VERBATIM

“The number of extreme poor [in Zimbabwe] is expected to remain at 7.9-million in 2021 amid continued elevated prices, and a slow recovery of jobs and wages in the formal and informal sectors. Poor households are likely to forgo formal health care as they are unable to pay for services, and to keep children out school.” — The World Bank’s economic and social update report of June 2021

“Clearly there seem to be indications we have to increase the measures, particularly in Gauteng, we have imposed or put in place.” — President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking before the national coronavirus command council meets on Thursday and a week after he put the country on alert level three

”President Ramaphosa appointed a commission of inquiry, which has implicated one of the main [SAA] shareholders, which is Harith. Before parliament has been informed on what steps the PIC [Public Investment Corporation] and treasury, which is responsible for the PIC, have taken in light of the inquiry’s findings, then they [the government] allocates business to this [company] that has been implicated in the report.” — United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa on launching a court application to set aside the 51% sale of SAA that involves Harith General Partners

“Every element of this process – from new roads to drilling sites, refineries to terminals – will devastate the ecosystem and the local communities that depend on it for farming and fishing.” — Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Oilwatch Africa and director at the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, reacting to Canadian oil and gas Reconafrica’s hunt for fossil fuels in Botswana and Namibia despite the International Energy Agency saying new oil and gas fields must end this year to halt global warming