More than three-quarters of South African households receive free water and more than half receive free electricity, Statistics South Africa said in Pretoria on Thursday — but two million households are without toilet facilities. The figures are part of a non-financial census of municipalities for the year ending June 2003.
The truth is out at last. Those most affected by that truth cannot read this editorial, but there is at least reason to believe officialdom is about to act on the national emergency of adult illiteracy. The 11th year of our democracy is late in the day for the national government to have noticed that about 40% of South African adults — eight million to 10-million people — cannot read or write, and so face bleak futures.
Fiery Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille clashed with the lawyer of former ID Western Cape leader Lennit Max when Max’s disciplinary hearing resumed on Wednesday. She repeatedly told the lawyer, Leon van Rensburg, to ”keep quiet” as he cross-examined her, and told him she was laughing at his ”silly remarks”.
A prison warder on escort duty was shot dead and another injured in an attack by gunmen at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur hospital on Monday morning, police said. Police spokesperson Captain Billy Jones said the incident took place at the hospital’s outpatients reception area shortly after 10am, when four warders brought a prisoner in for medical treatment.
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool promised protesting taxi drivers on Monday to intervene personally if their negotiations with the provincial transport ministry fail. On Monday, taxi drivers made good on threats a few months ago to blockade tourist attractions, with a cavalcade of metered sedans disrupting traffic in central Cape Town.
The housing subsidy for the poorest of the poor — including the indigent, disabled and the elderly — has been raised from R28 279 to R31 900, starting in April this year. Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu made the announcement in Pretoria — beamed by satellite to Cape Town — on Monday morning.
Attorneys representing ousted Independent Democrats Western Cape leader Lennit Max have queried the independence of the Scorpions in the latest development surrounding his disciplinary hearing. ID leader Patricia de Lille has testified that she became aware from a source in the Scorpions that criminal charges were being investigated against her.
At least 42 miners were stuck 2,4km underground at Hartbeesfontein gold mine late on Wednesday after an earthquake shook the Klerksdorp mining area in the North West province. ”Rescue teams are working to open entry tunnels that were closed by rock falls,” said Ilja Graulich, spokesperson for DRDGold, which operates the mine.
A number of buildings had to be evacuated in Stilfontein, near Klerksdorp in the North West, on Wednesday after an earth tremor preliminarily measuring five on the Richter scale. About 3Â 200 miners at DRDGold’s operations near Stilfontein were being evacuated after the tremor. Thirteen miners were injured in the tremor.
A new draft fishing policy has failed to consider the plight of thousands of subsistence fishermen, a Western Cape body working with the poor said on Wednesday. ”I think it is a pie in the sky … It’s a myth that small scale fishermen will be given greater access rights,” said Naseedh Jaffer, director of the Masifundise organisation.
The federal executive of the New National Party, which ruled South Africa in the form of the apartheid National Party from 1948 to 1994, met in Johannesburg on Monday afternoon and took the unanimous decision to disband. The party opted to fall under the umbrella of the ruling African National Congress shortly after the national election in April last year.
With almost half the Cabinet comprising women, the face and shape of power has changed in South Africa. Many of the women lead the clusters, the groupings of individual ministries through which policy implementation increasingly takes place. The country is a world leader in female public representation and last week’s briefings by the full Cabinet provided an opportunity to assess their performance.
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/ 25 February 2005
The African National Congress and the Presidency are singling out Afrikaans single-medium schools for interference, harassment and demonisation, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. He condemned the Western Cape education minister for trying to compel an Afrikaans-medium primary school to create a special English-medium class.
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/ 25 February 2005
The granting of a court order to obtain information from the government about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was welcomed by the Environmental Justice Networking Forum on Friday. A Pretoria High Court order was obtained by environmental lobby group Biowatch on Thursday and compelled the government to divulge details of all GMOs brought into or manufactured in the country.
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/ 23 February 2005
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Total expenditure, excluding interest costs and a contingency reserve, rises from R363-billion in 2005/06 to R428-billion by the end of the medium term expenditure framework period in 2007/08, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday.
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/ 23 February 2005
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>The maximum old age, disability and care dependency grants will rise by R40 to R780 a month from April 2005, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced on Wednesday. In his national Budget speech he said that foster-care grants will be increased by R30 to R560 and the child-support grant goes up by R10 to R180 a month.
