Former Minister for Welfare and Population, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi is taking over as Chairperson of Tiger Brands. Doubtless @GJFras will move quickly to persuade Tiger to settle the claims of the families of the 1000+ people killed and injured by the company’s callous neglect.
That’s nearly 200 mothers who lost their newborn children, another 200 pregnant women who lost the babies they were carrying and dozens more adults and children who were terribly maimed by listeriosis.
That Tiger was responsible for the listeriosis outbreak is a matter of scientific fact as is confirmed in this peer reviewed article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The authors of the peer reviewed article concluded that - “these findings showed that polony produced at a single facility was the source of the listeriosis outbreak.”
That facility was Tiger Brands meat processing facility in Polokwane.
More than two years after Tiger was found to be the source of the outbreak, the company’s lawyers say they are still unable to disclose relevant records and documents relevant to the case against Tiger, because they haven’t had time to locate and identify them yet.
In Court papers Tigers lawyers say that they have identified about 6.5 million records and documents that may be relevant and that a team of 6 lawyers has started checking them. If each lawyer checks 1 document/minute 8 hours/day it will take another 2256 days to finish the job.
But only if they work weekends too.
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Our trade union client gets good information that Samancor Chrome is engaged in large scale transfer pricing. They sell chrome that they mine in SA to a related offshore company at a heavy discount to the market price. They do so to lower their profit in SA and their taxes.
This is bad news for the unions members who have shares in the company through a worker empowerment trust set up by the company as part of its BEE obligations. The trust gets a reduced dividend and workers get a smaller distribution.
The Union calls upon Samancor Ito Section 165 of the Companies Act to investigate the allegations and to recover the moneys lost through the transfer pricing scheme. Samancor appoints an audit firm to do the investigation.
This is how SANRAl moves rural people in Pondoland to make way for their grand vanity project, the N2 greenfields freeway along the Transkei Wild Coast. You know the one, it’s a toll road with the highest bridges in the world built and designed to facilitate dune strip mining.
But perhaps the first thing is to explain how they should move them. Because SANRAL uses foreign (Chinese) contractors and uses World Bank money it is obliged to subscribe to IFC social and environmental standards. These require that SANRAl prepare a RAP.
A Relocation Action Plan requires that SANRAl consider the social and economic consequences of its forced displacement on the people it plans to move. Where will they be moved to? The minimum housing standards that will apply, compensation and provision of alternative livelihoods
Well, that was a very impressive and dignified response by Israel. The confidence we had coming out of yesterday’s hearing has pretty much evaporated. It does appear that SA’s case was light on hard evidence.
The evidence of genocidal intent in the form of statements by leaders is much less impactful when placed in context and countered with other statements, orders and directives requiring the Israeli military to respect the rules of war. We missed Israel’s humanitarian initiatives.
Our reliance on evidence of massive civilian casualties and damage to property and infrastructure, to prove intent, is not that telling in circumstances where we are unable to show that the harm and damage would have been any less, if Israel had complied with the rule of law.
Let’s clear up some of the common misunderstandings about what South Africa’s complaint is about. 1. Israel’s contention that Hamas is an antisemitic terrorist organisation with a genocidal intent, is not in issue. 2. The scale and nature of the Oct 7 atrocity is not in issue.
3. Israel’s right to self defense and its right to wage war against Hamas in order to destroy for good, its capacity to attack Israel and its people and to free the hostages is not in issue.
What is in issue is the manner in and intention with which Israel is conducting that war.
South Africa contends that based on the utterances of senior Israeli political and military leaders and the conduct of its military forces in Gaza that it is clear that Israel’s strategy to destroy Hamas is to target the civilian population of Gaza and to punish them.
Consulted with a client today. His experience is representative of how SOE’s work.
Telkom is rolling out fibre in some townships in Gauteng. It appointed a main contractor but because the contractor lacks local influence, it insists on the use of a local subcontractor.
The main contractor does the buying and pays the subcontractor. The main contractor gets 30% of the contract value, the subcontractor gets 70%. The work goes well till other local political players decide to muscle in. They start destroying the installed fibre infrastructure.
The Telkom contract manager tells the main contractor he must split the subcontracting work between all those demanding a share of the subcontracting work. My client, the subcontractor refuses to agree to the splitting of his sub contract.
Got a letter today from SASOL’s attorneys, the estimable firm of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. My client is a farmer with a farm downstream from one of SASOL’s waste water dams, known as Dam F. Dam F was built in the 80’s to accommodate toxic waste water from the coal mines.
Dam F was designed to leak waste water. The clay was carefully removed to build the dam wall exposing the weathered dolorite, that constitutes the floor of the dam, which leaks like a seive. It’s a cunning way to leach polluted waste water into the ground water.
This is much cheaper than treating the water or evaporating it. From Dam F the waste water flows into the ground water and eventually surfaces in the dams in the stream flowing through my clients property. His animals drink the waste water and get sick and die.