Gyms and fitness centres have remained closed in South Africa since the country first moved to a level 5 lockdown on 27 March. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement about the reopening of gyms during alert level 2 has brought long-awaited good news for the Fitness Industry. After four long months, fitness fanatics are able to work out in the gym again!
Moove Motion Fitness Clubs officially opened on Monday, 24 August 2020. Only 50 people are allowed in the gym at any time and members were and are encouraged to book a slot via its app and website to prevent arriving at an at-capacity gym and having to wait your turn – Bookings were seamless although I had to download their app first.
Book your spot NOW!
Zola Mthombeni Regional Operations Manager at Moove said: “An online pre-screening feature has been developed on the app that will allow for fast and easy access with no congestion on arrival at the Club.”
On arrival, I received a complimentary tag for touchless entry and a buff. There were a variety of buffs to choose from.
A variety of buffs are available to choose from
I had my temperature checked and hands sanitised. In less than 5 minutes I was in the Club, ready to start working out.
When I was there, I noticed there was loads of space on the floor with all the equipment that was rearranged to adhere to social distancing protocols.
After using weights, members must leave them in a designated area where they will be picked up and cleaned. The weights were picked up by staff quickly.
Fitness Trainers and cleaning staff were always visible and seemed to be constantly busy sanitising and cleaning.
I noted that members are not allowed to bring their own sweat towels, there are paper towels situated throughout the Club, along with sanitiser.
Overall, it was a great experience and I am very happy that Moove was able to maintain the amazing atmosphere and vibe within the Club under the “new normal” circumstances.
Dean Wrigley Regional Manager of Fitness also took me on an exclusive tour of the Secunda Club to boast about the new safety features and the stringent measures that was put in place to look after the health and safety of their members and staff.
Dean Wrigley Regional Manager of Fitness is extremely excited for the group fitness classes to resume
“We were used to disinfecting and sanitising the Club even before it was mainstream, only difference now is that we have increased the frequency of the habit. We have access control and we can screen out people that are high-risk,” said Dean.
Group Fitness Classes will also be launching very soon with some new and exciting programmes however, Dean was very secretive about it and said that they want to keep it as a surprise to their members.
Group fitness classes will resume in due course
Speaking to Monique Steenekamp, Regional Marketing Manager, she confirmed that there has been an overwhelming interest to get back into the swing of things amongst their Members and they have even seen growth in the amount of people interested in joining Moove for the first time and that they are anticipating the numbers to gradually increase.
“We are very excited to welcome our members back and look forward to what we have in store with future initiatives.”
My advice to our readers: if you were considering going back to the gym, you have to take responsibility for your own hygiene and do not assume everyone else is as cautious as you. Wipe down your equipment before and after you use it and wear your mask as much as possible.
NELSPRUIT- Emanating from a video clip which was widely circulated on social media, where a woman was seen being viciously assaulted by her alleged boyfriend, the woman in question has sadly opted not to open an assault case against the man.
She indicated that they have spoken as family and hence her resolve.
This comes after police in Mpumalanga instituted an inquiry into the matter with a view to subject the perpetrator to court.
The incident, which can be described as inhuman, is alleged to have taken place at Kamhlushwa in the Nkomazi area, earlier this year in February/March but only surfaced on Saturday, 22 August 2020.
After careful scrutiny of the video, police sought to fully investigate the incident as they were of the view that the man has a case to answer.
A senior police officer was tasked with the responsibility to probe this issue.
The decision made by the Provincial Commissioner of the police in Mpumalanga, Lieutenant General Mondli Zuma, was largely to ensure that justice is served in this matter.
Provincial Commissioner of the police in Mpumalanga, Lieutenant General Mondli Zuma
General Zuma also issued a statement over the weekend reiterating a stance which must be taken by women should they experience any form of abuse that they must institute a protection order against their partners.
He further said that if they are physically abused, they must not hesitate to open a criminal case so that the processes can run concurrently.
General Zuma further urged women not to protect their abusive partners as the results are often deadly.
“The scourge of Gender-Based-Violence can be described as a national crisis in which many women have died in the hands of their partners. As the police, we encourage women to report such cases so as to prevent the unnecessary loss of lives as well as ensure that the men who commit such crimes are taken off the streets,” said General Zuma.
BETHAL: On Tuesday 2020-08-25 at about 23:15 police received a complaint of murder which occurred at Jabukani Selepe Street near Quality Motors.
On arrival at the scene, police found the body of a man aged between 25 and 30 years laying on the ground in a pool of blood with a stabbed wound on the neck.
All the role players were summoned to the scene and the body was certified dead by Mpumalanga Emergency Medical Service and was taken to Bethal government mortuary by the forensic pathologist, Mr Sphiwe Maseko.
The police are now investigating a case of murder and request anyone with information that could lead to the arrest of the suspect to contact Detective Sergeant Thembinkosi Maseko on 083 2385 546 or 0176479929
Two non-profit organisations from eMbalenhle are fighting over land for almost 1 year. Community members have intervened by preventing either one of them to occupy the land awarded to both of the NPOs by Govan Mbeki Municipality for infrastructural development.
Inkosinami Centre received the papers for a 99-year lease agreement from Govan Mbeki Municipality earlier this year to occupy the land near the bakery at extension 14 but they were prevented to do so by another NPO called Nkosinathi Da Poet claiming that they have also received a lease agreement to occupy the land.
The land has been neglected for almost a decade and has become a hot spot for illegal activities happening.
The land has been neglected for almost a decade and has become a hotspot for illegal activities happening.
In the past few years remains of foeti were discovered by children who were playing on the land. Since then the land has been neglected with no one taking responsibility for it.
Inkosinami Centre has all the papers signed by municipality officials showing them as legal owners of the land but has since been denied entry by the other NPO, Nkosinathi Da Poet who claims to have legal documents to also occupy the same land.
The notice that was printed in a local newspaper
Nkosinathi Da Poet failed to produce documents supporting their claims when The Bulletin requested these documents.
The ward councillor could not be reached after several attempts to comment nor the municipality spokesperson.
There have been fights between the two NPOs which resulted in minor injuries. No cases were opened at SAPS.
The community protecting the land
The community from extension 14 chased one NPO away and said that the owners cannot occupy the land as they stay in another location.
Members from the community said that they do not want either of the organisations to use the land but the community did not give apparent reasons why.
Following the first weekend, after the country moved to alert Level 2, many people of the community became targets of muggings by gangs who are believed to be operating between eMbalenhle and Kinross. The community decided to take justice into their own hands.
Residents from extension 15, eMbalenhle took justice into their hands when one alleged gang member was spotted during the day and was apprehended by the community. This gang member was nearly beaten to death.
Members of the community in eMbalenhle took justice into their own hands
It is alleged that he is one of the gang members who is terrorising the community at night which resulted in many people being injured and ending up in different medical facilities.
At the time of authoring this article, the alleged gang member’s health condition could not be confirmed.
Lekwa municipality have been plagued with three weeks of protests.
Several groups have voiced their anger at the Lekwa municipality. Residents have also taken to the streets to show their frustration at the lack of service delivery in Lekwa.
Recently the Mayor and the MM were removed from office by a motion tabled by the DA only to be replaced with the same persons by the ANC. This also angered residents of Lekwa.
SAMWU have different reasons for their strike.
The Bulletin spoke to representatives of SAMWU in Lekwa in front of the town hall. The streets were littered with refuse that the residents dumped the previous night. Someone set fire to the refuse. The smoke and flames resembled a Hollywood apocalypse type of movie.
The SAMWU representatives were very clear that they demand action and would not cease their action before an acceptable response from the municipality has been received.
They also demand that the Municipal Manager be put on special leave and a full forensic investigation be done into his actions in the municipality.
These are just a few of the demands that SAMWU gave the Municipality.
During the interview one of the SAMWU members, Jonny Nkosi, stated that the municipality upgraded the council chambers with new partitioning in line with COVID-19 guidelines. He alleged that a Durban company did the job. He also alleged that the MM hails from KZN.
The costs for the upgrade were approximately R1,6m according to Jonny. It would appear that even though the chambers were upgraded the MM refuses to hold any meetings there, even at the current level of the lockdown (level 3). She insists on virtual meetings via zoom.
The upgraded council chambers
The problems of Lekwa will not disappear soon and the reluctance of the provincial leadership to intervere in Lekwa as well as a number of other towns in Mpumalanga such as Govan Mbeki Municipality, Ermelo and Piet Retief will prove to be very costly ones for the people of Mpumalanga.
The resentment and anger of people in towns such as Lekwa, Piet Retief Ermelo, Bethal, Kinross and Leandra is slowly starting to become a huge headache for the municipal leadership.
Let us hope that intervention will be implemented soon.
In totaal het Kruinpark 88 uitonderlike prestasies gelewer!
Deelnemers van Laerskool Kruinpark.
Hierdie Kruinpark Kekkelkouse en hulle afrigters het aanlyn geoefen en al die kompetisies het aanlyn plaasgevind. Dit was ‘n nuwe avontuur, maar uit en uit al die moeite en lugtyd werd!
Con Spirito Eisteddfod was in 2003 gevind deur Lizelle van Staden en Zabé Jonker in die Oos Rand. Hulle het die nood gesien om kinders te bevorder en hulle talente te op ‘n platform te kan skouspel.
Hulle glo dat kinders ontwikkel moet word. Elke kind word as ‘n individue gesien gedurende hulle Eisteddfod.
