DARE WHEN OTHERS DON’T
BEAT THE BEAST THAT FEEDS ON AFRICA’S DIVISION PAGE 11
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Members of the SANDF on patrol in the streets of Alexandra in 2021. Photo by Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images
WARNING: SANDF STRETCHED TOO THIN By Staff Reporters
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outh Africa’s military capacity has suffered serious injuries as a result of the country’s misfiring economy. The Constitution, on Section 200(2), decrees that the mandate of the military is to defend and protect the country, its territorial integrity and its people, in accordance with the Constitution and the principles of international law. This compels the Department of Defence to provide, manage, prepare and employ defence capabilities proportionate with the needs of South Africa as regulated by the Constitution, national legislation, parliamentary and executive direction.
This must be provided through proper management, provision, preparedness and employment of defence capabilities, which are in line with the domestic and global needs of South Africa. With South Africa’s economy misfiring from all cylinders, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is unable to fulfil the aforementioned constitutional mandate. There is a crisis. Defence and Military Veterans Minister Thandi Modise made a chilling warning during her departmental budget vote speech. She said the worsening performance of the country’s economy has placed considerable pressure on the government and households. This, she said, was making it difficult for
government to adequately meet all competing needs. The army is spread way too thin and this means there is fertile ground for more instability in the country. She said there was no doubt there is a widening dichotomy between what the SANDF is expected to achieve, and the resources provided to fulfil those expectations. "It is becoming difficult to adequately meet all competing needs. This is fertile ground for instability. The historical downward trend in the defence allocation has not abated. It is likely to continue to the detriment of the SANDF and the demise of the defence industry,” she said. In the week that Modise warned Parliament on these dire military constraints, the African Union held
a summit of heads of state on terrorism and unconstitutional changes of government in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. This as terror attacks are on the rise in the African continent. Two months ago, the 2022 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) revealed that there was an increase in terror attacks in Africa. The Index highlights that terrorism remains a serious threat, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 48% of total global deaths from terrorism. Four of the 10 countries with the largest increases in deaths from terrorism were also in sub-Saharan Africa: Niger, Mali, the DRC and Burkina Faso. Closer to home, in Cabo Delgardo in neighbouring Mozambique, terror attacks spiked in recent weeks ahead
of Modise’s spine-chilling warning to the nation about its failing military capacity. Modise told Parliament that the SANDF may soon be unable to assist in peace-keeping missions because these deployments put it under great pressure. Also, it was often not reimbursed and that supplies of crucial equipment were critically low. "Defence planning has become primarily a budget-driven affair as opposed to a mandate-driven one. This means that our ability to deliver on our constitutional mandate ultimately compromises the successful conducting of military strategic missions in a sustainable manner,” Modise said.
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Story Continues from Page 1 The minister said that given continued budget cuts, there was a widening gap between what the SANDF was expected to achieve and the resources it was provided with to do its job. The army is hard-pressed to respond to critical events due to a severe shortage of resources, she said. “Our inability to maintain, repair and overhaul our ageing fleets of combat equipment simply adds to our already dire block: the obsolescence of our prime mission equipment. The SANDF is being spread so thin.” Southern African leaders want a more permanent military deployment to Mozambique's insurgen-
cy-hit Cabo Delgado region instead of renewing the mandate of armed forces every three months. South Africa has already poured billions of rands into the mission since July last year amid a surge of terror attacks. Modise also warned that army may not be able, in some instances, to assist in future catastrophes that may hit the country. "We wish to inform this house that the SANDF will be hard-pressed to respond to critical events in other provinces should the need arise. I state this with a heavy heart - we are willing, but lack resources," Modise said. Defence force members have been deployed to help police during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the Vaal River clean-up and with health ser-
vices in the North West. They are still involved in providing relief in flood-stricken KwaZulu-Natal. The minister said the defence force will need to reprioritise and replan. “The decline in defence capabilities forces us to look at prioritising all activities for better efficiency in the quest to achieve our constitutional mandate. “We must apply the principles of minimising, prioritising, right-sizing and optimising to all aspects of the defence organisation. "To this end, I require the Secretary for Defence and the Chief of the National Defence Force to review the budget allocation to all budget holders and reassign funding against priorities identified, including a zero-based budgeting system,
if so required,” she said. Modise maintained that they will continue the reduction of personnel to the compensation for employees ceiling allocated, as well as the sustained rejuvenation of the personnel compliment. She said the army will also conduct cost-saving interventions to achieve value, especially in the procurement system. “The National Defence Force is highly dependent on a healthy and sovereign indigenous local defence industry. One cannot ignore the desperate plight of the defence and the defence-related Industry. "This Sector has historically delivered an excellent return on government investment, is currently not only a mainstream industrial manufacturing and development
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role-player, but is also key to the sovereignty of South Africa and the deep-level support required by the National Defence Force,” said Modise. The minister also announced that the defence force was finalising pension payout for military veterans outstanding since 2011. “During this current financial year, 2022/2023, we intend rolling out what is an important benefit which will alleviate the plight of the military veterans. This is the military veterans’ pension as stipulated in the Military Veterans’ Act of 2011,” she said. “We are finalising the administrative rollout and will later announce the commencement date as well as the military veterans’ pension quantum soon.”
TERRORISM, THE BANE OF AFRICA’S EXISTENCE
African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat. Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
CONTACT US Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida and Da’esh, and their affiliates, have intensified their attacks across the continent. Photo by issafrica.org
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n 28 May, the African Union held its 16th Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Wonie Bio, who is also the chairperson of the African Peer Review Forum of Heads of State and Government led discussions on “Unconstitutional Changes of Government - Consolidated Actions to Strengthen Constitutionalism and Democracy”. The Summit adopted the Malabo Declaration and Decisions on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Changes of Government. The Assembly reaffirmed that the African Peer Review Mechanism is a diagnostic tool for early warning for conflict prevention on the continent. The Assembly also directed the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the African Governance Architecture (AGA) Platform to remodel the Third Africa Governance Report 2023 (AGR 23) to reflect issues related to unconstitutional changes of government on the continent. African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat told the summit that terrorism increased on the continent from 2011, with the Libyan crisis. This, he said, opened the way for the arrival of foreign mercenaries in the Sahel and an influx of terrorist
organisations defeated in the Middle East. “Terrorism has since spread to other parts of the continent. From Libya to Mozambique, Mali, the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, Somalia, the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin and eastern DRC, the terrorist contagion continues to grow,” he said. He also said Africa did not wait to react. He said the African Union established joint forces to fight terrorism, such as AMISOM/ATMIS in Somalia, the Joint Multinational Force in the Lake Chad Basin, the G5 Sahel Joint Force, the SADC mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) and bilateral initiatives in Mozambique. “The Union also reactivated legal instruments to combat terrorism, such as the Plan of Action on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism adopted in 2002, the operational framework of the OAU Convention on Combating Terrorism adopted in 1999 and its Protocol adopted in 2004, the Joburg Declaration on the initiative to silence the guns, and the AU Roadmap on Practical Measures to Silence the Guns in Africa by 2030,” said Faki. He pointed out that in spite of these initiatives, terrorism has continued to flourish, due to a lack of inter-African solidarity with the countries fighting terrorism, and “because we do not honour our own commitments”. He gave the example of the African Standby Force that has not yet become operational since its inception and added that provision of the necessary means to existing
armies, among others, would mean Africa would not depend on foreign forces to fight terrorism. He also observed double standards that are applied by the international community in confronting challenges of terrorism in Africa vis-a-vis other parts of the world. Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism said terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida and Da’esh, and their affiliates, have intensified their attacks across the continent, promoting chaos, killing innocent civilians, exacerbating intercommunal tensions, contributing to humanitarian catastrophes, undermining state authority and upending development. “In West Africa and the Sahel, they continue to exploit limited governing capacities, socio-economic fragilities and local grievances. "This challenge is further compounded by the intricate relationships between terrorists, armed groups and criminal networks and the political upheaval caused by the recent wave of coups d'état,” Voronkov said. Alex Vines Obe and Jon Wallace writing for Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent policy institute based in London, have warned that the fight against terrorism in Africa was a complex one. They say the term ‘terrorism’ is problematic in Africa because “on many occasions it is the right description for obscene acts of violence perpetrated against civilians, such as the June 2021 attack in
Burkina Faso. But it is also true that, throughout the 20th century, weak, corrupt and colonial regimes branded opponents ‘terrorists’ as a way to delegitimise their objectives. Thy say the term is often applied by western policymakers in an attempt to impose order on fluid, highly-factionalised situations. “This habit can create problems as designating insurgent groups as ‘terrorists’ makes it harder for governments to de-escalate conflict and negotiate peaceful settlements with insurgent groups. “There are no easy, universal reasons for the roots of terror in Africa, the world’s second largest and most populous continent. The causes of violence against civilians in one African nation differ greatly from another – just as in Europe the UK’s history of sectarian and religious violence is different to that of Serbia’s,” they said. Last year, in its forecast of 2022, the Peace and Security Council Report, which analyses developments and decisions at the African Union Peace and Security Council, warned that terrorist acts were likely to be on the rise in Africa this year. “Amid ongoing war and political strife, urgent action is needed to avoid disaster in Africa’s worst-affected countries. “In 2022, Africa will also continue to face the threat of violent extremism and terrorism in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin regions, East Africa and the Horn, and Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado. The menace will also hover over the coastal countries of West Africa,” the report stated.
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news: VBS LIQUIDATORS GUN FOR VENDA KING The liquidators of VBS Mutual Bank applied for a writ of execution at the Johannesburg High Court last month to recoup more than R10 million allegedly owned by a family trust whose sole trustees are Venda King Toni Mphephu Ramabulana and Portia Mphephu.
