Vivienne Gray
A new initiative to improve the literacy levels and impart computer skills to police officers is under way in KwaZulu-Natal as a pilot project carried out under the auspices of “business against crime”. The project is sponsored by Rotary, and conducted by Media Works’s adult basic education and training (Abet) programme.
Three police stations are involved in the project Pietermaritzburg’s Loop Street station, Durban central station and most recently the Pinetown police station. Durban central is being used as a pivot point to train police from outlying stations, while the other two concentrate on their own internal staff members. However, the project is inclusive even cleaners, clerks and other staff members who are not directly working in crime policing line functions are eligible for training.
Captain Kuben Naicker of the Pinetown police station explains that although matriculation is the minimum entry level into the police force, circumstances led to intakes whereby the minimum entry level was not a primary consideration.
“In our previous intakes, we have inherited a number of municipal police who have been incorporated into the service. [At the time] there was a lower criterion for intake. It is these individuals in particular with whom we are experiencing literacy problems at Pinetown police station they comprise 80% of our volunteers”.
Naicker says 15 volunteers have been assessed and have undergone the Abet programme. “Late last year we acquired the equipment we needed. As far as the assessment went, most of the volunteers were on levels two and three. At present we have ordered Abet books for the different competency levels.”
Naicker adds that his police station had previously tried a literacy programme in conjunction with some of the local schools.
“However, that didn’t work so well. There is a stigma attached to being an adult and having to go back to school to learn. When we first heard from Rotary about the computer-based literacy programme, we were very interested.”
At Durban central police station, Vini Naidoo, Media Works facilitator, reports that the project started last August and 17 people are in the programme.
“We also need to develop people like cleaners and caterers creating career paths for them,” Naidoo says.
A teacher, Naidoo speaks highly of the multimedia aspect of the programme. “The computer teaches them such things as correct pronunciation and writing of letters [they also] learn how to operate a computer while they improve their literacy levels.”
Rotarian Mike Strong is involved in all three police stations. He cites emergency call-ups for police officers as a problem because sometimes duty calls when learners are attending classes.
Claire Crawley, the facilitator for the Loop Street police station in Pietermaritzburg, started the programme in January last year with seven people and expects to expand with an intake of 18 police officers from the Midlands, as well as 120 security guards.
“Their confidence levels in general have definitely improved. I try, with my classes, to actually relate the lessons to their work. I believe that there are plans in the pipeline to make the programme more focused on the policemen’s own situation which is an excellent idea.”
Media Works has secured clients such as Pick ‘n Pay, Grinaker Duraset, Robertsons Foods, Sappi and De Beers Mining. When Media Works appeared on the market in 1996, with its computer-based Abet approach, Rotary got on board.
The company offered its software, training and technical support at a greatly reduced rate, as long as the projects were not for gain a criterion that fits all of Rotary’s projects.
It was also agreed that a sum, not exceeding R120 a person a level, could be charged, to ensure commitment and to cover the costs of both the student workbooks and the examinations.
@Beating the drum
The disabled have taken their struggle to Parliament with remarkable results
Peta Thornycroft
“It’s all getting better. We are getting more jobs now. We no longer feel like rejects. People with disabilities even appear in television dramas, like Soul City,” says partially sighted MP Hendrietta Bogopane (30).
Bogopane is one of 11 disabled MPs in Parliament, who are not necessarily all African National Congress loyalists, but sit on their benches.
She says she is an optimist but even she is surprised at how far disabled people have come since the first democratic election.
Bogopane was born blind, had several operations as a child and can now see a little, but was chucked out of school before matric because she told the principal she had been raped by a teacher.
The authorities believed the teacher, not her, and at 17 Bogopane was left with a baby from that violent union.
Rejected by her father, it seemed there was no hope for this unskilled teenage mother, literally stumbling around in the dark.
Bogopane was rescued by her grandmother, wrote six subjects for matric, passed them, and began meeting blind people. She got some piecework, joined organisations, and discovered how hard it was for a disabled person to survive in South Africa.
And so she became an activist.
Before the 1994 election Bogopane and colleagues looked around for the political home to advance their cause.
“I was a member of the ANC, but not all of us were. They used the Disability Rights Charter they had produced as a bargaining chip. The ANC established a disability unit.”
Within three years the national disability strategy was passed and the unit was moved to the Office of the Deputy President because, Bogopane says, disability is not a welfare issue but one of human rights.
Bogopane and her colleagues succeeded in getting inclusive education for the disabled, even before the Schools Act was passed. Now children with many disabilities can go to any school. Tertiary institutions have also established disability units.
“The Employment Equity Act is having an effect. It is slow and there have been problems, but its demands are gradually being realised.” Bogopane says many companies became “hysterical” when the Act was passed. She says there were few consultants available to address companies’ fears. Some consultants were only in it for the money, she says, and most were fully abled and couldn’t get to grips with the issues.
“But, bit by bit, some of the fruits of the disabled’s struggle for their place in the sun are ripening. There is still stereotyping. Blind people are mostly employed as switchboard operators, but the equity plans presently being submitted to the Department of Labour are going to show that real progress has been made,” Bogopane says.
The Department of Labour has established a disability unit to ensure progress and to check on any corporate cheating or misunderstandings in employment returns.
