Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – Contentions are mounting in South Africa’s Education sector on whether schools should remain open or not.

Last month, after a lot of intense consultative meetings with various stakeholders the Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga reopened schools for grade 7 and grade 12 learners.

However, barely a month later after the reopening of schools scores of pupils and teachers have tested positive for COVID-19 with some succumbing to the virus which has now resulted in many teachers’ unions calling for the immediate suspension of all schools.

“We are now amongst the top 6 countries with the highest COVID-19 cases in the world, let’s close schools until the peak has ended,” said the National Teachers Union (NATU).

However, Noncedo Madubedube the General Secretary of Equal Education said closing all schools was not in the best interest of the learners.

“There are 9 million children who rely on the school nutrition program and for most of them that’s the only meal they receive.

Moreso, we did our own survey which showed us that 80 percent of learners want schools to remain open, we can’t have learners sitting idle at home.

However, it’s up to the communities on whether their schools should remain open or not,” said Madubedube.

Education expert, Professor Mary Metcalfe also castigated the move of closing all schools.

“We can’t suspend all schooling for the next 18 months. School governing bodies should work with communities in assessing the readiness of schools,” said Professor Mary Metcalfe.

The Basic Education Minister is expected to issue a verdict on the schooling issue after conducting cabinet deliberations anytime from today.

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe

Johannesburg, South Africa – The impacts of COVID-19 are seemingly causing mayhems in South Africa’s media fraternity.

Top media entities such as Caxton, Media24, and SABC have either retrenched their staff or made salary cuts.

Hundreds of journalists have been left without an income which has prompted the South Africa National Editors Forum (SANEF) to issue out R5 000 grants to those in need.

However, with the rate the retrenchments are being issued many are likely not to receive the grant unless more funds are unveiled to towards the initiative.

Yesterday, Primedia became the latest entity to issue out a Section 189 (retrenchment notices) to its employees.

The media entity is home to radio stations such as 702, KFM, 947 and CapeTalk amongst other forms of media.

Although Primedia is yet to confirm the number of those affected, the Section 189 announcement has already been made.

“This decision follows an extensive strategic review process which scrutinised every facet of the business. Various factors, including new entrants in the media sector, have placed significant pressure on media businesses to adapt and evolve, in order to stay relevant.

Moreso, this has been further compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, and South Africa’s national lockdown on our key clients and industries.

Important consideration has been applied to a number of initiatives to reduce the impact of job losses across the group. However, it has become abundantly clear that Primedia cannot successfully pursue the necessary strategic imperatives and ensure sustainability in the long term in its current modality,” said Primedia’s Interim CEO, Phumzile Langeni.

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pretoria, South Africa – South Africa’s consumer inflation rate is now at 2.2 percent its lowest since September 2004.

Although this might be good news, a lot of South Africans are bearing the brunt of COVID-19 which has adversely affected their livelihoods regardless of the low consumer inflation rate.

“Prices of basic goods have relatively increased which has caused some financial pressure on many homes, this is despite the fact that the consumer inflation index is at its lowest in 16 years.

Many families are struggling to put food on their tables as they are now jobless, and jobs are not easy to come by especially during this time of COVID-19.

Right now some of Truworths’ customers are owing the clothing retailer R5.5 billion in clothing accounts and most of them have already signalled that they won’t be able to settle their debts,” said Ray Mahlaka, Managing Editor of Mergers and Acquisitions Africa.

Dr. Nic Spaull, a Senior Research Fellow at the Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) group said the current socioeconomic status of the country was worrisome.

“To date, at least 3 million people have lost their jobs and that is from February this year and the number is going to increase.

Moreso, of the 3 million people that lost their jobs, two million were women with a lot of them earning less than R3 000, there is a lot of social inequality in this country, some will have to sell their assets for them to buy food,” said Dr. Spaull.

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – According to Mthandazo Ndlovu, Oxfam South Africa’s Democracy and Governance Manager many South Africans are likely to go hungry during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Ndlovu has attributed this to loss of income due to massive retrenchments and closure of businesses.

