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/ 27 May 2007

The National Council of Pointlessness

Ten years after it replaced the short-lived senate as Parliament’s second chamber, the National Council of Provinces has very little to celebrate. The gathering momentum behind proposals to trim the provincial system down to size is a real existential threat to the council, but even without constitutional changes to hurry it to oblivion, it has long since drifted into irrelevance.

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/ 19 April 2007

NCOP stays out of debate over provinces

It is too early to make pronouncements on the debate over the future of South Africa’s provinces, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) said on Thursday. ”For us in the NCOP, it would be premature to pronounce ourselves on the possible outcome,” NCOP House chairperson Tsietsi Setona told the Johannesburg Press Club.

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/ 18 October 2006

Drug-resistant TB now in all provinces

Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has been found across South Africa, the Medical Research Council (MRC) said on Tuesday. ”The national health laboratory services have analysed the laboratory data for the past 18 months and have shown that these cases are present in every province,” the MRC’s Dr Karin Weyer told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

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/ 28 July 2006

ANC move to scrap provinces

The African National Congress’s national executive committee (NEC) has begun debating the future of South Africa’s nine provinces, in line with a resolution at last year’s national general council that the party should "review [the] provinces in the context of the increasing devolution of powers and functions to municipalities".