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PASTOR LUKAU’S R50M RENTAL
SCANDAL
PAY UP Alleluia Ministries International in Kramerville, Sandton. The church defended pastor Alph Lukau (inset) after he performed the so-called miracle resurrection of Elliot Moyo in 2019 PHOTO: LUBA LESOLLE / GALLO IMAGES
Companies linked to the controversial megachurch preacher evade debt collection as he and his business associates are said to be in Portugal
Houses submerged in Georgdale near Hammarsdale after the heavy rains. Photo by Mandla Langa/ www.dailymaverick.co.za MDUDUZI were NONYANE
“The guard, who refused to provide me with his name, did not allow me access but told me to wait. He disappeared into the guard hut on the property and spoke to this supervisor, who came out to speak to me. “After explaining the purpose of my visit and the documentation that I had with me, the supervisor also refused to provide me access. “Similarly, he refused to provide me with his name. I could see that he had been speaking to someone over his cellular phone from time to time ... After seeing the letters attached to the gate, the supervisor said that I should come [back] the next day,” they say. Lukau shot to fame over the past two years by performing so-called miracles during his church services, including when he publicly “resurrected” a man. Lukau claimed that the man, Elliot Moyo, had died and the latter’s body was brought to the pastor by his family a few days later. The incident angered some within the religious community, who called for Lukau to be investigated by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rightswithin of Cultural, and Linguistic Communities theReligious community development after a video of his purported resurrection of Moyo went sector in Durban and the broader viral. KZN region for 10 years, said the It also emerged in 2019 that Lukau’s church members climate alsotoaffects the health regarded him as crisis being similar Jesus, proclaiming that and education oftoSouth African girls’ he was crucified for helping heal others. Thehealth applicant’s lawyer, Andrew Scarrott of AB Scarrott and education. Attorneys, declined to change comment. has caused major “Climate “I have receivedin your enquiry, [but]environment, I have no changes the global instructions to make any comment at this time,” he said. which has increased the vulneraEfforts to source comment from Lukau and the bility ofunsuccessful. the ecosystem and human companies were
T CLIMATE CRISIS: RURAL COMMUNITIES, mduduzi.nonyane@citypress.co.za
echnology distribution and warehousing giant Tarsus Shared Services is battling to recover a R50 million deficit allegedly owed by controversial pastor Alph Lukau and several of his business associates. The matter relates to a cancelled lease evicted from the premises early securities and/or members’ and agreement pertaining to the premises of Alleluia last year because it could no directors’ registers follows multiple Ministries International in Sandton, Johannesburg. longer meet the R1 million monthly requests for access, and is such a The company lodged a court application this week at rental fee. clear interference with an the Johannesburg High Court, flagging three companies The company instituted, among unconditional statutory right. The linked to Lukau for failing to declare their company other things, arbitration applicant requests that a punitive security registers in their arbitration process as proceedings in which it claimed: cost award be made against each of prescribed by the Companies Act, citing that the . Arrear rentals and charges up the respondents.” information sought would enable it to track the intricate ACCORDING TO ARBITRATION to the date it cancelled the The applicants say this refusal has web of companies that operate the church in South DOCUMENTS, TARSUS SHARED sublease; put a strain on the arbitration Africa and throughout Africa. SERVICES HAS BEEN TRYING . Damages for the period the process, further delaying the The court papers also indicate that attempts to serve TO RECOVER THE DEBT defendant was in occupation after recovery of debts. Lukau and a close business partner, identified as John SINCE MARCH 2018, LEADING the cancellation; They further highlighted that their Ferguson, with a summons have failed, as they have Rural communities TO THE PERIOD . Future loss of rentals and legal representative visited Lukau’s allegedly taken up residence in Portugal and refuse to disproportionately affected WHEN THE CHURCH WAS charges calculated from the date known place of business in June, accept service through legal counsel. Simane said people who live in EVICTED FROM THE PREMISES the defendant ceased to occupy but the representative was denied They emphasise that “the appellant requires the the weekend of the 21 rural areas are often EARLY LAST YEAR, the hardest the premises as a churchhit until the entry. information inver the registers in order to unravel AFTER WHICH IT COULD NO May,Lukau the and South African when disasters like floods expiry date ofoccur. the sublease; and “The premises has access control relationship between Ferguson, and the LONGER MEET THE R1 MILLION Restoration of the rely premises. and requires a security guard to respondents [King Vision Holdings, Alph Lukau Group Weather Service issued “A lot of families. in rural areas MONTHLY RENTAL FEE The proceedings also the reveal that allow access. I spoke to the security and Al Resident to recover the debts due by on subsistence farming. a Holdings] level 10 weather warnWhen church leaders, including Lukau, guard on duty and asked that I be Lukau and Ferguson”. ing for disruptive rainfall in Kwa- floods wash away their small veghave blatantly refused to grant the applicants access to allowed into the property in order to deliver the request According to its arbitration documents, Tarsus Shared Zulu–Natal. This came less than etables and corninformation plantations while pertaining to company directors. to the respondents to inspect the securities and/or Services has been trying to recover the debt since March two months after the province killing their livestock, they remain “As the refusal to allow access to the respondents’ member registers of the respondents. 2018, relating to the period when the church was
R1M HARDEST HIT WOMEN AND GIRLS
By Faith Mutizira
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faced major floods that destroyed destitute.” societies based on their socio-ecohomes and claimed over 440 lives. nomic status, demographics, and He said it was concerning that The province is still recovering rural communities are not connected other environmental factors,” said from the impact of the devas- to early warning systems. Mkhaba tating floods and communities She also said this has been experi“Many had no idea just how severe are faced with many challenges, the floods would be because the state enced against a background of other going forward. global changes, such as population has failed to develop adequate early According growth, land use changes, and the warning mechanisms to warn rural attach Segapo’s assets after the designer allegedly JULIA MADIBOGO to the World Health BUSINESS Organisation (WHO), climate-sen- people about impending catastrodepletion of natural resources, which IS SLOW moved out of his place of business. julia.madibogo@citypress.co.za Fashion Segapo, who has styled celebrities including Idols SA sitive health risks are dispropor- phes”. have implications for health. Businesspersonfelt Kabelo accused celebrity producerlevels and host ProVerb, award-winning musician tionately byNcholo the has most vulner“Adverse effects are likely to be of inequality and poverty determine howdesigner different Though the province, NGOs, and When flood disasters occur, Paledi fashion designer Paledi Segapo of reneging on a Prince Kaybee, veteran actor Warren Masemola and US able and disadvantaged, including country are focusing directed towards the poor population on ways to concommunities are affected by these disasters. Photo by GCIS IN THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT, WHICH Segapo says repayment arrangement the pair entered into out of singer Tevin Campbell, was hired by Ncholo in 2018 to women, children, ethnic minorithat already experiences inequalities tinuously assist those who have been CITY PRESS HAS SEEN AND WHICH IS DATED his business court after the latter allegedly failed to deliver the design attire for his wedding, which was scheduled to NOVEMBER THE SEASONED DESIGNER ties, poor communities, migrants in the home and the community. affected by the KZN floods,2020, Simane has been wedding-related items that Ncholo had ordered and take place in 2019 at Sun City, North West. PAYonly BACK ABOUT R300 000 TO or persons, older popu- warns that these AGREED Women are said to be disproportionevents TO will affected by paiddisplaced for. The wedding did not take place that year and Ncholo NCHOLO BY THE OF NOVEMBER weobtaining produce using ately vulnerable to climate change Covid-19 Ncholo dragged to the Johannesburg High got married in November year after the food locally lations, andSegapo those with underlyGroup states that South Africa lastUnless increase in frequency and severity. END Bank PHOTO: OUPA Court health in an effortconditions. to recoup payments he made to the services of countries other designers. agroecology that follows natureing and like any other natural disaster “It is hard to say when or how is one of the most unequal BOPAPE/ seasoned designer agreed to pay back about R300 000 Palse fashion label owner while preparing for his According to Ncholo, the popular designer was also based solutions that farm with nature Charles Simane, p o l i c y the poor will recover from the KZN in the world. will threaten to increase the inequalGALLO IMAGES to Ncholo by the end of November. wedding. set to arrange a team that was meant to include a without agrochemical inputs then we researcher and organiser at the “Inequality determines the rate of ities,” said Mkhaba. floods because the climate crisis is “The defendant shall pay the plaintiff an amount of Segapo was scheduled to appear at the Randburg wedding planner, a photographer, a hair and make-up will see the hunger crisis worsen,” Co-operative and Policy Alterrecovery. Those with resources like Mkhaba stated that low eduonly getting worse. It’s hard to say R297 000 in a full and final settlement of the dispute, Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday on a separate criminal artist, and a booking for a segment in the lifestyle he said. native Centre Climate Jus- they will recover[aninoffer] insurance, investments, and savings cational performance affects the 10 which years 15 accepts theor plaintiff on the terms and charge of fraud for the and same transaction. television programme Top Billing. Climate Justice Charter Move- resources available to girls, the type tice Movement (CJCM) willtherecover way better than his families in just 7 years conditions contained herein,” reads settlement. That Charter matter was not placed on the roll, however, duewhen knowing that To secure services, SegapoThe reportedly requested a The conditions were that Segapo had to make the to the out-of-court settlement agreement that the pair R150 000 deposit of the R300 000 he had charged the ment (CJCM) is currently submitting of jobs that girls can occupy and member, said the climate crisis we will be living in a world of 1.5° whose sole source of income is a first payment of R118 500 by the end of March, and the reached. businessperson for his suit, his bride’s gown and attire comments on the Climate Change access in adulthood, and even the has a devastating impact on food increase in climate temperatures”. government grant,” said Simane other payments were to be made in R20 000 monthly National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Phindi for the entire bridal party. Bill. systems. Simane believes that the climate enjoyment of economic rights. instalments until the end of November. due to Covid-19 – not so that he could avoid making Mjonondwane confirmed that the matter was “not However, Segapo allegedly only created outfits for the “We need to put the entire country “We are seeing ecosystems colcrisis is the greatest threat to our food “Girls dropping out of school Inequality determines Segapo was also asked to pay Ncholo’s R30 000 legal payment to Ncholo. placed on the roll, pending consultation with the bride and the bridesmaids. climate emergency footing”. lapse, crops fail due to severe rate of recovery cannot early are more likely to experience costs on or before December 31 systems this year. and if communities “Why would I discontinue my businesses while I complainant”. The settlement letter stateson thatafailure by the weather, swarms, either due todesigner availabilhealth, have children early When flood disasters occur, levHowever, says Ncholo, Segapoaccess has only food paid R85 000 have poor to [conduct] business? I am not the first person to Ncholo first frequent opened a civillocust case against Segapo in seasoned to pay what is due to Ncholo per Climate crisis and devastating floods. It case is makand is expected to pay ity R45 000 by the end of their store at the moment because are going April 2019 and then opened a criminal of fraud els of inequality thus the settlement agreement will trigger pursuit of a leaves women, close and or affordability then their health more children over we time, and andfarpoverty deterthis communities month or Ncholo will to obtain a judgment through a difficult time.adulthood. This makes in August the same year to pushworse the latterand to pay mine how different girls more vulnerable ing theof hunger crisis suffers. civil case. earn less in aremoveinevitably against him. “What they are doing makingthey me look likelive I am in a him back. Yesterday, Segapo said he couldn’t comment as the Nomfundo Mkhaba, an Afriwe are beginning to see climate affected by these disasters. A 2020 “We need to transform our food it more likelyisthat will But the businessperson says he is scared that, even if thug on the run when the truth is that I could not In the settlement agreement, which City Press has matter was sub judice. can-centred feminist who has worked famines emerging,” said Simane. sovereignty. poverty.” – Health-e News Poverty and Equity Brief by the World systems through food he obtains a judgment, there might be no way to afford to pay rent,” he said. seen and which is dated November 2020, the However, he said his store in Newtown was closed
TOP FASHION GURU MUST PAY BACK THE MONEY
R300 000
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Residents in Hebron and Itireleng say they have lost faith in the local police. Some of their complaints include slow response times to crime and unresolved cases. File Photo by issafrica.org
POLICE ARE OVERSTRETCHED AND UNDERSTAFFED IN THE NORTH WEST “Those responsible for the community’s safety have failed us” says resident By David Webster ● Residents in Hebron and Itireleng in the North West say they have lost faith in their local police. ● Some of their complaints include slow response times to crime, unresolved cases and poor police visibility in communities. ● A warrant officer at the station told GroundUp that they are understaffed and don’t have sufficient resources to cover a large populated community. ● Provincial police said they are looking at assessing residents’ complaints.
