COVID-19 HEALTH & SAFETY

Concern over healthcare workers facing burnout amid Covid-19 fight

Cape Argus reports that according to City of Cape Town spokesperson Priya Reddy, Covid-19 burnout among the City’s healthcare workers is greatly widespread and made worse by the fear of infection.   Meantime, the provincial department of health said that there was a significant prevalence of burnout among its healthcare workers, in particular, doctors, nurses and support staff, a year after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Western Cape.   Reddy said: “Burnout is highly prevalent as a result of exposure to trauma, loss, grief and compassion fatigue, and is exacerbated by the high levels of anxiety for fear of contracting the virus.” However, she added: “The presence of Covid-19 has not diverted healthcare workers from their primary responsibilities, thus the pandemic added additional levels of care and caution to the way they work and required a major adjustment.” To mitigate the situation, the City has made available a number of employee assistance programmes (EAP) and wellness interventions to all employees, including City health-care workers and those supporting them in their different functions. The City also provides burnout, compassion fatigue and resilience workshops and makes proactive interventions to deal with stress and anxiety. According to the provincial health department, between October and December last year, 2,832 employees accessed the employee health and wellness programme in either individual or group format. During that time, the top five problems presented were work related problems, trauma, Covid-19 related challenges, family challenges and relationships issues.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mwangi Githahu at Cape Argus

Sanlam preparing for 'at least' two more Covid-19 waves in SA this year

Fin24 reports that Sanlam CEO Paul Hanratty is planning for at least two more Covid-19 infection waves in 2021. The country's largest life insurer said during its annual results presentation on Thursday that there had been a significant increase in excess claims in the second half of 2020, particularly during the peak of the second wave when the number of death claims were 50% to 60% higher than at the peak of the first wave in June/July 2020. "When we look forward, we see several more waves, not just the third wave because this is how pandemics typically go … We've modelled sort of two-an-a-half more waves this year," Hanratty indicated during an interview.   He stated that looking at the development of the virus , a smaller wave around the Easter period when there were more movements and interaction between people was as good as guaranteed. But he thought that by July and later in the year as the country changed seasons there was another risk, even with the vaccination programme being rolled out. "Clearly if you vaccinate people it's going to make a difference. And although I believe that if you can do the rollout of the vaccine faster it will reduce the number of the waves, the vaccines are not a silver bullet. They are probably the most powerful we can bring to fight the pandemic, but they are not going to eliminate the problem completely," he said. Sanlam estimates that its excess death claims for the full 2021 financial year were likely to be two to three times more than the level of excess claims recorded in 2020.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24

SA pharmaceutical factory on track to produce J&J vaccine

Business Insider SA reports that SA pharmaceutical company Aspen is on track to deliver the first batch of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines from its Gqeberha factory before June this year, the company confirmed this week. “There have been no setbacks,” Aspen’s deputy CEO, Gus Attridge said, adding that the technical preparations for the start of manufacturing were proceeding according to plan. The factory will receive the coronavirus vaccine in frozen format from Janssen Pharmaceutica, the Belgium-based division of J&J which developed it.   The finished vials will be packaged in special containers, at the correct temperature, before being returned to J&J, which will export it across the world.   It is expected – although not yet confirmed – that the three million doses of J&J vaccine that SA expects to receive between April and June will come from the locally finished stock. Attridge said Aspen has been working with representatives from Jansen since last November and teams from the company have been in SA to monitor its progress. As many as 300 million doses of the vaccine could be packaged in SA.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Business Insider SA

Regular Covid-19 booster vaccines will become standard procedure

Reuters reports that regular booster vaccines against the novel coronavirus will be needed because of mutations that make it more transmissible and better able to evade human immunity. The novel coronavirus, which has killed 2.65-million people globally since it emerged in China in late 2019, mutates about once every two weeks, slower than influenza or HIV, but enough to require tweaks to vaccines.   Sharon Peacock, who heads Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) which has sequenced half of all the novel coronavirus genomes so far mapped globally, said international co-operation was needed in the “cat and mouse” battle with the virus. “We have to appreciate that we were always going to have to have booster doses; immunity to coronavirus doesn’t last forever,” Peacock pointed out.   “We already are tweaking the vaccines to deal with what the virus is doing in terms of evolution — so there are variants arising that have a combination of increased transmissibility and an ability to partially evade our immune response,” she noted.   Peacock said she was confident regular booster shots — such as for influenza — would be needed to deal with future variants, but that the speed of vaccine innovation meant those shots could be developed at pace and rolled out to the population.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn at BusinessLive

