Thousands of workers in essential services, organised by Cosatu, insisted this week that they intend joining other public service workers in their planned wage strike, which starts on May 28. For the first time since 1994, unions organising workers in services such as the South African Police Service were due to declare a dispute some time next week.
South Africans are changing their hard-drug habits, but the fallout from substance abuse remains the same: the destruction of lives, families and communities. Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine abuse has risen substantially in the past few years, while the use of once-popular drugs such as Mandrax has waned, according to a recent report by South Africa’s Medical Research Council.
Police officers and crime experts generally back the recommendations of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s report on policing, and particularly its call for greater stability. The report recommends that the current structure of the police force be made to work and that further restructuring be avoided.
A storm is brewing over President Thabo Mbeki’s now-shelved plans to overhaul his Cabinet by removing Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, triggering events that would have diluted Jacob Zuma’s support in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.
South Africa faces the third major test of its United Nations Security Council tenure, in a vote on a proposed framework for the independence of Kosovo, which could happen within weeks. South Africa’s stance in the five months it has sat on the council has raised eyebrows.
A campaign by a hard line faction in Namibia’s ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation to return former president Sam Nujoma to power has taken a hit in the past week as the faction has found itself isolated from the rest of the party and accused of self-promotion.
Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi continues to fiddle while Khutsong burns. As anti-incorporation protests turned violent this week, the minister sent residents a message that can only inflame their anger. After weeks of peaceful demonstration against the town’s removal from Gauteng to North West under cross-border municipality legislation, youths this week looted shops and property belonging to Somali and Pakistani traders.
The police response time to crime calls ranges from 30 minutes — in two-thirds of cases according to some studies — to five hours. The findings in the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s policing report highlight the extreme variations between police stations. Response times greatly affect public perceptions of police performance, the report finds.
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation has found that the continuing torture of people in custody is a major blemish on the record of the police force. Its report says the torture allegedly used by some officers is a hangover from apartheid. It also says that deaths in custody have not received the attention such an important issue demands.
Progress towards employment equity is still too slow, according to government’s Commission for Employment Equity — but there are signs that the commission’s conclusion is based on faulty data. Earlier this week, the commission released its report and publicly criticised six companies for lack of compliance.