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low response to crime, unresolved cases and poor police visibility are just a few of the complaints raised by residents against officers at the Hebron Police Station in the North West. “We are on our own,” says Hebron resident, Chris Bongani. “There’s a shortage of patrols. Those responsible for the community’s safety have failed us because when you call the police, they either don’t come or take ages to attend to a reported crime,” said Bongani. The Hebron Police Station was launched in November 2011, by then police minister Nathi Mthethwa. It serves a population of over eight rural communities. In 2011, StatsSA reported that Hebron had a population of over 34,000 people. But the community has grown rapidly over the last decade. This station was also expected to address the growing backlog of cases in the province. During a recent incident on 7 May, a resident was assaulted and his car stolen from his home. The police were phoned at 9pm, but only arrived at 4am. A warrant officer at the station, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they are overstretched with
limited staff and resources. He said they only had two police vans per shift. “Sometimes, the community doesn’t understand the pressure we are working under. The current staff we have is not adequate to cover such a huge population,” said the officer. “We cannot cope, to be honest. This area has grown so much since 2011, yet we still have the same number of officers as when we started.” Another resident who asked not to be named said, “I have given up on the police. Just last year, a boy broke into someone’s shack. The police took him but the next day he was roaming the streets until we, as a community, chased him out of Itireleng.” In an attempt to combat crime on their own, Itireleng residents have started their own policing forum, but say that it is ineffective without adequate police visibility. North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone said they were still in talks with different agencies and groups to understand the problems plaguing the Hebron station. – groundup.org.za
Hebron police station only has two police vans per shift. Photo by Henk Kruger/ African News Agency (ANA)
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Social housing is to be built on the Salt River Market site. Photo by Ashraf Hendricks
CITY OF CAPE TOWN IS NOT TACKLING HOUSING CRISIS WITH URGENCY, SAY ACTIVISTS ● Only one of 11 social housing projects announced five years ago in Cape Town has been completed. ● Activist organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi says the City of Cape Town is not addressing the housing crisis with enough urgency. ● But Mayco Member for Human Settlements Malusi Booi says social housing is complex and takes time to build. By Liezl Human
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he City of Cape Town is not addressing the housing crisis with enough urgency, says activist organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi, with only one out of 11 planned affordable housing projects announced five years ago complete. Ndifuna Ukwazi researcher Robyn Park-Ross says by the City’s own admission in its latest Municipal Spatial Development Framework, it will take more than 70 years to eradicate Cape Town’s current housing backlog. Of 11 affordable housing projects announced in 2017 in Woodstock, Salt River, and the city centre, only one - the Pickwick Transitional Housing project - has been completed and is occupied. The other sites are located in Pine Road, Dillon Lane, Salt River Market, James Street, New Market Street, Fruit and Veg, Upper Canterbury Street, and two sites at the Cissie Gool House (the former Woodstock Hospital and the hospital park). Park-Ross said that there is a growing and urgent need for affordable homes to be built in well-located areas in the city. Park-Ross quoted from the City’s
Malusi Booi says building social housing is complicated. Photo by Ayanda Ndamane/ African News Agency Integrated Human Settlements Sector Plan that an estimated 53% of new dwellings each year between 2020 and 2040 will be informal settlements. “This is a direct reflection
of the growing need for affordable homes,” she said. She said the need for houses had been drastically increased by the Covid pandemic. “Many people
have lost work and incomes, pushing many into an impossible choice between living on the street or occupying land.” Park-Ross also raised concerns about an increase in evictions now that the National State of Disaster has ended. Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City protested outside the Cape Town convention centre during the City’s Affordable Housing Indaba in early April, demanding that the moratorium on evictions be extended until the City could find a solution to homelessness. Building social housing is complicated and it can take a long time, said Malusi Booi, the City’s Mayco Member for Human Settlements. “Social housing is an immensely complex housing model and done in a heavy statutory environment. Unfortunately, this takes time,” he said. Legislative processes including land rezoning, public asset transfer, feasibility studies, partnership agreements, and lengthy public participation processes were necessary. Booi said that social housing developments at Cissie Gool House (the former Woodstock hospital) and Helen Bowden Nurses’ Home had been stalled for nearly four years due to two "hijackings" by Ndifuna
Ukwazi soon after it was announced that the sites would be used for affordable housing. Booi said that between 1996 and 2016, Cape Town’s population had increased by 56% to more than 4.3 million. Over the same period, the number of households had increased to about 1.36 million. To meet the current housing demand and also accommodate projected growth, about 500,000 houses needed to be created between now and 2028, he said. The City currently has 6,500 social housing units planned across 50 land parcels, and the budget for housing opportunities is about R2 billion a year. The City said the Pine Road and Dillion Lane projects had been awarded to a social housing institution for development. The Salt River Market project had received rezoning approval and the City Council had approved the release of the land. The site in Upper Canterbury Street needed the de-proclamation of the road, and at the projects in James Street, Pickwick Road, Newmarket Street and Fruit and Veg City “development packaging” — preparing the project to meet all relevant national, provincial and municipal requirements — was underway. – groundup.org.za
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Ynitu wants improved working conditions and protect their profession as well as hospitals and clinics for the benefit of society. Photo by Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union / Facebook
WE ARE NOT DISPOSABLE, SAY HEALTHCARE WORKERS By Thabo Molelekwa
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he government’s austerity measures in the health sector will destroy lives, says the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (Ynitu). The union, which represents nurses and healthcare support staff in the public and private sectors, intervened to ensure that the government renewed some of the contracts of healthcare workers who performed a vital service in Gauteng during the Covid-19 pandemic. General secretary Lerato Mthunzi said Ynitu is demanding “an end to the austerity measures which are crippling our healthcare system and worsening conditions for the working class and the poor who depend on these services … The government’s senseless decision to implement cutbacks during a pandemic is choking our healthcare system.” “Under no circumstances will Ynitu allow the Department of Health to use and then discard healthcare workers. We are not syringes; we don’t belong in sluice rooms.” The Gauteng Department of Health renewed about 6 000 workers’ contracts after Ynitu intervened, but 2 500 are still without jobs. These are workers who were placed at district hospitals and clinics. Only tertiary and central hospital workers have got their jobs back. Lebo Negukhula, a 43-year-old nurse from Dobsonville in Soweto whose contract was not renewed at the end of March, hopes she will be called back to work. She was employed in 2020 and worked at Nasrec’s Covid-19 field hospital. “We risked our lives. It was not easy,” she said. “In the beginning, we were scared. We had no idea what Covid-19 was then, but because it’s our job to be nurses, we did go to Nasrec, we did nurse those patients, and we worked till Nasrec closed last year.” They were heroes When the field hospital closed, the
Lerato Mthunzi, the general secretary of the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union. Photo by Ihsaan Haffejee/ newframe.com healthcare workers were allocated to clinics according to where they lived. Negukhula said they did not ask what would happen to them when Nasrec closed. “They told us that we mustn’t worry because there are a lot of shortages in clinics, so we will continue working. “We were surprised at the end of March when the department did not renew our contracts. “However, those who worked at the bigger hospitals like Baragwanath have gone back to work. So, it’s only us in district hospitals and clinics left outside,” she said. “We will continue fighting till they take us back. This is not fair. Remember when Covid started, they were busy calling us heroes, but now
they are throwing us away just like that.” Ynitu president Rich Sicina said the union was complaining about the shortage of staff, materials and resources even before the pandemic. “Then Covid-19 happened and they employed many healthcare professionals under Covid contracts. So now that they believe Covid19 is no longer rampant and killing people, they want to release them and they are citing a lack of budget.” Sicina said the provincial health department was given an initial budget of R2.2 billion. However, this year, it has been cut in half. “The treasury must release the budget. They can’t implement austerity measures against the department of health, a sector that deals with
people’s lives. “Go to any township – Katlehong, Krugersdorp, Soweto, Mamelodi – and many community members will tell you about treatment in our facilities. It’s a known secret that the department of health Gauteng is a complete mess.” Multitasking nurses Sicina said all the union is asking is that the government employ nurses. “We are not saying employ a million nurses, we are saying employ enough nurses, employ enough doctors, employ enough healthcare workers on the ground – your porters, cleaners, pharmacists, etc – because we find our nurses doing all these jobs.” If there’s no cleaner, said Sicina, nurses have to clean because they
can’t work in a dirty ward. Likewise, if there is no pharmacist, they find themselves dispensing medication. “The public healthcare system says there are more than 10 000 vacant, unfunded posts in the system. So, all we are asking for is the treasury and the Department of Health to release the money and close those gaps … Make materials and human resources available. “Suppose they are not listening to us and not responding accordingly, then we will go to the Union Building, to the country’s president and Parliament. Please close this gross staff shortage because it is killing our people.” Mthunzi also called on the government to change how it deals with nurses’ education and placement. “The department trains the community service nurses but doesn’t employ them. So, the purpose of training these healthcare workers is because the government needs them in the system, but come time when they must be employed, the department claims that they do not have vacant funded posts,” she said. Spokesperson Kwara Kekana acknowledged that austerity measures influence the Gauteng health department’s ability to keep on some of the healthcare workers. “The provincial department would have loved to retain all temporary Covid-19 appointed staff. However, the current grant provided by the Gauteng provincial treasury to pay for compensation of temporary employees is inadequate to keep all workers in all regional and district hospitals,” Kekana said. “The department has received a Covid-19 budget amount of R2.2 billion for compensation of employees to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic during the 2021-2022 financial year. This budget has since been reduced by 50% for the 2022-2023 financial year, hence it becomes a challenge to retain everyone.” ● This article was first published by New Frame.
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NEWS
HOW TO UNLOCK YOUTH JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN SA’S RAPIDLY SHIFTING ECONOMY By Farai Mubaiwa and Sharmi Surianarain
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he March 2022 Quarterly Labour Force Survey results continue to paint a grim picture for youth employment and South Africa’s economy as we emerge from the acute phase of the pandemic. But in truth, the economy has been shifting for decades. Unlike our east Asian counterparts, South Africa’s economy has moved straight from low-productivity sectors like agriculture to high-productivity sectors such as financial and business services – without the expected “stop” at manufacturing along the way. This has had direct implications for jobs and inclusion. Decades of jobless growth have led to more and more young people being excluded from the continually reshaping labour market. Our research and experience suggest two broad trends as the formal labour market contracts: entire job families are disappearing, and there is an increased informalisation and gigification of economic activity, with increasing numbers of young people engaged in short-term contract work. But there is also evidence of unmet and unrealised demand for work, in the form of job vacancies and “sunrise” growth sectors that could absorb large numbers of young people. However, these will not translate into mass employment opportunities on their own: we need to actively work together to unlock this demand and refine our employment tools and levers to make sure all young people can take advantage of it. Referred to by economists as “industries without smokestacks”, the highest-growth sectors include financial, business and community services. In common with manufacturing, they share a number of characteristics that make them a valuable focus for employment intervention. First, they are productive generating, high value per worker relative to average economy-wide productivity. Second, they can employ large numbers of low and moderately skilled labour. This means they have the potential to absorb young people at scale. Third, these sectors are undergoing rapid digital transformation at the global level, creating potential for sector-wide productivity growth which, in turn, drives up investment and employment growth, enabling the creation of viable pathways to higher earning. Demand in each growth sector can be unlocked with specific interven-
The March 2022 Quarterly Labour Force Survey results continue to paint a grim picture for youth employment. Photo by Gallo Images / Phill Magakoe tions – but these need to be targeted to the sector and to the opportunity. With 500,000 opportunities on the horizon, the digital and global business services sectors (GBS, formerly the business process outsourcing sector) are a particularly high priority. We know that sector-led ecosystem facilitation works. A great example is the Digital Work Accelerator, a public and private collaboration between government, industry and social partners that prioritises inclusive job creation within the digital and ICT economy. The partnership with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition to influence the sector master plan towards inclusive hiring is an example of how targeted focus on sector coordination has resulted in job growth and inclusion. Other sectors will require their own targeted action to unlock opportunity: agriculture offers 300,000 potential jobs – 200,000 direct jobs and a further 100,000 indirect jobs created upstream and downstream in manufacturing and service. Agroprocessing and horticulture contribute a growing 15% share towards formal employment. But we need to address specific challenges, including land rights and infrastructure for efficient transport. Cannabis could also be a high-value crop with the potential to employ many, but legislation and regulation remain key
constraints. Addressing these barriers will be critical in this cluster of sectors, as well as a focus on market access and increased investment. Investing and enabling jobs in the care and social economy must be another priority, as this can not only provide employment but also solve a critical challenge faced by caregivers and healthcare workers. An estimated 104,000 assistant and auxiliary roles can be created in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres. Supporting microenterprise development partnerships between the private sector and ECD microenterprises can increase the pathways to sustainable income generation. Furthermore, approximately 23,000 entry-level jobs for healthcare workers can be created in the public health sector to bolster HIV and TB testing and monitoring, and 5,000 roles as pharmacy assistants in independent community pharmacies. In addition to unlocking opportunities, we must make sure that the demand generated is inclusive. For this, we need to expand and refine the utility of existing tools to address the changing shape of the economy. Think of it as a “Swiss Army knife” approach to employment levers – adding to their versatility and customising them to suit different ends for different sectors. South Africa’s existing employment incentive infrastructure – tax incentives, credits and
training programmes – was built for an era of heavy industry, less complex value chains and corporate stability. We need to increase the utility of these levers to support a future of work that supports SMME growth. This sector took a massive hit in the pandemic, but also has the potential to jumpstart growth. Adapting existing employment interventions to support increased hiring of young people by SMMEs can help reboot the sector and unlock jobs. One area that’s ripe for adaptation is our approach to skills development. Current skills development levies can facilitate inclusive hiring – but also can be administratively burdensome. Incentive schemes are often aimed at skilling outcomes versus job placements. And current skills incentives do not sharply target the most vulnerable young people (those at or below matric and not in education, employment and training), being biased instead towards tertiary and graduate youth. By recalibrating our system of skilling incentives towards job placement and inclusion, we can encourage more corporates and industry associations to hire the most excluded young people. Allowing small businesses to participate in the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme with recognition via affidavit, by sidestepping
the costly QSE verification process, could help unlock 90,000 jobs per annum and mobilise value chains critical to economic revitalisation. Additionally, the YES programme, funded by the private sector, can bolster work experience opportunities for unemployed youth through the YES turnkey solution (otherwise known as the implementation partner model), which offers businesses a way to change lives without hosting young people at their own organisations. More and more corporates are opting to place their young people with one of the YES implementation partners (IPs, or host partners) for maximum impact within the community, which includes placements in SMMEs, clinics, schools and green energy roles. The South African economy is shifting rapidly. Despite jobless growth, there are specific opportunities that can be unlocked for millions of young people, through targeted interventions, sector coordination, and the recalibration of existing tools. We cannot let this opportunity pass. – dailymaverick.co.za ● Farai Mubaiwa is the chief partnerships officer at the Youth Employment Service. Sharmi Surianarain is the chief impact officer at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator.