“COVID-19 has caused inequality retrenchments which have created unemployment drought hotspots for hunger.

Just under 50 percent of all South Africans are living below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL).

The government has to maximize the COVID-19 social relief fund to avoid devastating results.

Moreover, there must be a fairer way of distributing food and regulating food prices as well as a basic income grant,” said Ndlovu.

Although South Africa is expecting a bumper food harvest this year, the repercussions of COVID-19 are likely going to see many people failing to procure basic food stuffs due to lack of income.

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Johannesburg, South Africa – A number of liquor traders are crying foul over the suspension of the distribution and sale of alcohol.

This follows Sunday’s announcement by the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who emphasized the need of implementing the suspension so as to avoid burdening the country’s trauma and ICU units.

“This sector employees more than 1 million people and what’s going to happen to their families.

The government never consulted us, the industry has an annual turnover of R130 billion and contributes an annual tax fee of R50 billion, we are not happy with the decision,” said Lucky Ntimane, Convenor of the National Liquor Traders Council of South Africa.

However, Professor Charles Parry, Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco & Other Drug Research Unit at the Medical Research Council of South Africa said the suspension of the sale and distribution of alcohol was essential considering the fact that the country is about to reach its COVID-19 peak.

“We did some modeling when we were at level 5 and realised that some of the country’s trauma units were receiving between 42 000 and 43 000 alcohol related cases per week and that was before the suspension of the sale of alcohol.

So from level 5 the suspension of alcohol really assisted in decongesting our trauma units, we have also realised that 40 percent of trauma cases are alcohol related,” said Professor Parry.

South Africa is now the 8th country in the world with the highest number of COVID-19 cases which are now nearing the 300 000 mark.

Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily

Pemba, Mozambique – They are now several calls for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene in Mozambique’s Islamist insurgencies which have since left more than 1 000 people dead.

Many are worrying that if the insurgencies are not controlled now, they might spiral into other SADC states similar to the scenario of Boko Haram in West Africa.

“The massacres, beheadings, torture and violent conflict engulfing towns in northern Mozambique cannot be left as an island unto itself for the government of Mozambique to handle.

Now that the problem poses a threat to the regional peace and security of the southern African region, the onus is on all regional governments to become part of the solution.

This week, the Islamic State threatened that if South Africa puts forces on the ground in Mozambique then it would open fighting fronts within the borders of South Africa. This makes military involvement by South Africa in the counter-insurgency campaign a huge risk.

There will be no quick-fix to this problem given that the conflict is complex, multilayered and asymmetrical. The region needs to devise a co-ordinated response and a common front. 

In order to defeat the insurgency, the region will have to have a clear understanding of who they are fighting against and what is driving them. The insurgency has gained in strength and confidence since it pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year, which started taking responsibility for attacks.

While material deprivation, marginalisation and poverty remain root causes of the restiveness, religion has been a key factor. Muslims have been radicalised by extremist preachers from Kenya and Tanzania over many years. Kenyan Islamist militants had sought refuge in Tanzania, and when they were repressed there, they moved on and settled in Northern Mozambique.

Moreso, the movement began in 2007 as a religious sect which locals called al-Shabaab, which rejected the secular state and wanted to impose Sharia rule. They tore down Christian crosses and statues of Mozambique’s independence leaders Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel. 

Now that the group has pledged allegiance to Islamic State and is formally part of the Islamic State of Central Africa province, these outside forces will heavily influence the group’s strategy, tactics and targeting. This has hugely complicated the trajectory of the conflict, and a regional force will have to carefully strategise on how best such a motivated fighting force can be defeated with Mozambique’s porous borders and an unpatrolled coastline.

However, time is against the SADC and Mozambique, as the longer the insurgents have to mobilise forces, from within the region and to attract foreign fighters, and the more finances and weaponry they are able to accrue, the harder it will be to defeat them,” said  South Africa’s Shannon Ebrahim, Independent Media’s foreign editor.