RELIEF FUNDS

NAC board to probe employment stimulus programme overpayments

SowetanLive reports that the Board of the National Arts Council (NAC) has instituted an investigation into discrepancies in the approval of Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP) funding applications for artists. Among issues being investigated is the funding of non-arts-related companies, individuals who got more than they asked for and claims that several of kwaito singer Arthur Mafokate’s companies were approved for funding. The Presidency created PESP to create employment for artists, creatives and the heritage sector during the Covid-19 pandemic and it was allocated R300m. Kwaito legend Eugene Mthethwa shared details of a number of Mafokate’s companies as being in line to receive a windfall. Mthethwa asked on his Facebook page: “Please educate us. Is it the ignorance or incapacity of NAC board and management not to pick up that all these companies and associations belong to one person?” NAC spokesperson Tshepo Mashiane said the approval of Mafokate’s applications and others was done by the previous board whose tenure ended in December. Mashiane said the discrepancies in approving funding were the reasons the new board had to suspend the CEO and CFO. “We are investigating to find out why people got more than what they have asked for,” Mashiane advised. Meantime, over half of funding applicants (761) were left out in the cold.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Patience Bambalele at SowetanLive

BASIC INCOME GRANT

Consensus across parties over introduction of basic income grant

BL Premium reports that even though government is in the grip of a fiscal crisis, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu is calling for the urgent introduction of a basic income grant to replace the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant when the latter expires at the end of April.   On Friday, all the major opposition parties expressed support for the idea, in a mini-plenary debate in the National Assembly. "We need to find pathways towards introducing a basic income grant, to mobilise for a social compact. We believe it is possible," the minister told MPs. The ANC has long supported a basic income grant. So have its alliance partner, Cosatu, civil society organisations and opposition parties. Most have voiced support for the introduction of a grant that caters for the unemployed between 18 years and 59 years old who do not qualify for social grants. But the tight fiscal position in which government finds itself — with mounting debt and ever-increasing debt service costs coupled with coronavirus pandemic spending — has required deep cuts to government expenditure that will make a basic income grant hard to implement. There is much concern about the removal of the Covid-19 grant given the widespread poverty in SA, which has been made worse by the joblessness caused by lockdowns to fight the disease. It was no longer a question of whether to introduce a basic income grant, Zulu said, but ones of how and when.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (paywall access only)

MINING LABOUR

Wescoal appoints Robinson Ramaite as interim group CEO

Mining Weekly reports that JSE-listed Wescoal has appointed nonexecutive director Robinson Ramaite as interim group CEO, effective 15 March. This came after Reginald Demana announced his resignation in January, saying he would be leaving the company on 31 March. Ramaite is a former director-general of the Department of Public Service and Administration, as well as a former adviser to various ministers. According to Wescoal, he has been involved in the mining sector for more than ten years and occupies positions on the boards of various listed and non-listed companies. The company said it was confident that Ramaite had the necessary strategic leadership, management, mining, legal, board and committee experience to effectively lead the company until it appointed a permanent group CEO.   Meanwhile, Wescoal has also appointed nonexecutive director Zukie Siyotola as chairperson of its Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee, effective 1 April, following the resignation of Kabela Maroga to pursue other commitments.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Mining Weekly

Other general posting(s) relating to mining

• Kangra coal mine extension on the horizon, at Mining Weekly
• Mining production down in January, but mineral sales up almost 25%, at Mining Weekly

LABOUR AND POLITICS

Nehawu won’t be campaigning for the ANC in local government elections due to lack of funds

The Citizen reports that on Monday the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said its members would not be campaigning for the ANC in the upcoming local government elections.   This development followed a two-day meeting of Nehawu’s national political commission at the weekend, which resolved to use its financial and human resources towards fighting government’s freeze on wage increases for public servants. The Cosatu affiliate’s president Mzwandile Makwayiba said the union had at its last congress resolved to vote for the ANC, however, they did not have money to campaign for the governing party this year.   Makwayiba said Nehawu’s central committee meeting in December last year had not been able to make a decision on increasing members’ subscription fees, which had had a major impact on its budget. “Therefore, we decided that we will use the money we have for the service of our members including the dispute that is in the Constitutional Court for the non-implementation of resolution one of 2018 … Therefore, we don’t have money to campaign for the ANC and we will not deploy people to campaign for the ANC because that will want us to pay for petrol or food for campaigning.”   However, Makwayiba said Nehawu members were not being instructed to vote against the ANC. Last month, labour federation Cosatu said it planned to convene a special meeting of its central executive committee (CEC) to deliberate on its support for the ANC ahead of this year’s local government elections.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thapelo Lekabe at The Citizen

EXECUTIVE PAY

MTN’s generous executive pay continues, with former CEO’s package for 2020 just shy of R74m