NEWS
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Marcus Garvey. Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Kwame Nkrumah. Photo by www.blackpast.org
AFRICA MUST REVISIT GARVEY’S CONCEPTUALISATION OF PAN-AFRICANISM
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y way of acknowledgement, this article has benefited immensely from Professor Okopu Agyeman’s paper, Pan Africanism which was delivered on Africa Day 25 May at the University of Zululand. 25 May of every year, and the Month of May, occupy pride of place in the hearts and minds of people of African descent all over the world. The day and month have been set aside to celebrate the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 25 May 1963. The founding of the OAU is an expression of a commitment – a covenant entered into by Africans and their leaders to free Africa from centuries of colonial subjugation. Undergirding this covenant was a “pan-African vision for an Africa that was united, free and in control of its own destiny”. At the time of the founding of the OAU, 32 countries had attained their political independence. This was a major achievement considering that five years earlier there were five independent countries. Today, thanks to the persistent struggle against colonialism, all of Africa’s 55 countries can be said to be relatively free from colonial rule. With South Africa’s attainment of political independence in 1994, the OAU had fulfilled some of its mission. This development led to the establishment of an African Union (AU) in 2002. The AU is tasked with the responsibility of “accelerating the process of integration in the continent to enable Africa to play its rightful role in the global economy while addressing multifaceted social, economic and political problems”. Africa’s problems have since been compounded by the onset of the pandemic and the never-ending negative aspects of globalisation. In a sense, the celebration of Africa Day, and Africa month, provides also an opportunity to reflect on how far
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we have come. At the same time, it provides us with an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the unfinished business of total emancipation. This reality was not lost to our founding fathers. In his book Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela wrote: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.” For his part, the late Oliver Reginald Tambo was equally foresighted. Political freedom would invariably lead to a focus on the need to wage an economic struggle. Addressing the South African Communist Party’s anniversary meeting in London in 1981, Tambo argued:
“It is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the country to the people as a whole. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the roots of racial supremacy and exploitation, and does not represent even the shadow of liberation. “It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy and our drive towards national emancipation must include economic emancipation.” That said, it can be argued that the challenge faced by almost all of Africa’s countries is that they found themselves having to build their countries on “the administrative and material infrastructures of the colonial state” they had inherited. As a result, many countries have not only failed but have tended to reproduced the colonial dependencies that are characteristic of colonialism. The second challenge has also come from what in soccer parlance is referred to as own goals. This much is reflected in the agenda of the AU’s Extra-ordinary Session of Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the 26 to 28 May 2022 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Deliberations centred on how to curb “Terrorism and Unconstitutional Change of Government”. These deliberations are aligned to some of the aims of the AU. These include ensuring that African countries work towards greater unity and solidarity between African countries and their people, defence of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of member states, acceleration of the political and socio-economic integration of the continent and the promotion of peace, security and stability on the continent. It needs to be pointing out however that the focus of the AU and its predecessor represents a bastardised version of Pan-Africanism. The philosophical outlook behind the forma-
tion of the OAU and its descendent the AU bear little resemblance to the substantive ideology of Pan-Africanism as initially propounded by Marcus Garvey. Garvey is credited to have crafted the requisite theoretical intervention to overhaul the condition of marginality, stigmatisation and dehumanisation that Africans have suffered under Arab and European colonialism. The driving force behind Pan-Africanism was the realisation meted on Africans by other races and nationalities is linked to their race. This was true wherever they find themselves, be it in Africa and/or in the diaspora. This objective and existential reality would require the use of race as the organising bedrock for the liberation of African people. Pan-Africanism should thus be understood as “a commitment to racial empowerment, resurgence and elevation. It issued a clarion call to all the people of African parentage, on the basis of the cardinal principles of self-repair, exclusive instrumentality, financial self-reliance and racial-national privacy”. Ironically, it took Kwame Nkrumah, the self-declared disciple of Garvey, to downgrade race-based Pan-Africanism to the Continentalism it has become. This has had the effect of weakening the cause of African people globally. Professor Okopu Agyeman could not have phrased it better in his observation that an “organisation in Africa by whatever name, if it is delinked from the African Diaspora, becomes an edifice without foundation, a tree with fractured, eviscerated roots”. Agyeman persuasively argues that Nkrumah’s revision of Garvey’s conception has robbed people of African descend of a “robust, unfettered, racial Pan-African organisational motor [which] could have generated, propelled, rallied a campaign for transformation and racial redemption world-wide.
“It could have facilitated frequent assembling in Africa of representatives of the race wherever they are across the globe in a meaningful racial conclave of sharing in the tragic sufferings, stupendous challenges, the wrenchingly painful struggles, as well as the hopes and aspirations that define their collective existence. “Out of such cross-fertilisation of interaction and discourse could have emerged the overriding urgency of a racial counterforce in international relations.” Financial self-reliance was the cornerstone of Garvey’s conception of Pan-Africanism. Both the OAU and AU failed dismally in this regard. As a result, argues Agyeman: “The AU has emerged as ‘a donor-dependent body’, an organisation characterised by ‘a high dependency rate on its former colonizers’…”. Perhaps, more embarrassing is the fact that the AU’s Headquarters in Addis Ababa are “fully funded by the Chinese government and built by the Chinese State Construction Engineering Corporation”. Nkrumah’s renunciation of racebased Pan-Africanism has taken African people back almost hundred steps. “The power deficiency that allowed the Arabs and then the Europeans to break into the continent, and then enslave and dehumanise its peoples, remains unchanged. Africa is largely a subordinate, peripheral and penetrated region in the international system”. Freedom is never handed to the people. Steve Biko outlined this perspective when he declared that “black man you are on your own”. It would seem the redemption of African people requires a return to Garvey’s conception of race-based Pan-Africanism. ● Professor Sipho Seepe is the Deputy Vice Chancellor – Institutional Support at the University of Zululand
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TECH
By Dr Mark Nasila
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n early 2020, cybersecurity experts warned that cyberattacks were becoming more sophisticated, with cybercriminals exploiting artificial intelligence to launch increasingly complex attacks, and the sensitive data of the healthcare sector becoming a growing target. Then, to complicate things, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, promoting an exponential increase in remote work. Remote work, combined with the attractiveness of healthcare data for cybercriminals, resulted in the healthcare sector becoming the most targeted industry in 2020, with 66% of companies experiencing some sort of attack, a 22% increase from the previous year, according to Check Point Research. Why would remote work worsen the situation? Because the sudden shift to working from home meant companies were often unable to ensure information security practices for remote workers were as robust as those enjoyed when on site. South Africa’s Life Healthcare Group, which manages nearly 70 health facilities, was hit by a prolonged and complex cyberattack. Meanwhile, Trend Micro recorded millions of threat detections in Africa from January 2020 to February 2021, including 679 million malicious e-mails, 8.2 million malicious files and 14.3 million malicious websites. According to the Ponemon Institute, a data breach in South Africa costs an average of R36.5-million, with additional costs felt for years afterwards, and the country ranked seventh out of 15 countries polled for the highest costs of data breaches. AI-powered cyberattacks For as long as businesses have been online, cyberattacks have posed a threat. But over the last half a decade, their complexity, availability and efficiency have ramped up significantly. New technologies like AI have made it easier for cybercriminals to scale up their attacks and make them more effective. Consequently, businesses have had to employ their own AI-powered defence mechanisms to combat these ever-evolving threats. The rise of AI-powered attacks was inevitable because new technology is never limited to those with good intentions. In the same way a business can benefit from AI, malicious actors have harnessed it and exploited those parts of it which are best suited to trying to compromise targets. So, what might these attacks look like? Many of the most effective cyberattacks work because they don’t look like cyberattacks at all. For instance, materials that mimic a company’s internal e-mails or other documents (when these are used to target highlevel executives or other specific targets it’s known as “spear phishing”). Meanwhile, AI-powered malware can use machine learning to hunt for cracks in systems without making its presence known. It could, for instance, assess network traffic and then ensure its activities mimic it so as not to raise any red flags. Similarly, AI systems can be trained to constantly look for cracks in systems that humans can then exploit. Numerous instances of AI-backed attacks have already taken place. Freelancer platform TaskRabbit saw 3.75 million user accounts compromised and their financial information stolen. The attackers used a coordinated network of compromised “zombie” computers controlled via AI to launch a distributed denial of
service attack on TaskRabbit’s servers. One of the worst and most infamous cyberattacks took place in mid-2017. The WannaCry ransomware attack affected over 200 000 computers in 150 countries and spread in a matter of days. When infected, a computer’s files would be encrypted and the only way to unlock and access them was to buy decryption software from the attackers. In 2019, an executive at a UK energy provider was tricked into transferring more than US $240 000 (R 3.6 million) to hackers after they used AI to fake the voice of his superior. And social media is being used to spread disinformation and misinformation via “deepfakes” - videos featuring photorealistic digital likenesses of famous figures saying
things they’ve never actually said. A report from Interpol last year revealed that the top five cyberthreats facing South Africa are online scams, digital extortion, business e-mail compromise, ransomware and botnets. In a recent incident, the department of justice & constitutional development saw its IT systems compromised and encrypted. The effects were significant, with courts having trouble running and delays in payments to maintenance beneficiaries. Fighting AI with AI Combating these attacks means using AI, too, because that’s the only way to achieve the same complexity, speed and effectiveness inherent in the attacks. But it also requires using machine learning.
While ML is often conflated with AI, it’s distinct in that it allows systems to learn from data rather than simply being programmed to respond to it. That ability to evolve makes ML capable of inference and prediction. This allows for a form of Darwinism to be built into security systems. “Evolutionary computation” uses the key ideas of biology (inheritance, random variation and selection) and applies them to potential attacks. Solutions are initialised, selected and allowed to mutate, before being selected again. The weakest are killed off, and the most successful become the basis for future defences. While AI has many other use cases in businesses, it’s security where it’s seeing the most uptake. A TD Ameritrade study found the AI cybersecurity industry will likely grow at a 23.3% annually and compounded, from $8-billion (R120 billion) in 2019 to a staggering $38-billion (R570 billion) in 2026. And an MIT Technology Review survey found that most respondents (96%) report they’ve begun to guard against AI attacks, many by enabling AI defence mechanisms. Examples of AI in cybersecurity There are various ways leading cybersecurity organisations are incorporating AI capabilities like ML and computer vision into their cyber defenses. First, there’s social engineering and spam detection. Deep-learning models can help defend against new forms of attack that are only vaguely defined. Google, for instance, uses them to defend against e-mails that rely on images to trick users, or those sent from new domains. Then there’s anomaly detection, where machine learning tries to spot deviations from patterns gleaned from far larger sets of instances than humans can assess. For example, by continuously monitoring network traffic for variances, an ML model can detect irregular patterns in e-mail sending frequency that might point to the use of e-mail for an outbound attack. ML can also defend against “DNS tunnelling”,
where DNS queries are used to infiltrate IT systems, and can provide advanced malware detection by making inferences from previous malware attacks. Further, ML can help reduce alert fatigue, which is the risk of a security team being overwhelmed by incident alerts, especially those that are false positives. Security teams retain ultimate control but can be freed up to focus on higher-level tasks. Finally, there’s ML’s ability to identify zero-day exploits. ML can be used to recognise and patch zero-day vulnerabilities or activities, including those that come with updates or changes to systems. At a more granular level, natural language processing can be used to check source code for errors or malicious content, while “generative adversarial networks” can be used to help pinpoint complex vulnerabilities. Preparing for AI-powered attacks AI can be used to enhance threat identification, whether through bot-identification systems that monitor communications or social media channels proactively or systems that scan for malware attacks. These need to be kept updated so they’re able to contend with the latest developments in attack vectors. It’s also critical to have an integrated approach to cyberthreats to remain abreast of these developments. This approach is enabled by AI-powered observations and analysis that can deliver consistent and continuous real-time risk predictions, provide risk-based vulnerability management, and allow for proactive control and recovery when breaches occur. This helps make cybersecurity teams more effective, efficient and reactive when problems arise, and can better position them to fend off future attacks even if they’re of a sort that hasn’t been tackled before. Finally, it’s essential to avoid complacency. A business that constantly assumes it’s under attack will always be thinking about ways to thwart would-be attackers. – techcentral.co.za ● Dr Mark Nasila is chief analytics officer in FNB’s chief risk office.
