It was unacceptable that a rape survivor’s chance of getting justice depended on whether there was a specialised court near her home. Fatima Chohan-Kota, chairperson of the parliamentary justice committee, made the point during last week’s Departmentof Justice budget briefing to the committee. At the briefing it emerged that the Sexual Offences Courts had a 68% conviction rate compared with 42% in ordinary courts.
A draft Bill on intergovernmental relations, setting out how national, provincial and local government must work together, is expected to be released for public comment in the next few weeks. Effective coordination of planning and budgeting is crucial, in the government’s view, to the effective provision of basic services, infrastructure and social and economic development projects at local government level.
Peninsula Technikon (Pentech) vice-chancellor Brian Figaji is said to be so angry about the impending merger of his institution with the Cape Technikon that he is considering handing in his notice. The Cape Peninsula University of Technology — due to come into being from January 1 next year — is referred to on both campuses as ”kaput”, a tongue-in-cheek pun on its acronym, CPUT.
Former education minister Kader Asmal has been selected to chair Parliament’s foreign affairs committee to replace Pallo Jordan, who moves to the Cabinet. Thursday’s decision by the African National Congress parliamentary caucus is the second surprise pick in quick succession.
Confident that South Africa is now a stable democracy, the African National Congress has appointed the premiers in all nine provinces. While many of the new premiers have been branded unknowns, most have a record in the ranks of the ANC. ANC officials also underline that the new premiers, overall, are relatively young.
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The African National Congress was aiming for three-thirds of the vote and nine out of nine provinces. In the end they had to settle for two-thirds and seven and a half provinces. The ANC has won most of the votes in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal — but not the power to govern.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Slightly more than 45% of registered voters in the Western Cape had cast their vote by 2.30pm on Wednesday. An Independent Electoral Commission officer said there had been numerous complaints from political parties contesting the elections, and long queues had formed in areas such as Guguletu and Langa.
Encouraged by signs that white and coloured voters in the Western Cape are increasingly casting their ballots for those they feel represent their interests — and not their race — the African National Congress is sending heavyweights into the province to bolster its campaign to secure a majority in the coming election.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is on a collision course with empowerment companies, which, it says, do little to advance workers’ interests or real broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE). Two deals announced within the past month in the Western Cape have sparked Cosatu’s ire:
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/ 13 February 2004
The Lion King, dead United States presidents, poets, and struggle stalwarts were all quoted to bring home one point or another during the State of the Nation debate in Parliament. When former president Nelson Mandela opened the first democratic Parliament in 1994, he cited Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker’s poem The Child Who Was Shot Dead By Soldiers at Nyanga.