Moneyweb writes that Rob Shuter’s four-year stint as MTN Group CEO turned out to be a fairly grim period – for him as well as the company and its shareholders. Throughout most of his four years the share price was on a generally downward trend, but fortunately it has recovered in recent months. It’s a recovery the group is expected to sustain for the foreseeable future. This may explain why there hasn’t been much of a fuss about last week’s revelations that Shuter’s remuneration package in 2020 was a hefty R73.8 million. Or it could just be that everyone is now inured to the practice of rewarding executives huge amounts of money, particularly when it comes to MTN.   From day one the cellphone operator has never scrimped on executive pay, no matter what disaster befell the company. In addition to his R18 million guaranteed package in 2020, Shuter received ‘other benefits’ of R17.8 million, R30.1 million of bonuses, post-employment benefits of R2 million and share gains of R5.7 million. The ‘other benefits’ reflected the payment of cash-settled share-based incentives awarded to Shuter as a sign-on bonus back in March 2017 when he was head-hunted from Vodafone Europe. At the time the MTN shares were awarded as a sign-on bonus their price put a value of R41 million to this bonus.   So, this means Shuter got less than half of what he might have expected from the sign-on bonus.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ann Crotty at Moneyweb <https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/mtns-generous-pay-continues/>

HEALTH CARE

Health department confirms immigrants must be given health care even if undocumented, but some in Makhanda have been turned away

GroundUp reports that according to Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo, immigrants, with or without documentation, have a right to get health assistance even if their permits have expired. But, a number of immigrants in Makhanda claim they have been denied health care because their permits to be in South Africa have expired. A man, from Zambia, who owns a spaza shop in Extension 9, said he went to Joza clinic in December. He had a clinic card, but he was asked where he was from. When he said, Zambia, he was asked to produce his permit.   “They then told me that it was expired and I can’t get assistance. I left and decided to visit a special doctor … doctors are very expensive,” he stated. A man from Pakistan, who owns a spaza shop in Joza location, said he went to Settlers Day clinic last Friday and was turned away because his permit had expired.   A man from Bangladesh, said he was also turned away at the Settlers Day clinic in February. Meanwhile, a Zimbabwean whose permit had expired said he had no problems visiting Raglan Road and Settlers Day Clinics last year.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Loyiso Dyongman at GroundUp <https://www.groundup.org.za/article/immigrants-must-be-given-health-care-even-if-their-permit-has-expired-health-department-confirms/>

MISCONDUCT

Four police officers arrested and charged for Mthokozisi Ntumba's killing last week

TimesLIVE reports that four police officers were arrested on Monday in connection with the death of Mthokozisi Ntumba, who was shot dead on the sidelines of student protests in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, last week. The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) confirmed that the four officers were from the public order policing unit. The four officers will appear at the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday to face charges of murder, attempted murder and defeating the end of justice. Ntumba, 35, died when police fired rubber bullets at protesting Wits University students. He was shot shortly after leaving a doctor's appointment in the area. A video circulating online suggests that Ntumba was shot at close range, with several rubber bullets. In the video, he can be seen gasping for air on the sidewalk, with bloodstains on his blue shirt and blood on his face. He died moments later. His death elicited outrage, with the police criticised by some for using excessive force when dispersing black protesters as opposed to white protesters. A father of four, Ntumba worked at the department of human settlements in Tshwane.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Naledi Shange at TimesLIVE

WORKPLACE CORRUPTION / FRAUD

Pair rob retail giant CTM of R26m over six years through 916 fictitious invoices

Mail & Guardian reports that two women, one of whom had roped her spouse in, were the leaders of a scam to defraud ceramic tile and bathroom retail giant CTM of more than R26.1-million through 916 fictitious invoices from January 2011 to November 2016. Prudence Mabuza, who worked with her husband, Nhlanhla Mabuza, and Agnes Ngubane have been convicted of 997 charges of fraud, theft, money laundering and assisting another to benefit from proceeds of unlawful activities. They will be sentenced in the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court on 18 March. Prudence and Agnes were employed by Cinque Funding Solutions, which Cladding Finance subcontracted to handle debtors on behalf of CTM. To avoid giving their scam away, the two women filed and paid invoices for small amounts ranging from R180 to R90,530.66, according to the National Prosecuting Authority’s spreadsheet detailing each transaction and the bogus invoice numbers. The two women became more brazen in the amounts of money they stole as the years went by. By April 2014, they had stolen almost R5.8-million over three years — the halfway mark of their scheme. The fraudsters then grew bolder and amassed more than R8.5-million in 2016 alone from just 143 transactions. Cinque’s Darrell von Broembsen said Prudence and Agnes had been with the company for 10 and eight years respectively. Their scheme, he said, had shown how technological advances in counterfeiting bank statements had made fraud “so much easier, and fakes are very difficult to distinguish from the real thing”.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Khaya Koko at Mail & Guardian