Author: Sue Maclennan

Within 10 days of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaring the current Level 4 lockdown, the National Arts Festival made the superhuman switch from partly live to all digital in 10 days. Well, almost all digital. Makhanda residents have the benefit of seeing in action four Artists in Residence in action in ‘Nature is Louder’, a project focused on 2D Street Art in Makhanda. With the provocation “Nature is always louder”, the Festival invited four street artists to Makhanda for a two-week period of listening and making. It started mid-June and will be completed during the now virtual National Arts Festival 2021. The sites…

Festival launches second fully virtual event – and marks the start of a new business model  From now on, the National Arts Festival will be both a live and digital events company, CEO Monica Newton announced at the event’s opening briefing on Thursday 8 July. The 2021 National Arts Festival Experience was to have been a hybrid event with live and online performances, workshops and exhibitions. Leading up to it was the Standard Bank Presents series in Cape Town and Durban – suspended in Johannesburg because of rising Covid-19 cases there. The President’s announcement of a two-week alert Level 4…

Palaeontologist Billy de Klerk speaks about finding the specimen of Heterodonosaurus Tucki whose breathing mechanism was described in an article published in an international scientific journal this week – and about putting together pieces of the 200-million-year-old puzzle of dinosaur life. The specimen that Dr William de Klerk, Emeritus Curator, Palaeontology, at the Albany Museum, found near the village of Rossouw in 2009 sheds light on how Heterodontosaurus Tucki’s  family evolved a unique way of breathing. As far as this this week’s research publication on the open access eLife platform is concerned, De Klerk is quick to emphasise that he…

“With this Covid, you’re fine today, and very sick tomorrow – and you won’t know where you got it,” said Mavis Ntlumbini, 81. She’d come with her daughter Phila Ntlumbini from Joza Street to get her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Extension 9 Hall on Monday 5 July. “I’m very happy I’m going to be getting the vaccine today,” she said. “I know it will help keep me and my family safer.” She’d been among around 60 mostly elderly people sitting on the stoep outside, in two socially distanced rows. They’d reached the inside seating, it was nearly…

Makhanda residents in many parts of town woke up to frost this morning. But although the early morning temperatures were the coldest yet for the year, the city wasn’t quite down to zero. Jim Cambray recorded 2.4C in Park Road – the coldest temperature for 2021. Dave Stoloff left his gardening gloves out overnight and this is what he found in the morning. SAWeather predicted a maximum of 20C for today. Garth Sampson of the South African Weather Service’s Port Elizabeth office reports that with a series of cold fronts passing to the south of the country together with clear…

The first round of Covid-19 vaccination for teachers in Makhanda has been completed; however slowness in the registration system means support staff, and teachers at independent schools have yet to receive their shots. Meanwhile, vaccination of health care workers and people 60 and over is continuing at the Settlers Hospital and Clicks vaccination sites. Head of the Department of Health’s Makana Subdistrict, Mohamed Docrat, said the vaccination programme this week moved to the rural areas of Alicedale (Thursday) and Riebeeck East (Friday 2 July).  The team would return to the Extension 9 Hall on Monday, resuming their area based outreach,…

More than two dozen interim protection orders were served in Makhanda on Thursday 1 July – Day One of a four-day blitz on everything from Covic-19 compliance and traffic offences to drug dealing. The local law-enforcement campaign has been boosted by a multidisciplinary force comprising provincial traffic officials, personnel from private security companies and additional police. South African Police Service Spokesperson Sergeant Majola Nkohli would not reveal the total boosted number involved in the campaign, but said the expanded SAPS component alone totalled more than 160. The SAPS plus ‘force multiplier’ operational unit was briefed on Parade on Thursday morning…

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) says its branches will be closed from 1 July. However, this will not affect the start of the Filing Season for individuals who traditionally file via eFiling or the SARS MobiApp. In a statement on Friday 25 June, SARS said it had targeted the probable date 16 August 2021 for physical branch visits to resume; however, they would review this continuously. The move to close its physical branches comes in response to concern about rising numbers of Covid-19 cases. In terms of the Disaster Management Act, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) remains an…

Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga gave a media briefing on Monday 28 June following President Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday 27 June 2021 Minister of Basic Education  Angie Motshekga said that the Council of Education Ministers (CEM ) met on 28 June 2021 and unanimously agreed that: Learners in public and independent or private schools should be released for winter vacation on Wednesday, 30 June 2021; The School Management Teams (SMTs), teachers, learners in hostel facilities, and learners with special education needs waiting for parents to pick them up, should report at school until Friday, 02 July…

UPDATE MONDAY 28 JUNE AT 5pm The Electoral Commission will urgently approach the Electoral Court to postpone eight by-elections scheduled for Wednesday 30 June 2021 following the implementation of level 4 lockdown restrictions. The Electoral Commission took the decision to seek the court’s approval to postpone the by-elections at an emergency meeting today after the announcement last night by President Cyril Ramaphosa of additional measures to help curb the third wave currently gripping the country. These measures included raising the lockdown restrictions to level 4 which includes a ban on all gatherings (except for funerals) including political gatherings. Wednesday’s by-elections were…