

It’s not jobless growth we need

With one of the lowest levels of social mobility on earth, in SA the odds of changing your fate are small. Picture:123rf.com

International research shows time and time again that it is the smaller companies that create jobs. According to studies undertaken by Cannon Asset Managers over a 20-year period, the largest companies on the JSE created very few jobs while the smaller firms had a considerable multiplier effect on employment. The problem is that there are just too few of them. The government regularly pays lip service to the notion of people starting their

own businesses. Considering the bureaucratic red tape involved in getting a company registered, and a host of compliance and regulatory issues that demand attention, it’s a wonder small businesses ever start, never mind grow. The economist Xhanti Payi, who runs his own consultancy, Nascence Advisory, once told me: “Telling young people that the solution to their unemployment is to build their own business is nothing more than a

cruel hoax.” It’s a damning criticism of an economic system that lets young people down at every turn. Even considering that in healthy startup markets the vast majority of businesses will fail within five years, Payi’s criticisms appear well founded. ✼ ‘The Upside of Down’ is published by Pan Macmillan and is available as an e-book until stores reopen

uMLALAZI MUNICIPALITY PUBLIC NOTICE Dear Services Providers: Subsequent to the proclamation of National Disaster and eventually the 21 days National Lockdown on Coronavirus by the State President, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Municipality would like to officially withdraw the following tender: • Tender 38/19/20 - Disposal of Council Land for Industrial extension of eShowe.

INVITATION TO TENDER The Housing Development Agency (HDA) is a national public development agency that promotes the development of sustainable communities by making well-located land and buildings available for the development of housing and human settlements. For more information about the HDA, please visit our website www.thehda.co.za

The above tender will be re advertised once the lockdown period is over.

MR R.P. MNGUNI: MUNICIPAL MANAGER www.thecandocompany.co.za 48308KZN

NOTICE NO. 50/19/20 www.ayandambanga.co.za

proposals for:

CONTRACT NO. HDA/KZN/2019/004

APPOINTMENT OF A SERVICE PROVIDER FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE KWAZULU NATAL PROVINCIAL MULTI-YEAR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS DEVELOPMENT PLAN (MYHSDP) 2019-2024 The tender documents may be obtainable from HDA Website/National Treasury E-portal at no cost and delivery address of proposals is: The Housing Development

Notice for extension of closing date for tenders

Johannesburg

The Housing Development Agency (HDA) is a national public development agency that promotes the development of sustainable communities by making well-located land and buildings available for the development of housing and human settlements. For more information about the HDA, please visit our website www.thehda.co.za

NOTE: The HDA will not be responsible to oversee that proposals sent by courier are placed in the Bid /Tender box.

Due to the National State of Emergency announced by the Honourable President Cyril Ramaphosa on 23 March 2020, the HDA hereby wishes to extend the closing date of the following tenders.

Technical queries relating to the tender may be addressed to Mpho.Motumi@thehda. co.za or Tel: 031 335 7300 while SCM queries may be addressed to Mxolisi Zondo on 011 544-1000 or Mxolisi.Zondo@thehda.co.za

APPOINTMENT OF A SOCIAL FACILITATORS FOR ETHEKWINI SERVICES DELIVERY WAR ROOM (BID NO: HDA/KZN/2019/005)

APPOINTMENT OF A SERVICE PROVIDER FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF PROJECT PLANNING AND PIPELINE FOR MINING TOWNS IN THE MOGALAKWENA LOCAL MUNICIPALITY IN LIMPOPO (BID NO: HDA/LIM/2019/007)

The closing time and date for submission of contract no. HDA/KZN/2019/004 is 11:00 on 20 April 2020.Telegraphic, telephonic, telex, facsimile, e-mail and late proposal submissions will not be accepted.

APPOINTMENT OF A SERVICE PROVIDER FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGACY ASSETS STRATEGY IN THE MINING TOWNS (BID NO. HDA/JHB/2019/022)

APPOINTMENT OF A SERVICE PROVIDER FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE KWA-ZULU NATAL PROVINCIAL MULTIYEAR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS DEVELOPMENT PLAN (MYHSDP) 2019-2024 (BID NO. HDA/KZN/2019/004)

Tender documents may be downloaded from the HDA website from Monday 30th of March 2020.

