<i>Stille waters, diepe grond</i> (Still waters, deep ground), runs the Afrikaans saying, but perhaps not in this case. In a move likely to heighten the row over Western Cape farm evictions, a farm workers’ compound on businessperson Christo Wiese’s Stellenbosch wine estate, Lourensford, has been converted into a set for an Afrikaans TV comedy series about pensioners.
The controversial eviction of 300 workers’ families from estates in the Jonkershoek valley near Stellenbosch — including Christo Wiese’s wine estate, Lourensford — has been temporarily halted following a trade union protest campaign. Farmers are planning to convert workers’ tied housing into tourist and student accommodation to generate extra income.
Yolandi Groenewald gets caught up in the recent spate of thillers that expose the dark underbelly of the scenic Cape.
A new report on seven South African land-reform successes, released this week, says land reform can be successful, but it requires careful planning, post-transfer assistance, debt relief and an interest holiday. Most of all, it requires good old elbow grease from the communities involved. Communities also cannot depend on the government too heavily.
The agriculture minister in the North West province has been hauled before an internal African National Congress committee for admitting in court papers that the provincial ANC is torn by infighting. Party sources said Elliot Mayisela had been ordered to appear before the ANC’s provincial officials committee to explain his statement.
The land and agriculture sector is waiting with bated breath to see if the new Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana, lives up to her fire-eating reputation in this sensitive portfolio. Reacting to her public statements as the former deputy minister of minerals and energy, Xingwana’s critics branded them ”naked racism”, ”anti-capitalist” and ”anti-white”.
Fired North West agriculture department head Emily Mogajane has won her court battle against North West Premier Edna Molewa. Ruling in the Mafikeng High Court last week, Judge Ronald Hendricks ordered that Mogajane’s dismissal from the province’s agriculture department be set aside. Molewa fired Mogajane in March.
Aids activists have questioned the government’s boasts that it has the largest anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programme in the world. Recently, Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said 134 473 people were on ARV treatment in the public health sector at the end of March, and an estimated additional 80 000 were on treatment provided by the private and NGO sectors.
North West Premier Edna Molewa has fired her suspended agriculture department head, Emily Mogajane. But Mogajane has hit back by taking the premier to court. This is the latest episode in ongoing upheavals in the department of agriculture, conservation and environment, where six officials have been suspended and four directors arrested.
Colleagues and families are increasingly the targets of stressed of police members, a psychologist said recently. Christine Jordaan, who has treated more than 900 police members for post-traumatic stress disorder, also warned that recent incidents, in which two policemen went on killing sprees that resulted in 11 deaths, could spark a ”suicide epidemic”.