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I weep for Mama Africa. Photo by www.haikudeck.com
BEAT THE BEAST THAT FEEDS ON AFRICA’S DIVISION
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f, like me, you grew up in the 90s, you most likely know something about Dr Alban. If age has, by some tricky hand, deleted some of your memories of the 90s and you do not remember the name, you have, without doubt, danced to Hello Africa. This song was Dr Alban’s debut single, which reached Top 10 in a number of European countries. He followed it up with It’s my life and Sing Hallelujah. The beats were so contagious and the melodic lines just stuck to your head, moving you from you were standing, to the centre of the dancefloor. Dr Alban, who was born on 26 August, 1957 as Alban Nwapa, moved from Nigeria to Sweden, leaving behind a country that was ravaged by corruption and destabilised by war. In Sweden, he found himself in a country where people could openly be critical and speak their minds. In the 80s when he got to Sweden, there were fewer black people than is the case today. This inescapably drew bizarre stares and racist remarks and conduct from local white folks. Dr Alban refused to stay silent. He justly spoke a lot about the treatment in his adoptive country and his motherland Africa. I was reminded of Dr Alban’s Hello Afrika last month as we celebrated Africa Day. Hello Afrika is a persuasive and exultant ancestral ode including a natty guest appearance by Leila. It’s bewildering pounding, indigenous
YOUR TAKE THAMI BANDA
drums dominate this hypnotic rap for African unity. A combination of African rhythms, Jamaican samples and a smattering of Swedish house technology made Hello Afrika a tugging and rocking ragga rap. Dr Alban’s music is uncompromisingly about freedom, peace, respect, equality, unity, justice, and love. Amid the captivating choruses, buoyed by strong beats, Dr Alban tells the story of political and social problems. In Hello Afrika he raps: Martin Luther King, Mandela, they had a dream / Self-evidence and equality for men / Africa for me and Africa for
you/ Hello Afrika, tell me how you’re doing… In this song he asked an appropriate question that became my inspiration for this piece. Africa Day, was just another annual day to celebrate mother Africa. Some did it in song and dance. In the chaos of grand speeches and pie-crumbs promises, I want to know how Mother Africa feels when the socio-economic and political promises made in the beginning of the 1960s, as the sons and daughters begun to unshackle themselves from the chains of colonialism, remain an illusion. How come the children who you birthed Mama Africa stare at each other with hatred and rage? The children for whom deep in your belly you carry untold wealth have been divided by greedy men from the other side of the ocean. We have allowed strangers to drive us into some madness that makes us punctuate our differences with guns and machetes. We do not see each other as brothers and sisters - we see enemies when we look at each other. We dig up some prehistoric cavemen and club any person who looks like us to death. We blame each other for lack of progress and are not ashamed to kill for crumbs. Flames of self-hate have devoured the lives of those who look like me. Tell me Mama Africa, how are you feeling? European nations saw you, Mama Africa, as ripe for plunder and pillaging. They argued among themselves
that by colonising you and your children, they were transferring civilisation to a continent they regarded as untransformed, backward and undeveloped. They appointed themselves as trustees for your progress, Mama, because as your children we were too immature to govern and grow on our own. The truth though, Mama, is that colonisation had nothing to do with our progress, it was motivated by commercial interests of Europe. That continent, Mama, benefitted enormously from exploiting your riches and your children. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 regulated European exploration and exploitation of the resources residing in your belly, Mama. This conference called by Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, produced the General Act of the Berlin Conference, which enabled European powers to apportion pieces of you between themselves. This produced rather hollow states that were without any genuine cultural, linguistic or national unity. Today, we are trapped in a terrible act of self-mutilation as a result of some conference that took place 138 years ago. As your children, we have come to represent the erosion of the human spirit. There are now these deadly fractured fragments of our inner beings that have inculcated within us a scorching desire to self-destruct. We lack the will to act in rebellion against that which has inflicted without mercy unrelenting onslaughts
of hostility that has turned us into hateful and murderous creatures. I ask, just like Dr Alban asked in 1990, knowing that you are not doing well, Mama. Those whom we chose as leaders seem to have been suckled by hyenas. We have given power to jackals of hypocrisy who have pimped your broken heart. We are at fault, Mama. We have forgotten that diversity is an aspect of human existence that must be auctioned to greed, deceit and self-consuming hatred. It is up to us now, Mama, to mend your broken heart by conquering these demons that have turned into self-loathing murderers. No politician has the desire of reclaiming the wealth of values that our diversity represents for Africa. To all my African brothers and sisters, it is high time we embraced our values, talents and strengths. It will neutralise those who think less of us, and will obliterate the self-hate. The beasts that feed on our division must be defeated. We must no longer allow them to drive wedges between us and make us fight and kill each other. Ghanaian author, Lailah Gifty Akita sums it correctly: “Africans must change their mind and actions. The keys to building your continent depends on your will-power, persistent effort and action towards self-liberation.” We must live together as African brothers and sisters or perish together as beasts.
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OPINION & ANALYSIS
Editorial
The president Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obian Nguema Mbasogo, his relatives and some of the country's elite live in brim-full opulence. Photo by www.officeholidays.com
THE HYPOCRISY OF THE US AND ITS ALLIES IS COLOSSAL
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pecial Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, of the US Navy SEALs stabbed a defenceless teenage captive to death. SEALs told investigators that on the morning of 4 May, 2017, Iraqi troops brought in an Islamic State fighter who had been wounded in the leg in battle. In his response over the radio, Gallagher, whose nickname is Blade, reportedly said “he’s mine”. The SEALs told investigators the captive was 15 years old. A medic was treating the wounded young captive when Blade walked up without uttering a word and stabbed the teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him. The blood-thirsty Blade also picked off a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper’s perch. He ordered his troops to indiscriminately spray neighbourhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire. Blade, as revealed by the SEALs, would order his troops to take what “seemed to be needless risks, and to fire rockets at houses for no apparent reason”. According to one senior SEAL, Blade regularly parked “an armoured truck on the Tigris River bridge and emptied the truck’s heavy machine gun into neighbourhoods on the other side with no discernible targets”. His assignment was to plan and oversee missions for the platoon, but members told investigators that he “spent much of his time in a hidden perch with a sniper rifle, firing three or four times as often as other platoon snipers. He boasted about the number of people he had killed, including women”. He shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking with other girls on the riverbank. One of the snipers said, he was watching through his scope as the girl dropped, clutching her stomach, and the other girls pulled her away. There was a day, two other snipers revealed, when he shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a thin white beard. They said the man fell, “a red blotch spreading on his back”. The West has committed untold atrocities and none of their leaders has been held to account. Not even a squeak calling for their prosecution for war crimes. The West's colossal hypocrisy makes a complete mockery of international law, and threatens to plunge the world to an Arma-
geddon. Prime estate of media space has been used in calling for Vladimir Putin to be prosecuted for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The mighty and powerful who fashion themselves as police of the world who must enforce the rule of law, to hold war criminals to account, have deliberately ignored their deadly deeds, and have chosen to direct their moral outrage singularly at Putin. The labelling of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal by the president of the US, Joe Biden, who by the way was one of those who pushed for the invasion of Iraq and steadfastly backed the 20 years of bloodbath and butchery in the Middle East, is a prime example of the archetypal hypocritical cant and moral posturing whizzing across the world. That said, we are yet to get clarity how anybody or organisation would try Putin for war crimes since Russia, just like the US, does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. People like Biden and his ilk, who refuse to acknowledge responsibility for their well- and accurately-authenticated war crimes, always shore up their moral standing by vilifying their rivals. They are well aware that the chances of Putin facing justice will not be forthcoming, just like they know their chance of facing justice is also naught. It behoves us to demand justice for the Ukrainians, as we should, just as we must also demand justice for the more than a million people murdered - half of whom were civilians - by the US and its allies of invasions, occupations and aerial assaults in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Justice must be demanded for all those who were maimed. There must be justice for those who became gravely ill or died because US invaders destroyed their hospitals and infrastructure. We must demand justice for the more than 30 million people who have been violently uprooted from their homes, displaced or became refugees in all the countries that have been invaded by the US and its allies. In the Middle East millions of people, who had no association with the 9/11 attacks in the US, have been killed, wounded, lost their homes and saw their lives and their families destroyed because of the war crime atrocities of the US and Europe. We must demand justice for them.
Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher. Photo by John Gastaldo/ Zuma Wire
T
GIVING DESPOTS HUGS, WHILE THE PEOPLE SUFFER
o err is human. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, at every turn, politicians tend to appropriate to themselves the sole custodianship of righteousness. Even stranger, it seems this dexterity comes with some God-like status, it affords them the ability to decide who must live or die. They even crest these murders as patriotic or acts of justice through wars, coups, terrorism and other greed-induced miscarriages of justice. Always, without fail, women and children pay the ultimate price for this psychotic behaviour. The butchering of children and women in Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, Somalia, the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, eastern DRC, Cabo Delgado in Mozambique, and more recently, Ukraine in Russia, are all the most recent examples of the grave errors of man - the murderous God. In diplomatic cycles they say, to avoid this genocidal violence, nations must find ways to talk things through. They advise that multilateral fora are best-suited for this type of thing. As they see it, diplomatic politeness grants lawmakers Churchillian cleverness to tell each other to “go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip”. Last week, to do just that, 55 member states of the African Union jetted to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea for an Extraordinary Summit on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Changes of Government. Basically, they went there for three days (25-28 May) to agree on ways put an end to coups and violent seizure of power in Africa. By design or default, Malabo was the worst place for that type of discussion. The Equatorial Guinea government is a perfect example why coup d’états shouldn’t happen. Its despotic head of state, Teodoro Obian Nguema Mbasogo, who proudly opened the summit, overthrew his uncle President Francisco Marcía Nguema in a bloody coup in 1979 and he has been in power ever since. Nguema (79) and his family have used the profits from a decades-long boom in the country’s oil industry to secure an almost unshakeable hold on power in Africa’s longest-running dictatorship. AU set there at his behest, costing trillions upon trillions of that
MY TAKE
MBANGWA XABA
country’s Central African francs (CFA) (about R100 million). Equatorial Guinea is one of the world's wealthier nations, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) greater than that of Italy, South Korea, or Saudi Arabia. Yet, the country’s tiny population of just above 1.5 million citizens live in miserable poverty. Over 60% of the population struggles to survive despite abundant natural resources, especially oil and gas. The people are plagued by chronic hunger, a crumbling education system, frequent power blackouts, poor sanitation and disease. The president, his relatives and some of the country's elite live in brim-full opulence. But the bulk of this wealth is the property of American oil executives from ExxonMobil, Marathon, Amerada Hess or Riggs Bank as well as the two other Houston-based oil-field service firms. Maybe the AU politely told Nguema to go to hell or not. But as per usual, they came out of that meeting with some resolutions to add to their piling tally of thousands. Let’s swallow that. But their cool conscience to enjoy so much splendour at the expense of a nation under so much torment is hard to take down. Worst still, they decide to coincided it with Africa Day, just so they take all of us in shame, what a gull! Granted, we are a continent
ravaged by “continued proliferation of terrorist groups that threaten peace and security” and it must be addressed urgently. But we are also victims of unrelenting hunger and cruel imperialism. Such lavishness at the expense of the poor is morally odious. What kind of integrity do those heads of states display by sitting peacefully amidst a sea of poverty to hug and kiss a despot who pours out Africa’s wealth to imperial companies with a clear conscience? Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu was right. Our leaders, both in the public and the private sector have failed and continue to fail the people. “Real leadership involves not just mobilising citizens to vote for candidates, (but must also offer) effective management, strategy and execution of public policy. And yet power often is sought for its own sake or to secure control of state resources on behalf of ethnic kin or co-religionists. “Politics is not yet, as it ought to be, a contest of ideas and programs affecting all citizens. Corruption thrives in such an environment,” he says. He argues that this is precisely why Africa’s mineral resources create wealth for others whom are thrown at as raw commodities. “Africa is the world’s richest continent in terms of resource endowments, but at the same time the world’s poorest in terms of income per capita. “Africa’s future competitiveness and prosperity lie in the opportunities afforded by science, technology and innovation. “From Nairobi to Lagos and Joburg, innovation hubs are springing up. This is not surprising. It is the modern rebirth of Africa’s ancient talents in science, evidenced in the pyramids of Giza, the astronomy of the Dogon tribe in ancient Mali, and the Caesarean sections of nineteenth-century Uganda.” To build the type of Africa, seen through the eyes of Moghalu, we must at least have shame. Next, we must build developmental states and a conscientious citizenry, the type that will rise against corrupt and abusive leaders. For starters, next time when we celebrate the anniversary of the AU and Africa Day, can we please do it with a moral conscience and in such a manner that it gives rise to Africa and her people.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
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he dehumanisation of black people in South Africa was galvanised by the National Party via a series of anti-black and pro-white laws. Every piece of legislation was designed to reinforce apartheid's creation of the system of discrimination. The system gave white people absolute power to manipulate and damage an entire people’s civilisation for their gain. Dehumanisation of indigenous people is something that did not begin overnight. It commenced when the first Dutch settlers set foot on our shores in the Cape. These heartless thugs, who represented the Dutch East India Company, began plotting how to cunningly gain access to our resources. In the long run, assisted by the British, the settlers were able to conquer and enslave black people while appropriating our land. This, over the years, enabled white people to amass wealth and privilege. It is this white privilege that allows the continuation of overt and covert racism. With the advent of democracy, we made the dangerous assumption that big change would happen. Well, that has not been the case because racial inequality is palpably impervious to transformation - a result of the failure to challenge white privilege. In our country, white privilege is the legacy of apartheid, which oppressed, subjugated and dehumanised people whose skin colour was rich with melanin. Even with the political end of apartheid in 1994, white privilege still endures. Any demands to transform institutions, which have race as a social construct, are regarded as threats by whites. They oppose demands for transformation because in their heads, they imagine the demands for racial justice as an end to their privilege. One Monday morning in May, we woke up to a trending video clip of a white student, Theuns du Toit, taking a pee on the belongings of a black student, Babalo Ndwayana, at Stellenbosch University. Ndwayana was asleep "when he heard a noise in his room". According to a student union: "When he woke up, the racist white boy was urinating on his desk, books
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BLACKS REMAIN ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN and laptop and when questioned, the racist response was, ‘this is what we do to black boys’.” Apparently, this not the first pee incident to happen at the university, we missed the one that happened in 2018 because it was not filmed. Do you remember the pee-andbeer incident at Reitz men’s residence at the University of the Free State? In 2008, white students mixed their urine with beer and forced cleaners to drink it as they sang Afrikaner songs. These numbskulls, filled with ancient hatred, recorded the humiliation of the black people with a commentary telling the majestic story of Afrikaner paradise before the introduction of what they termed “forced integration”. Du Toit, who probably is used to being a kleinbaas, who sees black people as hewers of wood and drawers of water, is a stuck reminder that there are white people who think they were born to have power over black people. With his pee, like a beast from the wild, he was marking his territory in a place which he reckoned belonged to another kleinbaas. White privilege compelled him to display his jungle civilisation by peeing on the belongings of a fellow student whose offence was being black in what should be a white university. With his pee, the racist and socially inept dunderhead, sought to remind us that Stellenbosch is, and has always been, the bastion of white, Afrikaner
Stellenbosch University students protest, following urine incident. Photo by iol.co.za
culture and needs to remain like that in the democratic new South Africa. Stellenbosch University produced loads of leaders of the National Party, who were the master architects of apartheid. Du Toit just cannot figure out in his pee-brain, why an institution that trained all apartheid’s presidents should be burdened with black bodies. Stellenbosch, according to him and his ilk, is hallowed ground. It is also the soul of the Broederbond. Luister Luister (Listen) is a documentary that was produced in 2015 to expose racism and discrimination at Stellenbosch University. The documentary was made in 17 days by Contraband Cape Town, together with Open Stellenbosch. After its release on 20 August, it trended on social media nation-wide and elicited condemnation from political parties and the general public. One of the students in the film said: “The colour of my skin in Stellenbosch is like a social burden... I mean just walking into spaces, there’s that stop, pause, and stare where people cannot believe that you would enter into this space. “Being black within the Stellenbosch community you know that you’re not accepted and you kind of ask yourself: what’s wrong with me, like what did I do wrong?” says another.
“In the beginning I actually started to assimilate, you know, wanting to lose myself and attain whiteness. Maybe this will work better and they’ll accept me more because I’m trying to be like them. And I realised that I cannot do that. I’m not willing to sell my soul to whiteness. I have to be proudly black.” Socio-economic freedom for a few is hollow White South Africans continue to keep hold of economic, social and cultural power. They enjoy a significantly better standard of living and quality of life than black people. Even though numerically we are a majority, as black people, we are still a social and economic minority. There are blind denialists who, when they open their purchased mouths, quote figures that they insist reflect rising levels of black ownership on the Joburg Stock Exchange (JSE). To rely on this this single pointer is disingenuous. This diverts our attention to other important pointers that are crucial in identifying the stranglehold that white capital has over our country’s economy. The limited focus on the JSE disregards the fact that the stock market forms but one of the many facets of capital. Other factors include land, which is one of the most contentious means of production, mines, banks, home ownership and human capital
which comes in the forms of knowledge, skills and education. A comprehensive probe into the state of the South African economy easily reveals that white people continue to dominate the economy. As the legacy of white privilege continues to thrive, levels of poverty and rampant unemployment relentlessly rise in black communities. South Africans are good at calling out obvious racists – the ones who call black people names or abuse them. But the country is still poor at naming and changing the core of racism. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that the way things were organised under white rule is so deeply embedded in everyone’s minds that the past three decades have been devoted largely to absorbing black people into the system rather than changing it. Since the system was designed for a few, most remain on the outside looking in. We can shout at the symptoms of racism until our voices are hoarse but if we do not dismantle the system, the underlying problem will remain untouched. A peep at racism Racism, as we have come to know it, goes far beyond the phenotypic difference. In fact, if we were to further unpack it, we would realise how race acts a synecdoche for humanhood and a metonym for a number of South Africa’s difficulties. Race is, as Stuart Hall, whose writings enjoy international acclaim, states: “one of those major or master concepts that organise the great classificatory systems of difference that operate in human societies. Race, in this sense, is the centrepiece of a hierarchical system that produces differences.” This hierarchical system has wreaked untold socio-economic problems. The system that regulated the distribution of wealth, based on skin colour, is deeply embedded in our psyche so much that for the past 28 years there has been a great devotion to absorbing blacks into the system instead of transforming it. White privilege is the main driver of racial inequality. Unless we develop balls of steel, we will still be peed on because we have no power.
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SHOWBIZ
BEJA MUSIC CANNOT BE BEATEN BY ANY REGIME
was beaten by Omar al-Bashir’s regime. I was subjected to repression and abuse by his security services. They threatened me and imprisoned me several times. The persecution led me to migrate to Egypt, where I practiced my music freely in Egyptian cultural centres and collaborated with Egyptian artists. After eight years, I returned to Sudan and found that the situation was even worse than before - and that we, the Beja people, are still suffering as an artistic community. During Bashir’s reign, art was directed according to the regime’s agenda. They fought artists who did not align with or belong to the regime - Beja artists who sang for their own heritage, singing in the language of their community. These artists were never represented on radio or TV or presented publicly in approved festivals inside and outside Sudan. The Beja people are considered one of the tribes that live a harsh life because of our mountainous desert region on the east coast of Sudan by the Red Sea. Although our region is rich in precious metals such as gold, uranium, silicon, and mica—used in a variety of electronic equipment worldwide— we still suffer to this day because of our marginalization and neglect by successive governments in Sudan, especially during the past thirty years. Bashir used to look at us with nothing but racism and describe us as ignorant and illiterate. He would say we offered no benefit to the state. He and others would describe us as people with an unpleasant smell, and because Beja people are known for their unique hairstyles, they would call us carriers of lice. They say we are a backward and lazy people. Bashir recruited men of the richer, more influential classes among the Beja in order to implement the agenda of the ruling National Congress Party. Their goal was to obliterate and replace the identity of the Beja. Bashir’s regime did not take even a single measure in favour of the Beja people; our treatment was entirely violent. The Beja people have held a number of peaceful demonstrations over many years to express our grievances. We have closed and barricaded the national road linking Port Sudan, the country’s largest port, to all other cities of Sudan more than once. The world knows what Bashir did in Darfur, what he did in South Sudan, but they don’t know what has happened in east Sudan to the Beja. If the Beja people are treated better, this will help solve many problems across Sudan. This is why the world must pay attention to the Beja struggle. We
Noori and his Dorpa Band. Photo by Yasir Elhassan/Ostinato Records
The Dorpa Band from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan, embodies Beja Culture. Their bandleader, Noori, explains what drives their music
Noori was threatened and imprisoned several times. Photo by Janto Djassi/Ostinato Records
Dorpa band members Naji, Danash, Fox and Gaido. Photo by Janto Djassi/Ostinato Records
have been at the forefront of Sudan’s revolution, demanding political and economic reform since before 2019. We are distinguished by our great height and skin colour, some brown,
some wheatish in colour. Some of us grow the hair on our head until it becomes thick, and use a special comb made of wood which we call “dhal” in our local dialect. During their occupa-
tion of Sudan, the British called the Beja people “Al-Fazi Wazi”—or “Fuzzy Wuzzy,” a slur coined by Rudyard Kipling. We are adept in the craft of hunt-
ing. We also have special rituals in the way of roasting, grinding, preparing, and drinking jabana (coffee), one of our most important drinks. The Beja are also distinguished by the manufacture of weapons, including special knives and swords and a weapon made of wood called the “safrouk.” You cannot find a Beja person who does not carry a knife on his shoulder or a sword, one of our customs and traditions. They are considered symbols of strength and protection of our own. The Beja people formed a class of archers in ancient Egypt. We are fighters. I have my own weapon: a tambo-guitar, a special instrument I made many years ago. It combines an electric guitar I found in the scrap heaps of Port Sudan with a five-string tambour my father gifted me. When I was 10 years old, I used to rehearse on a traditional tambour that my father had. I used to go to the coast of the sea and sit and practice Beja music in its rawest form. Today, I compose my own music with Beja melodies. When I came up with the idea of making the tambo-guitar—and, thank God, I succeeded—I was able to use it to preserve Beja culture while also adding a modern touch to the music so it can be appreciated today. Despite the marginalisation of the Beja, our culture has not been killed. We remain committed to our heritage and spend our time playing traditional percussion instruments and the tambour and singing our traditional songs to keep them alive. Music exists deeply within the conscience of the Beja people and has a great influence on them. We believe in our culture and translate it into music, even to the point of frenzy. I believe that music has a great role in our unity and struggle. It is an enduring mark of our survival, our resistance. We have a distinctive art and our own tunes that are very different from anywhere else in Sudan or the Red Sea. Our melodies are characterized by the depth and power of their sound, which comes from hearing our music echo along the mountains of our area. Our music is sweet, nostalgic, ambiguous, and honest. It is also very old—ancient. The Beja people are ancient, with pharaonic origins. Our melodies are equally as old, tracing back to pharaonic times. Beja music thus forms an unbroken chain of melodies that have been passed down many generations. – africasacountry.com
FEATURE
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Mbeki was removed from power by the ANC’s National Executive Committee packed with Jacob Zuma sympathisers. Photo by www.dailymaverick.co.za
By Edward Tsumele
WHAT HAPPENS TO A DREAM DEFERRED?
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ournalist and author Mark Gevisser has released the updated version of his critically acclaimed book, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, a biography of former President Thabo Mbeki. In the two added new chapters, the book asks difficult questions about the complexity surrounding Mbeki’s presidency, which was cut short when he was removed from the seat of power unceremoniously when the ANC conference in Polokwane voted Jacob Zuma as its new president. Mbeki was removed from power by his ANC colleagues at the time with its National Executive Committee was packed with Zuma sympathisers. After being removed from power, Mbeki led a relatively quiet political life, preferring to spend time building his legacy out of politics through the Thabo Mbeki Foundation. He was also active in academic engagement through the Thabo Mbeki Institute at Unisa. Conversely, after Zuma’s removal from power in 2018, to pave the way for President Cyril Ramaphosa, ironically in the same way that his predecessor was unceremoniously removed, Mbeki’s interest in the ANC was renewed. In fact, he become busy as part of the leadership within the ANC that is trying to rebuild the image of the party and ensure its future as a governing party after it was battered by years of State capture debacle and other incidents of corruption. Gevisser’s updated book comes out in the context of these developments within the ANC, with some critics predicting that the former liberation party’s traditional victory since 1994 of 50% or more at the forthcoming election in 2024 is not guaranteed in light of several allegations and cases of corruption against some of its leaders and those it deployed in the public sector as well as the continuing factional politics within the party. The updated version also comes at a time when the squabbles within the ANC are so divisive that its membership votes into positions of power comrades who are facing serious
Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, an updated biography of former President Thabo Mbeki. At only 29, Ruth Faro’s skills are sometimes met with scepticism. Photo by Adama Wines/Food for Mzansi
charges – ranging from murder to corruption. So, this book could not have come at a better time. But what do the added chapter say? Was the ANC ‘captured’ by corrupt outsiders who ejected Mbeki from power and destroyed his legacy? Or is Mbeki himself an author of the misfortune that befell South Africa following his dismissal: not just by facilitating Zuma’s rise to power, but presiding over an earlier era of patronage and putting into place a particular set of policies and practices that set
the scene for what would follow? On 18 June, Mbeki turns 80. With an incisive new introduction and epilogue, Gevisser brings this prize-winning biography fully up to date. He sees Mbeki’s spectacular fall from office as a consequence of the “disconnect” that has characterised his entire life. He also charts the “redemptive fifth act” of Mbeki’s public life, starting with the moment he was cheered at Nelson Mandela’s funeral at the same time that Zuma was booed in 2013. Always a polarising figure, Mbeki
remains championed by many South Africans who are nostalgic about his leadership: Gevisser examines why. “What happens to a dream deferred?” Mbeki often asks, paraphrasing one of his favourite poems by Langston Hughes. After his 2008 ousting, Mbeki’s dreams seemed shattered. In telling the story of one of South Africa’s most compelling, perplexing and powerful figures, as well as the extraordinary family from which he comes, Gevisser has given us one of the finest narratives ever written about South Africa’s
conflict-ridden past, its transition to democracy and current difficulties. The book has been hailed by influential readers internationally since it was first published. “Probably the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid,” wrote Martin Plaut, Times Literary Supplement. “Essential reading for anyone intrigued by South Africa’s complex philosopher-king,” wrote The Economist. – citylifearts.co.za
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MOTORING
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BUYING A PRE-LOVED CAR IS THE NEW NORMAL
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t has been over two years since the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in Mzansi and the rest of the world. We experienced the hardest lockdown that affected many industries, including the automotive industry which was left in limbo. Since then, it has been an uphill battle with a few come-back victories. We have never been able to fully recover from the pandemic that has caused untold damage. As if that’s not enough, the heavens also armed this enemy further by almost vanquishing our vehicle storage facilities at the Durban Harbour. This has slammed sharp brakes on new car sales since demand far outweighs supply. All was not lost however since this has opened a new opportunity on the used car market. I have been approached by several people seeking advice on which car brands to choose when buying a pre-loved vehicle. It mostly depends on how well the vehicle has been maintained by its previous owner. most modern vehicles can surpass a 500km mark with a single engine and gearbox. if properly maintained. I have owned several used vehicles and also went through all frustrations of buying lemons while spending a ton of hard-earned money to try and turn them into oranges which mostly never work. Eventually, you end up spending more than buying a new vehicle without enjoying any benefit of driving a new vehicle. This has prompted me to do a thorough market research in terms of faults per vehicle. Some vehicles are less prone to breakdowns than others. and some are cheaper to repair than others. I will try and accommodates all tastes on vehicles by choosing four groups of most popular buys to date. Budget daily runners. Polo Vivo versus Suzuki Swift The Polo 1.4 non-turbo engine is proven to be the most reliable car on South African roads. It can handle daily abuse and long distances without any hustle. A good second hand will cost around R200 000. This beauty will give you almost a 1,000km with just a single tank of fuel, hence it's the most popular brand. These vehicles are well-specked and gallop well under any situation. Some parts might be costly after 80,000km. This is one of the high-risk cars in South Africa. The Suzuki Swift has proven to be one of the most reliable cars on our roads. Frankly, I have never seen one being towed away unless it is involved in an accident. These vehicles are a germ on the road and with fewer stops next to the petrol pump station, specially in urban areas. it is also extremely unlikely that you might visit a copshop to report one that has just vanished into thin air. You get an average of 700km per tank on this sweet spot of a machine. Naturally, your insurance premiums will also be favourable. This one gets a thumbs up as a low-risk car from my side. One might score a new 1.2GL from R200,000. Also look at the Ford Figo, the Mazda 2, the Hyundai Grand i10 and the Toyota Starlet. Mid-size SUV In this category I will have to suggest three vehicles as two of them are closely related cousins. Toyota Fortuner, Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento The Fortuner is a brilliant family mover and comes bearing a bullet-proof of an engine.
RIDE ON DUMI XABA
The current models come with bells and whistles in terms of safety and family entertainment. Well-maintained, at 100,000km, it is still a baby. Most examples I have seen have long surpassed the 500,000 milage with no signs of slowing down. Sadly, everybody agrees, hence you are most likely to be hijacked in this vehicle. You may pick a good example directly from the dealer at around R500,000. Kia Sorento versus Hyundai Santa Fe Both vehicles utilise the Hyundai D4HB engine which is a gem of Korean engines. They both come with almost limit less warranty and a great service package. You have to bear in mind that the Koreans have taken off the gloves when it comes to quality and specs. Just like the Chinese. they have taken stock on this model and nothing has been left to chance. All the extras come as standard features on this model. The seating and driving are out of this world and fuel consumption is good. There is less likelihood of starring down the barrel of semi-automatic weapon while driving one of these beauties with at least a seven-year peace of mind. For R500,000, you might pick one with less than 30,000km on the clock. Also. look at Ford Everest, Discovery Sport and the new kid on the block, the Nissan Terra. Double-cab bakkies Toyota Hilux versus Nissan Navara The Toyota IMV platform is used both in the Hilux and the Fortuner, with several engine options. But the 2.8 diesel, as found in the Fortuner, is a gem. This has been fine-tuned to perform quite well and beat the likes of Ford Everest in every sphere. You might just hop into one and drive to Cairo and back without having to break any sweat. To date, this is one of the most reliable vehicles on the road and is moving our economy. Most fleet companies have put their bet on this work horse and it fails to disappoint year after year. The new 2.8 will give you 150kw of power and 500Nm of torque, enough to pull a trailer full of elephants. You also get around 1,000km with a single tank of fuel. in a perfect world it will get my vote every time but in South Africa it's just a matter of when will it be taken as it shares most undercarriage components with minibus taxis. mostly stolen, stripped and sold as scrap parts or it may end up in a second-hand market in neighbouring
countries. For R400,000, you might get almost a new one. The Nissan Navara Frankly speaking, this is one of the most dependable bakkies on the road. This workhorse has earned its stripes as one of the most dependable vehicles. The parts might be a bit costly, hence most dealerships will pay you peanuts for a trade-in. This, in turn, has driven private sales market to boom. Well-maintained, you will get over 200,000km without any major repairs. This is a good alternative to the likes of high-risk Hilux and Isuzu D Max. Slightly slimmer and shorter than the Hilux. Easy to park in malls and tight spots. The new 2.5DDTi produces 140kw of power and 450Nm of maximum torque while averaging 8.1L/100km. You are good for almost a 1,000km with a single tank of 80L of fuel. For R500,000, you might park a brandnew SE guise double-car in your garage with a five-year 150,000km peace of mind. Which is similar going from Cape to Cairo 15 times. Also, look at the Mitsubishi Triton 2.4DiD. Hot hatch VW Golf 7 R versus Hyundai i30N It will be a total scandal to leave the hot hatch market behind. The mighty Golf GTI is knocking almost at the million Rand mark. The Golf 7 R is a germ of a car. It produces a clean 228kw of power and 400Nm of torque, enough to shame most R2 million super saloons on the road. This beast can turn a priest into a hooligan on a Sunday afternoon on the freeway. It is a well-known fact that it is reliable, easy to handle and totally balanced. Not forgetting those farts and crackles from the exhaust note. The only downside might be some repair cost, specially the transmission which is rare to break. But this will be one of the vehicles that will be without lights if you park it on the unsecured parking or the entire vehicle will be gone from a mall parking lot. An almost new second-hand will cost around R500,000. Hyundai i30N Nothing on this car says I am a beast of a machine. This is not just a pretty face on the road but a well-puttogether machine. It produces 202kw of power and 353nm of torque, enough to put a smile on any face. The sound is divine and so is the driving. You feel in control and the machine is forgiving. It comes with a lengthy warranty for peace of mind which will outlive most brand-new cars. There is however a ton of road noise that will need some getting used to. This is one of the lowest risk vehicles on our roads that you can park on any street corner today.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 3/ JUNE 16
FEATURE
The GEMM Leadership Academy is situated on a 74-hectare of farmland outside Aliwal North. Photo by foodformzansi.co.za
STARTING AN AGRI ACADEMY: A LIFELONG DREAM FULFILLED By Zolani Sinxo
S
ituated on the border between the Eastern Cape and the Free State, Aliwal North is known as an agricultural town famous for producing wool, maize, wheat and dairy. Now, the town is also home to the GEMM Leadership Academy (GLA), the brainchild of Evelyn Fisher. The agricultural academy was founded by Fisher as a non-profit organisation (NPO) in 2021 with a vision to build sustainable communities through education, training, and most importantly, by establishing an agri-business. Education in her blood Fisher was once a chief financial officer at a government department where she earned a good salary. However, her love for education and passion for community development, forced her to leave everything behind to serve those in need. “At the age of about 45, I decided to go back full-time to the University of Pretoria to study for a postgraduate certificate in education. The reason was that I come from a proud family of educators, both on my mother and father’s side, and I have also always wanted to be a full-time educator,” says Fisher. After completing her postgraduate degree, Fisher went to a high school for about three years to teach accounting, business studies and mathematics among others. Fisher was born and bred in Middelburg in the Eastern Cape. After matric she went to live in Cape Town to study towards a BCom degree at the University of the Western Cape. She worked for over 30 years in office administration, financial management and various senior management and executive positions. Back to her roots However, all these successes were not enough as Fisher long had the passion to go back home and starting
Evelyn Fisher gave up her cushy life and returned to her roots in the Eastern Cape where she is helping youngsters reach new heights at her budding Agri academy.
Evelyn Fisher gave up her cushy life for an Agri academy. Photo by foodformzansi.co.za
Learners at the GEMM Leadership Academy outside on the farm with their books. Photo by foodformzansi.co.za
a meaningful project that will help to uplift the young people of her beloved Eastern Cape. “We barely utilise opportunities to live out of our passions, because that is the story of our lives as we chase after financial security – and sometimes in the process – we give up on our dreams and aspirations in the pursuit of money,” Fisher says. She got into her car and drove to the Eastern Cape where she met friends and talked about her dream of starting a school. Fisher explains that after seeing many young people jobless and languishing on the streets during school hours, and the high employment rate in her community, it compelled her
to start GLA. She was hoping to give them skills that will empower themselves and their communities. Starting the school The GEMM Leadership Academy is situated on a 74-hectare of farmland outside Aliwal North, which makes it conducive for learners to do their practical work and be exposed to nature at the same time. Fisher got the farm on a three-year lease. “Our school takes learners starting between the ages of 13 and 25, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds. GLA provides high school and training facilities for unemployed graduates and school leavers with practical exposure to agriculture,”
Fisher says. As a qualified teacher, Fisher also fulfils the role of educator along with two other teachers. Fisher says she could have chosen any other discipline of learning, but she chose agriculture because she believes that it has the potential to create more than jobs. It also places food real food on the table. “The focus is on agriculture and entrepreneurship as we believe that it is possible to create sustainable communities. We all have access to a piece of land, or a container it is still good enough to plant a seed. The agricultural sector provides the ideal starting point to bring hope as young people begin to see what is possible.