The HDA reserves the right to accept or reject any variation, deviation, tender offer or alternative tender offer and may cancel the tender process and reject all tender offers at any time before the formation of a contract. The HDA will not incur any liability to a tenderer for such cancellation and rejection, but will give written reasons for such action upon request to do so.

The closing time and date for submission of tenders is 11:00 on 15 MAY 2020. Telegraphic, telephonic, telex, facsimile, e-mail and late proposal submissions will not be accepted. The HDA reserves the right to accept or reject any variation, deviation, tender offer or alternative tender offer and may cancel the tender process and reject all tender offers at any time before the formation of a contract. The HDA will not incur any liability to a tenderer for such cancellation and rejection but will give written reasons for such action upon request to do so.

WM230320201

he only way to truly tackle inequality is to generate economic growth, which creates jobs, brings more people into the working class, and helps established households migrate into the middle-income segment. There is no magic wand. But some politically unpalatable decisions do have to be taken that will allow skilled migrants into the country, control the immigration of unskilled people, and, horror of horrors, encourage the creation of small businesses by easing some of the policy restrictions to make life easier for start-ups to, well, start up. South Africa’s regulatory regime was designed for large corporations, but for small businesses of a certain size, say with turnovers of R10m, R20m or R50m, the requirements can be offputting. The upside of that complexity for incumbents is that it keeps competition out as it discourages rivals. That too creates an ever-larger chasm between those who have and those who do not. Unless South Africa can think fundamentally differently about its inequality crisis, it is condemning future

statement: “Perhaps the time has come to acknowledge that a South African developmental state for the twenty-first century must strongly position the private sector as a key partner to the state in the industrial transformation of our country.” Jardine might have been (metaphorically) burnt at the stake for such heresy five years ago, but there is now growing acceptance that the government cannot go it alone and needs help. The brutal reality is that you do not create economic opportunity in a vacuum. Jobs are the result of a productive environment in which smart people are incentivised to risk capital in order to grow enterprises that do create jobs. If the overall environment is not conducive to growth, jobs are impossible to create. “We need to stop obsessing or even fussing about ownership of companies,” says the economist Dr Adrian Saville, CEO of Cannon Asset Managers. “It doesn’t matter who owns a company. The only question is, does this company have the capacity to sustain itself to do something productive? What I mean by that is that it can be foreign owned, domestic owned, it can be publicly owned, it can be privately owned, it can be listed or unlisted. It could be part of a conglomerate, it could be a stand-alone, it could be family owned: ownership really doesn’t matter. The question that we have to put first is: is this a viable entity? And if it’s a viable entity, you now have the prospect of establishing employment inside that viable entity.”

WM250320201

This is an extract from Bruce Whitfield’s book The Upside of Down

generations to more of the same, with potentially disastrous consequences. South Africa’s economy is dominated by large corporates and conglomerates. Beyond a few notable exceptions, they don’t grow by creating jobs; they grow through productivity gains. Because these large companies have established a dominant position in a concentrated range of industries, they make it hard for anyone else to break in, and as a result we have a situation where there is jobless growth. South Africa has one of the lowest levels of social mobility on earth. If you are born poor and live in one of the country’s many sprawling townships, you are more than likely to die there in similar economic circumstances. In the same way, if you are born into privilege and play by the rules, you are likely to remain better off. The skewed ownership of assets as well as the skewed engagement of people in jobs means that your odds of changing your fate are small. Tragically, inspiring stories of young people who grew up in poor households and managed to rise to the upper echelons of business are rare. They exist, but they are not common. What can be done? Over the past decade the government has attempted to roll out the developmental state but it has failed lamentably. FirstRand chairman Roger Jardine, once the youngest director-general when he ran the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology in the Mandela years, wrote in his 2019 chairman’s

BUSINESS TIMES â&#x20AC;&#x201D; March 29 2020

In Numbers

2004

Business Newsmaker

The year in which Business Unity SA began operating

Rapport forged in corona response Business and the government explore a new level of trust By CHRIS BARRON â&#x2014;? Martin Kingston, the vice-president of Business Unity SA (Busa), says the relationship between business and the government in dealing with the coronavirus has been â&#x20AC;&#x153;refreshingly constructiveâ&#x20AC;?. Although business has been having â&#x20AC;&#x153;a much more constructive, co-operative and collaborativeâ&#x20AC;? relationship with the government in the past two years, it has changed fundamentally since the crisis began, he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not even a step change, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much more fundamental than that.â&#x20AC;? He says a â&#x20AC;&#x153;different type of dialogueâ&#x20AC;? is emerging, which needs to be built on. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean there shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be differences in ideology, opinion and thought, but I think the trust levels will have been radically increased as a consequence of this experience.â&#x20AC;? A new spirit of solidarity between business, the government, opposition parties and the ANC is essential if the country is to minimise the â&#x20AC;&#x153;potentially catastrophic ramificationsâ&#x20AC;? of Covid-19, he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The only way we can do that is if we work together in a manner that is very differ-

ent than before.â&#x20AC;? Kingston says he believes the economic impact of the crisis will force SA to reassess its priorities as a country â&#x20AC;&#x153;quite starklyâ&#x20AC;?. Bonds that are being formed between business and the government must endure. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re seeing a level of alignment and solidarity which is unprecedented since 1994. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Not that there arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stresses and strains, but the higher goal is absolutely at the forefront of everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No 1 priority is how do we minimise the impact on the health of our citizenry with a state that is fundamentally under-capacitated? It was under-capacitated before, let alone now. We have to reinforce its capacity in any shape, size or form we can. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Second, how do we mitigate the economic circumstances, which were looking

This will hopefully demonstrate that we have to have common cause rather than come with very different â&#x20AC;Ś competing agendas

increasingly bleak before this crisis? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Third, how can we as a society create a different type of engagement between ourselves to address challenges we had historically and that will be visited on us as a consequence of this virus? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We as a society have no choice but to coalesce around these priorities. And if we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take that experience through to a postcoronavirus environment, it will be a tragedy.â&#x20AC;? The consequences of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;lost yearsâ&#x20AC;? will â&#x20AC;&#x153;magnify and exacerbateâ&#x20AC;? the impact of Covid-19. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the capacity of the state, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the critical infrastructure, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have an alignment of outlook and philosophy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d had a different approach weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have a more vibrant economy, higher levels of growth, lower levels of unemployment and inequality. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crying over spilt milk, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important that we take on the lessons.â&#x20AC;? Business needs to be more â&#x20AC;&#x153;acutely sensitiveâ&#x20AC;? to the pressures on the government. Labour needs to demonstrate â&#x20AC;&#x153;much higher levels of flexibilityâ&#x20AC;?. And the government needs to appreciate the devastating consequences â&#x20AC;&#x153;if we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a competent and capable stateâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This experience will hopefully demonstrate that we have to have common cause rather than come with very different, contradictory and sometimes competing agendas.â&#x20AC;? Kingston, who in addition to his role at Busa is the executive chair of Rothschild SA, blames business for its â&#x20AC;&#x153;begrudging, less-

TENDER NO: RFB/MW/191/2019-20: PROVISION OF MATHIBESTAD RDP WATER RECTICULATION AND YARD CONNECTIONS CLOSING DATE: 11 MAY 2020 @12:00

The above-mentioned tender closing date has been extended from the 24 April 2020 to 11 May 2020, the extension is only for bidders who attended the compulsory tender briefing meeting held on the 24 of March 2020.

TENDER NO: RFB/MW/193/2019-20: SUPPLY, INSTALLATION AND COMMISSIONING OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS AT BRITS AND VAALKOP WTP VAALKOP WTP COMPULSORY BRIEFING DATE: RESCHEDULED FROM THE 27 March 2020 TO 21 April 2020 due to nationwide lock down. CLOSING DATE: 04 MAY 2020 @12:00

The above-mentioned tender closing date has been extended from the 15 April 2020 to 04 May 2020, the extension is only for bidders who attended the compulsory tender briefing meeting held on the 25 of March 2020 @ Magalies Water Brits Lab.

INVITATION TO BID: ERRATUM Â˝ relating to the below tenders are hereby cancelled. The cidb is fully supportive of the Governments endeavours to curb the Corona virus. Bid No

RFB60074

Bid Description

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR THE LEASE OF SUITABLE OFFICE ACCOMMODATION FOR THE CIDB PROVINCIAL OFFICE IN FREE STATE FOR A PERIOD OF 3 YEARS WITH AN OPTION TO RENEW