Ironically, the New National Party may have thrown in the towel too soon. Some officials in the African National Congress argue that the NNP should have waited until after next year’s local government elections before joining the ANC, in the hope that they would be able to bring some supporters with them. Operation Nat Attack, it seems, was a long-running plan to weaken and ultimately kill the NNP.
The good, the bad and the average. The government’s new five-year national skills development strategy will be thrashed out in October at an indaba hosted by the Department of Labour and involving business, civil society and government representatives. The Department of Labour has praised some Setas for exceeding their targets and criticised others for missing them. We take a closer look.
Scorpion investigators were moving in on parliamentarians this week after arresting seven travel agents in the unfolding multimillion-rand travel voucher scam. ”Further action is imminent,” confirmed Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema on Thursday, refusing to be drawn beyond saying that ”the next phase is concentrating on MPs”.
The government is setting out to tackle the slow pace of land reform — one of the country’s most politically sensitive issues — by including it in the agriculture broad-based black economic empowerment framework. Patterns of land ownership have remained largely unchanged, said last year’s South African Human Rights Commission report on human rights violations in farming communities.
Critics have likened KWV’s sale of a quarter of its shares to an empowerment consortium to filling rugby quotas with players from other sporting codes, and claim that instead of broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE), the deal "over-empowers" a select few in the black elite. The Food and Allied Workers’ Union says the Phetogo empowerment consortium is dominated by the "Lucky 14".
What’s in a label? For the workers at Lebanon Fruit Farm Trust, an equity empowerment fruit and wine project in the Western Cape’s Elgin Valley, it means education, roads and street lights. Empowerment in the wine industry has been a mixed bouquet, showing the benefits of broad-based deals and the sour grapes of elite enrichment.
With a gas heater to ward off the winter chill, a group of grandmothers knits and sews in a room plastered with old newspapers. Around the corner in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha, more grandmothers squeeze into a tiny lounge to do patchwork.
They are part of Grandmothers against Poverty and Aids (Gapa), a support- and income-generating self-help group based in the poverty-stricken township.
Most informal jobs are a form of concealed unemployment, cautions the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (Naledi). These jobs do not raise sufficient income to support a family, promote the acquisition of skills or increase productivity. ”Yet [these] are the only options available to millions of unemployed,” Naledi notes in its draft South Africa country report for the Global Poverty Network Development Study
African National Congress chief whip Nkosinathi Nhleko moves into Parliament’s backbenches following a third surprise reshuffle of top party officials within two months. Former speaker Frene Ginwala was replaced, and was not sworn in as an ordinary MP after the April election. And Kader Asmal, the former education minister, was redeployed as parliamentary committee chairperson.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma chaired the meeting of the African National Congress committee that selected the organisation’s representatives to the parliamentary body that is dealing with the public protector’s findings on the National Prosecuting Authority.