The Masakhane campaign has not only failed to impress the non-paying public, but their representatives in local government as well, reports Rehana Rossouw Local authorities in the Western Cape are purging councillors from their positions, barely three months after they were elected, for failing to pay for the services they were elected to administer. A […]
Eddie Koch THE African National Congress has instructed its leadership and members to go to the truth commission if they committed human rights abuses during the anti-apartheid struggle — and, in a gesture of support for the truth process, has withdrawn temporary immunity given to its members by the old government. “The ANC renounces the […]
Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg was quick this week to deflect any charges that his Budget was a holding exercise, insisting that “this must be the year to get points on the scoreboard”. He is trying to get the government’s fiscal ducks in a row and, while this is commendable, the route he has taken has […]
POLITICS: An expert warns against moves to weaken local democracy The triumphant election of 30 000 councillors is already being undermined, argues Mark Swilling By the end of the local government elections in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape later this year, South Africans will have elected more than 30 000 councillors to over 800 separate […]
Ann Eveleth many of the 20 accused in the Magnus Malan trial this week dropped their erstwhile stoicism and began to fidget nervously when a slight, bookish ex-soldier, Johan Pieter “JP” Opperman (38), took the stand on Tuesday. Former defence minister Malan’s jowls worked constantly during the proceedings in a bizarre facial exercise routine, while […]
An open letter from ANC parliamentarian Phumsile Mlambo-Ngcuka to Human Rights Commission chair Barney Pityana, supporting his attack on ‘racists’ Your response to the remarks made by Professor Dennis Davis (Mail & Guardian February 23 to 29) will hopefully encourage more of us in the government to defend the decisions we take from the assaults […]
1996 BUDGET Few surprises and lacking in boldness Lynda Loxton There was a predictably mixed reaction from political parties to Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg’s 1996/97 budget on Wednesday. The African National Congress welcomed the fact that Liebenberg had not succumbed to the “short-sighted and insensitive free advice” of the likes of the South African Foundation […]
Cawe Mahlati, acting CEO of Bop Broadcasting, in The Mark Gevisser Profile NIGHT has fallen over dirty-grey veld around Mmabatho; the sun has set behind the hulking Rhino Recording Studios, built by Bop Broadcasting during the height of its deluded grandeur. Cawe Mahlati and I wander through the boma and along a water feature, back […]
HAZEL FRIEDMAN bids farewell to once fted, now forgotten rural woodcarver Doctor Phutuma Seoka FEW people would have noticed the small farewell to a “well-known woodcarver from the Northern Province” which recently appeared in the Mail & Guardian personals column. Doc Phutuma Seoka died on February 22 at Duiwelskloof “after a long illness”, the notice […]
South Africa got it wrong in the quarter-final against the West Indies, but on the public relations front they got it right every time CRICKET: Mark Lamport-Stokes SOUTH AFRICA may have suffered the extreme disappointment of exiting stage left from cricket’s World Cup after their quarter-final defeat against a resurgent West Indies in Karachi on […]