King Goodwill Zwelithini and the royal household have emerged as the main casualties of the belt-tightening measures applied by the KwaZulu-Natal government, announced during the presentation of the provincial budget on Friday.

Refurbishments of the eight royal palaces and the acquisition of a vehicle for one of the queens will be put on ice until possibly the mid-term adjustment later in the year, and this too is likely to depend on whether the province’s financial position improves or not.

Senior KwaZulu-Natal treasury official Nelly Shezi, alongside provincial head Simiso Magagula, told a media briefing at the Royal Show Grounds in Pietermaritzburg on Friday that treasury had moved to arrest runaway expenditure and ensure value for money in all areas of government expenditure, including checking whether items presented for funding could be canned until an improvement of the province’s finances for the 2020/21 financial year.

She added that there had been no clear indication on the spending plans of the royal household, especially the repairs on the palaces.

“We need to do a proper and thorough analysis on the state of palaces before determining how much needs to be spent on them,” said Shezi.

Her comment came just three days after the Zulu king had delivered the keynote address to mark the official opening of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature on Tuesday.

In past gatherings marking the opening of the legislature, the king challenged members of the provincial legislature to inspect the state of royal palaces.

Part of the budget adjustments included halting the construction of a government and legislature precinct, which she said was a bitter pill to swallow as landlords continue milking the provincial government on rent.

Finance MEC Ravi Pillay insisted that curbing “unnecessary yet desirable items” over the past years had put KwaZulu-Natal in a better financial position, one where the province was able to record a surplus, enabling for better use of excess funds.

Inkatha Freedom Party leader Velenkosini Hlabisa cautioned against targeting the royal household.

“Austerity measures are welcomed, given the existing economic climate, but there should be no move to single out the king and the royal household when there are other areas that need attention,” said Hlabisa.

Speaking to City Press, provincial DA leader Zwakele Mncwango said they would apply a wait-and-see approach to whether royal palaces needed refurbishing, insisting that the royal household had been abused in the past.

“I have sent a transversal question to government, asking each government what they were doing in relation to the royal household and how much they were paying for such activity. This will provide a clear picture of what is really happening,” said Mncwango.

ANC chief whip Super Zuma said there was no cause for alarm over the possible halting of refurbishments of royal palaces.

“Let us remember that what we had today was a budget proposal; this process still has to go through the finance committee, where all items will be subject to scrutiny before adoption [next month].

“In addition to this, there is the office of the premier, under which royal household matters fall,” said Zuma.

For the 2020/21 financial year, R138 billion has been set aside for public spending, with education and health once more emerging as the big spenders and taking more than 80% of the budget.

he German national died at a golf course in Margate on Saturday.
Image: 123RF/Dmitrii Shironosov
A German national died after being allegedly beaten to death while playing golf at a course in Margate, KwaZulu-Natal, paramedics said on Sunday.

Netcare911 spokesperson Shawn Herbst said the elderly man was allegedly assaulted at around 2pm on Saturday.

Herbst said the man sustained severe head trauma.

When paramedics arrived, they found the man unresponsive on the ground, Herbst said.

He was declared dead on the scene.

Provincial police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala confirmed that the body of a 66-year-old man was found at around 3pm.

But despite Netcare911 stating that the man suffered severe head trauma, Gwala said the man showed “no visible injuries”.

Gwala said circumstances around the incident would be investigated and a post-mortem would determine the cause of death.

An inquest docket was opened.

* This article has been updated with police comment

Tiso Blackstar Group, the former publisher of the Business Day and Sunday Times, says it has sold its entire stake in Gallo Music for R75m to Lebashe Investment Group’s Arena Holdings.

In 2019, Lebashe, which bought Tiso Blackstar’s media assets for R1.05bn, was granted a right of first refusal if the company elects to sell its interest in Gallo.

Lebashe, headed by chair Tshepo Mahloele, launched a new company, Arena Holdings, housing media assets including Sowetan, Daily Dispatch, The Herald, Business Day TV and Financial Mail.