“So, the concept of sowing and reaping is not only practically demonstrated [in the food garden] but also weaved into the other subjects that we teach,” says Fisher. Young people also learn critical skills such as literacy and numeracy, critical thinking on how to navigate life as a young person in these trying times, and coping mechanisms for emotional intelligence, she adds. Overcoming challenges The academy started with classes this year with nine learners (five grade 8s, one grade 9, two grade 10s, and 1 grade 11). “We offer one meal a day and school hours are from 08:00 to 16:00. We ensure that learners utilise the time effectively and take responsibility for their own learning,” says Fisher. As an NPO, the school faces many challenges as funding will always be a challenge. “Challenges that we currently facing is that it is a 100% faith project, which means that we are 100% dependent on resources through God’s provision.” Fisher said she would like to see the academy expanding and accommodating young people from all over the Eastern Cape. Thus, having more classrooms is critical. “Classrooms, learning and teaching material to be able to accommodate a possible increase in learner numbers, is required. We require funding to assist with the expenses of the school [currently funded by founder member], agricultural input to establish food gardens and poultry farming, to generate an income to fund educational projects,” she says. “We invite experts in the industry – agriculture, education, business – to volunteer their services and expertise to advise the management team. To give of their time and resources to help implement this vision for the benefit of our children in the Eastern Cape,” she concludes. – foodformzansi.co.za
SPORT
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FRIDAY, JUNE 3/ JUNE 16
Pogba in a Manchester United-vs-Middlesbrough game. Photo by footballtoday.com
Story Continued from Page 20 At Juventus, a 19-year-old Pogba played 50.6% of the Serie A minutes in his first season with the club. The following year, that leapt up to 89.7%, then down to 61.7%, and then back up to 88.3% in his last season in Turin. All in all, Pogba played a healthy 72.6% of the domestic minutes across his four seasons with Juventus. They won Serie A every year and reached the Champions League final in 2015. Still a couple of years ahead of his prime, Pogba had already become a mainstay for one of the best teams in the world. And while Pogba has been many things for Manchester United, a mainstay has not been one of them. Heading into the final weekend of the season, Pogba appeared in 59.8% of the Premier League minutes in his six seasons back at Old Trafford. The first three seasons were similar to his Juve years - 76.2, 62.9 and 88% of the minutes, in order - but he hasn’t broken 55% of the minutes in either of the past three. He finished his final season for United by appearing in 39.4 of the potential Premier League minutes. It really doesn’t matter how well Pogba played when he was on the field. Even if you’re universally considered the best player in the world, your performance won't be worth more than a hundred million dollars if you're only on the field half the time. Then again, the same has been true for most of the other players acquired for similar transfer fees to what United paid Juventus to acquire Pogba. Out-
side of Real Madrid’s move for Cristiano Ronaldo, PSG's move for Kylian Mbappe and maybe Madrid's acquisition of Gareth Bale, all of the other (R1.5 billion) $100-million-plus transfers were basically busts. Juventus paid $128.7m (R1.9 billion) to acquire Ronaldo with the stated intention of winning the Champions League; they didn’t come close, and they also lost Serie A for the first time in over a decade. But at least Ronaldo played; he appeared in 82% of the domestic minutes while in Italy. Most massive transfers simply don’t work out, and most of the most expensive players ever simply don't get on the field all that much. In fact, Pogba has played more often for United than all but one of those eight players did for their new clubs. It was bad business for United, but hey, I guess it could've been worse. Was managerial or off-field chaos to blame? Sir Alex Ferguson was the first Manchester United manager to discover that Pogba was a different kind of challenge. United had signed Pogba from French club Le Havre as a 16-yearold in July, 2009, with the teenager described as a “new Patrick Vieira” by those who had watched him develop as a youngster. But after growing frustrated by a lack of first-team opportunities at United, Pogba and Raiola made it clear he would reject a new contract unless his progress was rewarded with time on the pitch with the senior team. Experienced teammates, including Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra, attempted to convince Pogba to soften his stance and be patient, but Pogba and Raiola held firm and Fer-
guson stubbornly refused to concede ground. So, after just three first-team appearances, Pogba left United for Juventus at the end of his contract in 2011-12. “We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign,” Ferguson said in 2015. “But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco. He and I were like oil and water.” Despite the acrimonious end to his first spell at United, Pogba was back on the club’s radar as early as 2013, with newly-appointed executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward keen to re-sign the player. It took three years of nudging Raiola before a deal could be done, but when United brought Pogba back, his arrival was supposed to herald the start of a new dawn under José Mourinho, with Pogba regarded as the player who would lead the club’s revival as a side capable of challenging for honours. Although Pogba and Mourinho enjoyed a harmonious first season together, winning the Carabao Cup and Europa League in 2016-17, the wheels began to fall off at the start of the following season. Pogba suffered a hamstring injury against FC Basel in September, 2017, and then angered Mourinho by flying to Miami during his rehabilitation. From that point on, the pair’s relationship continued to sour. A touchline row between the two men after Pogba was substituted during a defeat at Spurs in January 2018 preceded the player being dropped for the first time. At the same time, the arrival of Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal impacted Pogba’s role in the team, with Mourinho playing the France
international in a deeper role with more defensive responsibilities. His creativity suffered, and Pogba’s lack of defensive discipline led to more friction between player and manager. When Mourinho was fired after the defeat at Liverpool in December 2018, Pogba watched on from the substitutes bench having been dropped again. The negativity of the pair’s relationship was then borne out by comments by both in the months and years that followed. But while Pogba and Mourinho clashed to the extent that their relationship disintegrated, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s arrival as manager allowed the player to press the reset button at Old Trafford. Solskjaer had built a strong relationship with Pogba as reserve-team manager during the player's early days at United and the midfielder's form in the opening months of Solskjaer's spell as interim boss helped earn the Norwegian a permanent contract. But while Solskjaer and Pogba had a good relationship, Solskjaer struggled to get the best from the player with the manager never able to settle on his best position, using him both defensively and in an advanced role. Sources have told ESPN that Solskjaer was prepared to offload Pogba in 2019 in order to raise funds for new signings, but was ultimately reluctant to green light such a deal out of concern that he would be given the full proceeds to reinvest in the team. Under Solskjaer, Pogba’s career stalled. The lack of coaching expertise under Solskjaer impacted Pogba and the whole team and, at the peak of his career, Pogba became inconsist-
ent, injury-prone and unreliable on the pitch. The same story continued under Ralf Rangnick, Solskjaer’s interim successor at Old Trafford. Pogba made just 14 appearances under Rangnick, scoring once, with injuries once again keeping him on the sidelines for long periods. His last appearance in a United shirt saw him limp off after 10 minutes of the 4-0 defeat at Liverpool in April. In many ways, it summed up his United career - Pogba had so much more to give, but it all fizzled out far too quickly. Putting Pogba’s move, performance in context Although the fee United paid for Pogba has since been surpassed more than 10 times, Pogba remains the most expensive midfielder ever. Among the three outfield positions, attackers cost the most, followed by defenders and then midfielders. And among the 50 most expensive transfers of all time, only three of them occupy what you'd consider “traditional” midfield roles. Plus, one of them, Arthur, doesn’t really count because he moved to Juventus from Barcelona in a swap deal for Miralem Pjanic with a fee attached just to make the accounting work. So, you’ve got Pogba, Frenkie De Jong $94.6 million (R1.4 billion) from Ajax to Barcelona, 17th-most expensive player ever) ... and that’s it. Transfer fees aren’t true stand-ins for the value clubs ascribe to players; that’d be a combination of contracts and transfer fees. But this still serves as a rough proxy. In other words, United paid a premium for a player in what the market considers to be a non-premium position. – espn.co.uk
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EVALUATING POGBA'S MAN UNITED CAREER – A FLOP, OR NOT HIS FAULT?
By Ryan O'Hanlon and Mark Ogden
P
ogba’s six seasons at Manchester United were among the most polarising in recent memory. A large and loud subsection of the commentariat have held Pogba up as a symbol for everything that's wrong with the once-great club. Meanwhile, others see one of the most talented soccer players in the world, a domineering midfielder who's flourished everywhere else he's been, simply unable to overcome all the dysfunction around him. Ultimately, Pogba was supposed to be a transformative signing for United - a world-record transfer that proved that the best players in the world still wanted to play at Old Trafford and who showed that the club would be challenging for major titles once again. Instead, with Pogba at the club, United never seriously challenged for the Premier League and reached the Champions League quarter finals just once. They finished sixth in Pogba's first season back at the club, and they're in the exact same spot with one game left before he leaves Manchester for a second time. Pogba was a great teammate ... There is a deep-rooted myth when it comes to Pogba's time at Manchester United. It is that the France midfielder is a “divisive” figure, a problem player for every manager that has been charged with finding a way to make him perform as the world-class player that the club signed him to be, and that he has been a troublesome influence within the dressing room. All of the above have been reinforced by Pogba’s disappointing performances on the pitch since his £89.1m (R1,749,148,150.00) return to United from Juventus in Aug 2016 - he left United for Juventus for nothing
Paul Pogba. Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
more than £800,000 (R15,722,680.00) compensation fee four years prior to that - with the 29-year-old never quite living up to the hype that greeted his then-world record transfer back to Old Trafford. His outspoken agent, the late Mino Raiola, and Pogba's apparently carefree, smiling persona have also damaged the player's reputation with the club's supporters, who grew to regard him as somebody with no real affection or commitment to the team. Fans chanted “F-off Pogba” as he walked off the pitch following April’s Old Trafford win against Norwich, and by responding with a cupped ear gesture, Pogba underlined the breakdown of his relationship with the United supporters. But let’s reel back to the Pogba myth; it’s a thread that has run
through the majority of his United career and led to the present situation, with him leaving as a free agent this summer with many fans happy to see the back of him. United sources have told ESPN that within the club, the reality of Pogba could not be further from the outsiders' perception of him being a disruptive figure. He is regarded as a leader within the squad, but a player who has time for those outside the dressing room and one who understands the responsibilities that come with playing for a club of United’s stature. On one occasion, a senior teammate refused to fulfil an obligatory pre-match interview for a broadcast rights holder, opting instead to drive away from the club’s training ground while the film crew were waiting to speak to him. On hearing of the play-
er's actions - and the problem it created for the club's media team - Pogba volunteered to step in and do the interview himself, which meant one of United's press officers didn't have to answer to the rights-holders and his own bosses. There have been numerous other examples of Pogba being a bridge between the squad and the club staff, with sources telling ESPN he is one of the few players prepared to directly address issues with teammates. ESPN has been told that Pogba is, and has been, a leader within the squad - largely a positive one. But while he’s well-liked at United's Carrington training ground, there's also an acceptance he can be blind to the kind of issues that have consistently angered supporters and some within the club hierarchy. Pogba’s social media footprint is huge - 53.7 million followers on Instagram and 10.1 million followers on Twitter - and his commercial value has unquestionably been exploited by United during his six years at the club, with the player’s image the most prominent of any at the club in terms of major sponsors and partners. But Pogba has at times naively misused that status. In January of 2017, he launched a Pogba Twitter emoji on the day United played Liverpool at Old Trafford, but ended up being ridiculed and accused of taking his focus off his team's biggest game of the season after he conceded a penalty in a handball incident. (The game ended 1-1.) Emerging with a light blue-andwhite Mohawk on the day of a derby game against Manchester City in April, 2018, also led to Pogba being accused of disrespecting United by supporters - former United captain Gary Neville described it as “ridiculous” and said “he doesn’t help himself” - but Pogba silenced his critics on that occasion
by scoring twice in a 3-2 win, a result that delayed City’s title celebrations. Heading off to glamorous locations like Dubai and Miami while recovering from injuries, at the same time as posting social media images, has also worked against Pogba, so it is fair to say he has been a lightning rod for negative headlines, both for himself and the club. Had his performances been better and more consistent, the Pogba sideshow would not have been such an issue for his detractors, but it has ultimately tarnished his reputation and impacted how his time at United will be judged. But a disruptive, malevolent force? That’s simply never been the case. ... but he was also a signing that didn’t work out Ultimately, the Paul Pogba signing was a massive failure for United. Even if you're the rare inhabitant of Planet Earth who doesn't have an opinion on Pogba, you won’t have a hard time understanding why. For starters, United already had Pogba, then let him join Juventus for free in 2012, and then had to pay a then-world-record fee of $115.5 million (R1 725 000 000.00) to bring him back in the summer of 2016. It’s not like Pogba was some no-name prospect who went to a smaller club, proved everyone including his previous club wrong and then earned a shock-move back to the big time. No, everyone knew he was the best central-midfield prospect in the world. He joined a better team than Manchester United and immediately became a key player. The business was busted from the start. So, the process of the purchase was bad - and so was the result.
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