<b>Book review: </b> <i>No Way Out</i>
by Zinhle Carol Mdakane
(Life History Series, University of Durban-Westville)
David Cohen went searching for democracy in the US. He discussed his travels with Nicole Temkin.
Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin recently claimed South Africa was on target to achieve about $14-billion in trade and investment linked to the arms deal. Billions of rands of exports claimed to offset the costs are made up of exports that would have left the country anyway.
Independently minded African National Congress leader Makhenkesi Stofile looks certain to hold the party’s Eastern Cape leadership at its conference later this month. This is despite internal criticism of his performance as premier, most recently from Port Elizabeth business-man Mkhuseli Jack.
President Thabo Mbeki is arguably the most visionary African leader since former Ghana president Kwame Nkrumah, but like Nkrumah his far-sightedness for continental renewal depends on his domestic constituency. Support for idealistic continental initiatives has to be matched by real delivery.
The Ministry of Housing is squaring up against banks and financial institutions to force them to provide loans to lower-income people and those living in redlined areas such as townships and informal settlements. Parliament may soon table the Community Reinvestment Bill.
Development in Sekhukhuneland in Limpopo cuts like a double-edged sword. Mining creates jobs for thousands who live in the sprawling villages of the area, but the diggings leave a trail of environmental destruction.
South African donors have funds, but fund-raisers are struggling to raise money for NGOs facing financial crises. Studies have shown that grant funding has not decreased over recent years, yet NGOs are finding it increasingly difficult to raise money.
Twelve-year-old Promise Sibitane is a mournful figure as she stands at the entrance of the Thembalethu home-based care centre. She stares in the direction of her mother’s old house near Schoemansdal on the border between Mpumalanga and northern Swaziland.
The Western Cape Democratic Alliance has closed ranks amid behind-the-scenes tension over the Cape Town unicity’s appointment of a bank official dismissed for his role in the provincial political funding scandal.