Con Spirito is ‘n platform waar elke kind hulle talente kan ontwikkel in ‘n vriendelike omgewing met persoonlike terugvoering om die kind te help groei.
Sasol is warning the public to be aware of criminals who are pretending to be from Sasol’s Supply Chain function, who are using fraudulent requests for quotations (RFQs) to extract personal information, goods and even money from unsuspecting businesses.
“Sasol has become aware of this new wave of phishing and procurement-related scams that are committed in its name, aimed at both registered and unregistered suppliers,” said Eben Kok, Senior Manager: Supplier Management and Transformation. “These scams typically take the form of RFQs or similar purchase requests.”
How the scam works:
The fraudsters pose as either Sasol employees or as companies mandated to act on Sasol’s behalf and send businesses a request to tender for the supply of certain goods.
The text message is sent to registered and unregistered Sasol suppliers informing them of an open tender to provide specific goods. Unregistered suppliers are encouraged to send their company details and CK document to info@sasolsgroupsa.com or call 012 743 6638 while registered Sasol suppliers are often merely requested to just tender to supply that product.
“In most instances, these scammers posing as Sasol employees, request a product so specific that it can only be procured from one ‘unique’ business,” Kok explained “This ’unique business’ then requests payment for the niche goods but delivery never takes place, thus conning the unsuspecting victim.”
The correspondence documentation may look convincing, therefore it is important for people to be vigilant. Below are tips to help the public to ascertain whether or not the correspondence is fake:
Sasol will only contactyou from a Sasol email address (name.surname@sasol.com), never from a sasolsgroupsa or a Gmail or Yahoo or any other generic mailbox address, nor will we ask you to submit information to such an address.
Sasol will not ask you to send your full company profile or your banking information via email.
Sasol will not request you to pay any fees in order to become a Sasol supplier or to participate in the RFQ/ Bid nor will we ask you to deposit money through Retail outlets via Mobile Money Service on a cellular account number, i.e. 063 894 6813.
There are only two mechanisms which RFQs are issued by Sasol:
Electronically via SAP by the ‘once-off’ supply chain team. When printed, this document looks the same as the Sasol purchase order.
Manually by Category Management or Capital Project Procurement, which will take place via email or an Ariba invitation.
All Manual RFQs are consistently structured in the same way.
The document will always request electronic delivery to bids.secunda@sasol.com. No other email addresses should be used or copied.
The subject line of the e-mail will always contain the following information:
The name of the responsible Sasol Supply Chain Specialist/ Advisor
Most importantly, businesses are advised not to respond to an email or text message that they think might be fraudulent. Rather, Sasol encourages companies to get in touch with the company to establish the validity of an RFQ or procurement request, via the Sasol Contact Centre, which is (+27) 0860 104 777 or contact.secunda@sasol.com.
Sasol also encourages all individuals who have received similar correspondence to please report RFQ fraud to the police and rfqfraud@sasol.com.
Bethal residents took to the streets on Tuesday to show their anger and frustration with the current situation in Bethal.
Roads were blocked and no traffic were allowed through the town.
Tires were burned at the blockages and residents blocked the road with their vehicles.
Everyone demanded that their grievances be addressed.
On Wednesday afternoon a meeting with the Mayor, The Municipal manager and a technical team was called. The meeting that started at 18H00 was well attended by some council members from GMM as well as residents and businessmen from Bethal
The following issues were raised by the residents.
The electricity NMD and the subsequent load shedding when exceeding the NMD.
The current financial situation between Govan Mbeki Municipality and Eskom.
Electricity Schedule
The water situation
Refuse removal
Dumping site
The status of the roads within Bethal
Overtime electricians
The Bulletin spoke to Hilda Pretorius, spokesperson of the Bethal Peacefull Actions group to hear about the history of the problems and the actions that took place. The Bulletin also enquired about the road forward.
Following the meeting on Wednesday Night the Bethal Peaceful Action group reported the following to their group:
“According to the discussion which took place with regards to the NMD, Eskom stopped Govan Mbekhi from exceeding the allocated NMD, which up until March 2020 we had been doing and in doing so Govan Mbkeki would be penalised by being fined. Now the question is why dont we just increase the NMD, well that is what we asked too.
The short response to this is that Govan Mbhekhi has too pay Eskom a lump sum of R90 million before they will lift the NMD for Bethal and Emzinoni.
Due to financial constraints, it is not possible for Govan Mbeki to do this BUT the good news is, is that the MM has a meeting with Eskom tomorrow morning at 10 o clock.”
The Bulletin does not know what the outcome of the meeting with Eskom was and are awaiting feedback from GMM.
A schedule was promised to the residents but by Sunday no schedule was finalised and provided to the residents.
Residents said that if they received a schedule they would at least be able to plan for the load shedding.