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/ 23 February 2005
Simphiwe Mbalula’s home was saved last month when a runaway fire razed about 3Â 200 shacks in the Joe Slovo informal settlement outside Cape Town. Instead of relief, he feels unlucky, as all the victims of the fire have been fast-tracked to the front of council housing lists. They will receive houses as part of the first phase of the N2 Gateway Project.
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/ 21 February 2005
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille on Monday refused to identify her confidential Scorpions source, at the disciplinary hearing of the party’s ousted Western Cape leader, Lennit Max. ”I shall not disclose the source,” said De Lille during cross-examination by Leon van Rensburg, representing Max at the hearing in Parliament.
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/ 21 February 2005
Acclaimed South African author Dalene Matthee died at the age of 67 on Sunday, news reports said. Matthee penned more than a dozen novels, including Circles in a Forest — an instant bestseller when it was published in 1984 — and Fiela’s Child published in 1986 and later adapted into a film.
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/ 19 February 2005
A travel agent facing fraud and theft charges in the parliamentary travel scam was released on R100Â 000 bail in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Soraya Beukes, former owner of the travel agency Business and Executive Travel, was granted bail last year, but it was withdrawn after an allegation that she had misled the court.
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/ 18 February 2005
A Cape High Court judge has upheld a bid by the governing body of Cape Town’s Mikro Primary School to preserve its Afrikaans-only status. However, the matter could end up in the Constitutional Court if the Western Cape education department has its way. The department ordered the school to created a special English-medium grade-one class this year.
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/ 15 February 2005
A committee has been appointed to investigate allegations of racism in the Cape High Court, Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson said on Monday. He said he had requested the committee to give urgent attention to the matter and report back to the heads of the court as soon as possible.
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/ 10 February 2005
The hostage taker at Monte Video Primary School in the Cape Town suburb of Montana has been shot dead, police confirmed shortly after noon on Thursday.
Captain William Reid said a situation occurred where the life of a child hostage was threatened. Earlier reports said a teacher was shot during the hostage drama.
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/ 10 February 2005
African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula was stung into action this week after the Mail & Guardian raised concerns that politics and big business make uneasy bedfellows. Mbalula said that, according to the M&G, ”comrades are … not entitled to participate in the country’s economy”.
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/ 9 February 2005
The commitment of an Afrikaans-medium school to the traditions of the ”volk” came under scrutiny in the Cape High Court on Wednesday. The governing body of Mikro Primary School in Kuilsriver is asking the court to overturn a Western Cape education department ruling that it provide an English-medium class.
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/ 8 February 2005
Western Cape education minister Cameron Dugmore and his officials had acted like schoolyard bullies in the Mikro primary-school affair, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Mikro’s governing body is asking the court to overturn the provincial department of education’s instruction to create an English-medium class at the school.
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/ 7 February 2005
As 2005 moves well into its first quarter, the residential property market in Cape Town remains buoyant with a particularly strong demand from local buyers, according to Mick Joyce, managing director of Pam Golding Properties’ Western Cape metro region.
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/ 4 February 2005
The Cape Town Container Terminal has delivered on its promise to have a total of 2Â 000 "reefer points" — power points for refrigerated containers — in place by the end of January 2005, ahead of the peak season for exports of fruit from the Western Cape.
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/ 3 February 2005
South Africans interviewed in a survey on education had some disagreeable things to say, with about two-thirds of respondents agreeing education is in crisis and standards are falling. Asked if schools are better today than 10 years ago, 48% agreed, 46% disagreed and 6% did not know.
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/ 3 February 2005
Officials at the police watchdog body, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), are circulating sexually explicit jokes about President Thabo Mbeki on the organisation’s internal e-mail system. A senior official at the ICD said the jokes were ”grossly disrespectful” and has laid a formal complaint with the police.
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/ 1 February 2005
Listed black economic empowerment fishing, medical equipment and information technology group Sekunjalo Investments has acquired 81,56% of the entire issued capital in the computer company Synergy Computing. The acquisition of Synergy boosts Sekunjalo’s strategic growth in its IT portfolio
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/ 29 January 2005
Former anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak was welcomed back into the fold in Bishopscourt on Friday evening by the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongokulu Ndungane. Earlier in the month Boesak received a presidential pardon from Thabo Mbeki, expunging his criminal record of a fraud conviction.