The sale will see Arena taking over Gallo Music Investments (GMI) and Indigenous Film Distribution (IFD).

GMI is a music publishing and record company whose business involves the acquisition of music rights, as well as representing artists, recording, manufacturing, distributing digitally and physically and selling pre-recorded music and video in SA and internationally under the names of “Gallo Record Company” and “Gallo Music Publishers”.

The business of IFD involves the acquisition, marketing and distribution of motion pictures and other film media produced in SA and the rest of Africa and distributed globally.

The company said the majority of the proceeds from the sale will be used to reduce its debt “to appropriate levels”.

On March 5, the London-based group said it had entered into new negotiations for the sale of its radio assets in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria to Lebashe after an initial deal, part of the media assets sale in 2019, failed to materialise.

On Thursday, Tiso Blackstar said that, despite great effort, it proved impossible to obtain the required signature of a minority shareholder of Ghanaian media company Multimedia Group to conclude the sale of its radio assets in the rest of Africa. Due to the non-fulfilment of that condition, the deal could not proceed.

Health minister Zweli Mkhize said SA is ready to tackle the coronavirus. File photo.
Image: REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
There is no need to panic — there are highly trained nurses and doctors at hand to tackle the Covid-19, health minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday.

“What are we fearing? What we fear is that there is a history of coronavirus that attacked and killed many people.

“We are ready to deal with it as an emergency,” Mkhize said during a briefing at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall on Sunday afternoon.

Mkhize was accompanied by KwaZulu-Natal MEC for health Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu.

Mkhize said trained medical staff at hospitals used a “specific gown” when treating coronavirus-affected patients.

“The gown covers your head, eyes, mouth, hands, body and feet. We call this barrier nursing, it covers the entire body and the nurse can treat the patient and go home and won’t infect their children.”

Mkhize said those who tested positive for the novel coronavirus would be isolated and treated.He said it was unlikely to infect others if one did not have the symptoms. Mkhize said once patients were treated and tests came back negative, they could go back to their daily lives.

“It is like a flu, once treated it is gone. Go back to life.”

Mkhize said there had been no confirmed cases of infected South Africans in Wuhan, China.

“Some are now pulling out and saying they do not to want to come back. We will bring back those who want to come back and leave those who want to stay, it is not a problem.

“There is no reason to worry about those who are coming back to SA. There is no risk of infection to the local community and we will make sure of that. Our health professionals are fairly competent,” he said.

On Sunday morning, the department confirmed the third coronavirus case in the country after the wife of the first man to be diagnosed with the coronavirus in SA also tested positive.

She had also travelled with him to Italy as part of a group of 10.The couple’s two children tested negative for the virus, but as part of taking extra precautions, the children would remain in self-quarantine until their parents tested negative.

Mkhize said he spoke to the husband on Sunday and indicated that he was “upbeat and jovial”.

“I also spoke to the doctor who is treating him and she confirmed that this patient is responding well and is now asymptomatic.”

Another person in the group who travelled with the couple to Italy has also contracted the virus.

One of the 10 people did not return to SA.

Mkhize said the department expected the results of the other six group members who had travelled to Italy within the next 48 hours.

Eskom has warned that load-shedding is likely on Saturday night and possibly for the remainder of the weekend.
Image: 123RF/loganban
Eskom has warned of the likelihood of load-shedding on Saturday evening and Sunday due to multiple generation unit trips overnight.

It said it had lost seven generation units at four power stations — Duvha, Tutuka, Kriel and Grootvlei — due to various technical faults.

“The root causes of these incidents are being investigated and corrective measures to be implemented.

“This has caused additional strain on our reserve capacity. In order to rebuild our emergency reserves for the coming week, there is therefore an increased probability of implementing load-shedding tonight,” the power utility said.

It added that the load-shedding might continue throughout the weekend.

“Eskom is currently utilising expensive emergency generation reserves to supplement supply, which is unsustainable. The system remains constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable.

“Unplanned breakdowns or outages were at 11,868MW as at 10:50 this morning and planned maintenance outages are at 5,430MW.”

Eskom has not implemented load-shedding since February 22.