As of August, Govan Mbekhi Municipality will be assisted by Gert Sibande Municipality to re-establish a positive connection with Eskom (payment agreements).
GSDM released the following statemnt in this regard on the 12th of August:
Following challenges related to electricity at Bethal and Emzinoni, the Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM) made a request for assistance from the Gert Sibande District Municipality (GSDM) in this regard and has since appointed the GSDM as an Implementing Agent (IA) for the management of electricity in Bethal/ Emzinoni. On 12 August 2020, the GSDM and GMM concluded a five year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in this regard by the signing of the MOU by both the District Acting Municipal Manager Mr. Ephraim Thabethe and Municipal Manager of GMM at the GSDM Office complex.
The MOU provides all the activities which the GSDM, as an implementing agent will be responsible for. The priority is to ring-fence the business by appointing a service provider (SP) that would inject seed capital and run the business for a period of five years under the supervision of the GSDM. During the five year period, the service provider will collect revenue, pay the monthly account for Eskom on behalf of the GMM, improve the state of the infrastructure by providing more reliable electricity supply to customers, improve the revenue collection and improve customer service.
From left: Mr. Felani Mndebele (Municipal Manager of GMM) and Mr. Ephraim Thabethe (District Acting Municipal Manager
GSDM, as an Implementing Agent, will help negotiate repayments of the current Eskom account on behalf of the GMM moving forward but the GMM will still be responsible for its current debt.
With regards to the water restrictions, the MM has an appointment with Rand Water tomorrow morning at 8 o clock. Let hope that this meeting too will have a positive outcome but currently Govan Mbheki does own Rand Water a lot of money there as well hence the water restrictions.
Please prepare yourself for this by always having a back up for water.
There is currently only one operational refuse removal truck to remove refuse. The MM has undertaken to sort this out by providing the workshop with finance to purchase the necessary parts to repair the other refuse removal trucks so that they can become operational again.
The Dumping site needs cleaning up and an offer was made to the council that should they need any assistance they are welcome to reach out and ask for help from the community.
The problem with the roads comes back to a financial shortage.
We all know that our protest actions came about because the electricians were not paid their overtime. According to the Mayor this issue has since been resolved, although it was brought to my attention that the electricians are concerned that their overtime might become an issue again at the end of August, so the Mayor will get back to us in this regard.
To cap: We all know that Govan Mbheki is struggling financially. Behind the scenes there has been a lot of work put into motion via different avenues i.e. the legal actions by the Business Forum, The Eskom / Nersa project and pressure on parliament from both the DA and VF and you the community via protest actions.
All of this proves that the residents of Bethal are very capable and can stand together.
With regards to the protest actions – should the need arise for us to go this route again, we would need to do it legally (this will be discussed at such a time).
What we all need to do now is support the Business forum financially so that their goal can be achieved.
N17 in Bethal blocked by angry residents
Furthermore we need to wait it out and see what is going to transpire in the following couple of days.”
Govan Mbeki Municipality released the following statement on 20 August 2020 after the meeting with Bethal residents.
The GMM Executive Mayor, Municipal Manager, Director for Technical Services and his team of senior officials have met with Bethal residents and business owners today 20 August 2020 at the Council Chambers.
The meeting was chaired by Mr Ziyad Dangor, Chairperson of the Bethal Business Association.
A series of items were discussed which included inter alia, the outstanding debt for Bethal, Notified Maximum Demand (NMD), electricity challenges, the Eskom and Rand Water Accounts, loadshedding, illegal connections, schedule for Rotational Loadshedding, refuse removal, roads to name just a few.
It should be particularly mentioned that the meeting was conducted in an open and transparent manner despite the fact that there were heated moments which were robust but progressive.
As a matter of fact, the meeting made a plethora of proposals, suggestions and best practices with a view of finding possible and workable solutions for all the challenges that GMM is currently grappling with.
Importantly, the meeting agreed that going forward, the Municipal Manager will liaise with the team through Ms Hilda Pretorious for updates on all issues discussed and other service delivery related matters.
The meeting noted with appreciation the behind-the-scenes engagements and progress that GMM is involved in which are aimed at ameliorating the service delivery challenges in Bethal in particular and GMM in toto.
But, it was strongly mentioned that GMM must bring its house into order and improve the delivery of services to the public.
To this end, the Municipal Manager will henceforth share the feedback of GMM-ESKOM Engagements regarding the NMD issue with Ms Ms Pretorious in order to keep the public in the loop.
The Executive Mayor welcomed the positive engagements, profusely apologised to the residents/business owners and appealed for collective wisdom in dealing with the challenges.
The meeting agreed that such-like further engagements will be pursued in order to ensure that the challenges are addressed and monitoring implemented.
NB: Further Updates on these issues will be shared with all and sundry as and when they are made available
15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
19 This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.
20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