The public service is way below its goal of employing 2% of disabled people by this year, but Bogopane says this has been acknowledged at the top.
“Posts are being advertised differently, and recruitment strategies are being adjusted,” she says.
Bogopane says a job cannot merely be advertised, people have to be found through links with organisations for disabled people.
Eight years after assuming membership of Parliament, Bogopane is nostalgic about her activist days.
“Parliament is very boring, my mind starts wandering, I have too much energy to be in such a restricted environment but I am chairing an important joint [National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces] monitoring committee on the improvement of the quality of life and status of children, youth and disabled people.”
Disabled MP’s say they are independent of the ANC.
“We have to be ourselves, and are not bound by the party. We argue with them a lot, we won’t say something is right or wrong for the sake of it. Going in with the ANC was a deal, not a compromise. But they do recognise us as disability experts. We are in Parliament on behalf of all the disabled. We have had parliamentary rules changed to accommodate us. We now have a guide dog in Parliament and a sign language interpreter. For us, the disabled, there is really a new South Africa. Not only are we now accepted as part of the mainstream of society, but we are getting jobs”.
She cites Soul City, the television series on health and welfare issues as an example. “[Soul City] created a new role for the current series, a deaf doctor who heads up the Masakhane Clinic. That’s amazing.”
Bogopane supports 22 members of her family who live in her house. In return her older relatives look after her children when she is beating the disabled movement’s drum in Cape Town.
@Storm brews over new Bills
Privacy, municipal governance and the Constitution could be high on the parties’ agendas next month
Judith February
It appears the next parliamentary session will feature vigorous debate as already during this winter recess some far-reaching Bills have been published for comment.
Judging by reaction from the opposition, the two Bills seeking to amend the Constitution will be the most controversial and, in all likelihood, have the most difficult passage through Parliament. However, it is not certain that these Bills will be tabled in the next session.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Amendment Bill aims to amend three areas of the Constitution dealing with the judiciary, the appointments of deputy ministers and local governments.
The two provisions affecting the judiciary will see the president of the Constitutional Court also becoming the Chief Justice. The position of Chief Justice is vacant following the death of Chief Justice Ismail Mohammed.
It is proposed that Section 176 of the Constitution be substituted so that legislation can be enacted that regulates the term of office and retirement age of Constitutional Court judges.
The position is that Constitutional Court judges, unlike other judges, hold office for a non-renewable term of 12 years and are compelled to retire at the age of 70. Other judges hold office until they are discharged from service and tenure and other related issues are determined by an Act of Parliament.
Local governments and municipalities will also be affected by the proposed changes to the Constitution. Should the amendments be enacted, Parliament will be allowed to enact legislation for the exercise of executive and legislative authority on behalf of a municipality where a municipality finds itself unable to function or resolve a “financial emergency”.
This is aimed at keeping municipalities functional during periods in which they may experience serious problems. Municipalities are also given the power to borrow funds over longer terms should this be necessary.
In a case where a municipality is unable to function, for instance as a result of mass resignations or the removal of councillors, it is proposed that national legislation be enacted to allow for interim governance of such a municipality.
The proposed amendments are an attempt to lay the framework for national legislation to implement the policy framework for municipal borrowing and financial emergencies published in July last year.
The Second Amendment Bill of 2001 provides, among others, for national intervention if a municipality fails to comply with an obligation in terms of legislation or the Constitution. It is aimed at further national “supervision” of provincial administration. This would permit the national government to intervene directly or indirectly in the executive and legislative affairs of local governments.
The Constitution only allows provinces to intervene in the municipalities under their jurisdiction. It would appear that the thinking behind the proposed amendment is that municipalities need not only sound fiscal discipline and management, but also to ensure efficient service delivery.
Municipalities remain the most important cog in the wheel of service delivery. It is also proposed that the number of members on the Financial and Fiscal Commission be reduced from its current 22.
The amendments, if accepted by Parliament, will also allow only the minister of finance to introduce financial legislation that may affect macroeconomic policy.
The third Bill likely to cause controversy is the Interception and Monitoring Bill, which has been published for comment by the portfolio committee on justice and constitutional development.
The Bill is a response to the South African Law Commission’s review of South African security legislation and aims to incorporate the Law Commission’s recommendations.
The Bill provides for a general prohibition on intercepting and monitoring communications. However, it allows certain exceptions for example, any person may monitor any communication if that person is party to the communication or if one of the parties to the communication has consented to such monitoring.
The section that will be debated most fervently is one that allows for an application to be brought to the high court allowing for postal articles to be intercepted or communications to be monitored.
The application must satisfy the judge that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a serious offence has been, is being or will be committed, or the security interests of the country would be threatened should the communication not be monitored or the specific articles not be intercepted.
The Telecommunications Amendment Bill that is with the state law advisers for certification, will be tabled shortly. The long-awaited Bill amends the 1996 Telecommunications Act and will provide the legal framework for the listing of Telkom and the establishment of a second national operator.
It is expected that the Bill will incorporate much of the comment received by the Department of Communications in respect of this Bill and the new policy on telecommunications in South Africa.
Judith February is with the Political Information and Monitoring Service at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa