Ilse Ferreira

Ilse Ferreira looks at the challenges facing the profession and how universities are helping to improve the quality of engineers.

Architects work in a challenging environment. We have fewer than 4 000 registered architects in the country, compared with Egypt’s 14 000.

Misappropriation of funds and fraud have been part of public life since time immemorial. In democratic societies public spending has come under increasing scrutiny– with good reason. In South Africa the Auditor General (AG) is at the nucleus of the public spending atom.

Democracy has always, in its broadest definition, been based on the rule of law. Currently, this premise reels under the pressure of recent events in the South African judiciary. A judiciary immune to political interference is crucial to a democracy, writes Ilse Ferreira.

The Corporate Laws Amendment Act, which became law at the end of last year, has introduced a number of changes to company legislation. The Act has introduced the concept of a "widely held" company and described certain compliance requirements which must be met.

Sedibeng, the district municipality comprising the municipalities of Midvaal, Lesedi and Emfuleni, is a district with a long-term plan that shows it is far from being reticent. The area is one of the poorest in southern Gauteng. Historically, the it was predominantly white and middle class.

The metropolitan council of Tshwane, despite the ongoing debate around the use of the name, is meeting its challenges head-on and seems certain to meet its goals, according to the city’s executive management. Executive mayor Dr Gwen Ramokgopa heads the 152-member council, which is led by an ANC majority.

“It is not enough for large legal firms to quote the number of black lawyers in their firm when vying for contracts,” says Mohamed Husain of Knowles Husain Lindsay, who has been intimately involved in the drafting of the Legal Services Charter. “Many lawyers of colour have been and are still being marginalised and kept from corporate and commercial legal work. This is one of the problems the charter seeks to rectify.”

A lawyer’s duty must reach beyond the letter of the law, says Professor Christof Heyns, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Pretoria. But he believes students are not prepared for this because the education system is teaching law without context. “Pursuing and protecting the rule of law is the business of lawyers," says Heyns.

The Law Society of South Africa has placed transformation at the top of its agenda. Its close involvement with the Legal Services Charter process is evidence of this. The charter was launched under the auspices of the minister of justice in August last year and has since undergone extensive redrafting. The Law Society has noted that the third draft, released in mid-October, is simpler, more focused and reflects a social compact between the providers of legal services and the public.

Fresh fruit remains at the centre of most healthy diets. Apples, oranges, apricots, pears, in fact, anything that one can eat fresh has health benefits to the consumer. And fresh fruit exports represent more than 7% of South Africa’s export with its largest trading partner, the European Union. South African fruit is highly sought-after overseas.

Forestry is a topic that doesn’t often make headlines — except when runaway fires destroy thousands of trees, as happened recently across the country on a large scale, in what was described as the worst forest fires in South African history. More than 50 000ha of commercial plantations were destroyed (and another 18 000ha in Swaziland). The cost to timber companies ran into hundreds of millions of rands.

The word fibre immediately conjures up an image of something one should ingest in sufficient quantities to keep the digestive system healthy — and perhaps it brings to mind advertising messages with shrinking images showing the positive effects of getting it right. But fibre — or fibrous materials — are present in every step of a person’s day. From the pillow and bedding on the bed, to curtains and the carpet fibres underfoot.

The practice of modern medicine is a far cry from the staid old family physician with the white coat. In fact, doctors wearing white coats these days are the exception, not the rule. Even hospital doctors are more relaxed these days — and portray this to their patients, with positive psychological effects. Technology has had a hand in this and today, as opposed to the past, most things are measurable, detectable, imageable.

Switching used to be something you did with a fellow player’s cards when he left the game for a visit to the bathroom. Nowadays this term has technological significance beyond anything the everyday consumer might consider relevant, yet the results thereof touch every life, every day.

The future is green — or that is the plan. All over the globe answers are being sought and many have been found already that will reduce carbon emissions, reduce the use of toxic substances and promote overall environmental safety while meeting the increasing needs of growing populations in the developing world.

Rural areas — in any country — have always presented a challenge to both the inhabitants and local government in terms of infrastructure and services. This makes economic viability of these areas difficult to achieve. But in South Africa no one is ­sitting still when it comes to ­finding alternatives to conventional ­infrastructural delivery — whether in the area of telephony, internet access or power ­generation.