The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) has asked the Mayor for a plan to deal with sanitation in informal settlements. We have a plan – one that has already been and continues to be implemented as part of this administration’s commitment to making this a city that delivers services to all our residents. Perhaps that is why so many people flock here from other parts of the country every year. After all, no one packs up their family and leaves their hometown for a worse life!
Ian Neilson
Opinion | 8 April 2015
The fact that Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has refused to accept his dismissal from the federation should have come as no surprise to readers. This column has pointed out for months now that the central executive committee (CEC) of Cosatu has no constitutional authority to finally dismiss, suspend or expel any office bearer or affiliate; that only a national congress may do.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 7 April 2015
In their article Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass decry that “the racialization of pain serves to reduce injustices and indiginities to race, foreclosing serious consideration of other forms of injustice and indignity”. I don’t know about Seekings and Nattrass but to me as a black person racism is a primary form of injustice and indignity.
Xolela Mangcu
Opinion | 2 April 2015
“You breathe in oxygen through your left lung and breathe out carbon dioxide through your right lung.” That’s what a life-science teacher taught her class at a Cape Town school where I worked for several weeks last year as part of my teacher training.
A teacher
Opinion | 1 April 2015
The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) has once again proven their obsession with budgets, and their incompetence at interpreting them.
Ernest Sonnenberg
Opinion | 1 April 2015
When Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille tabled the 2015/2016 draft budget last week, she said, “In my years as Mayor, not once has any substantive proof to counter our evidence of pro-poor spending ever been offered.”
Axolile Notywala
Opinion | 31 March 2015
A statue that appears to commemorate racism and imperialism occupies a uniquely privileged position on the university campus, causing evident pain to some students, professors and staff.
Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass
Opinion | 31 March 2015
Deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa persists in referring to the mess that is Eskom as “a challenge”. He did so in his Q&A session in parliament last week. But the situation at Eskom is perhaps the greatest crisis ever to face our fragile, non-racist democracy, especially given the global economic climate.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 23 March 2015
The Eastern Cape government has failed to even acknowledge a petition from a group of housing project beneficiaries. What options does this leave aggrieved citizens, asks Mimosa Delgaro?
Mimosa Delgaro
Opinion | 20 March 2015
This year, Equal Education is running a campaign on School Governing Board (SGB) Elections in South African public schools. Functional, inclusive SGBs are a key component of fixing schools, writes Raphael Chaskalson.
Raphael Chaskalson
Opinion | 19 March 2015
Freedom of speech is a fundamental right recognised in our constitution. But that doesn’t mean everyone has to allow that speech anywhere you want to make it.
Kevin Charleston
Opinion | 18 March 2015
On 6 March there was a violent stand-off between students from Philippi High School and the police in the Cape Town CBD. GroundUp reported this. Here is a statement issued by the students on the events of that day.
Philippi High School Students
Opinion | 11 March 2015
South Africans shouldn’t hold their breath as polluters are let off the hook. Decisions of the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) on Tuesday 24 February 2015 marked a disappointing setback in the battle for improved air quality in South Africa.
Nicole Löser
Opinion | 9 March 2015
Infighting, bickering and the pursuit of power and patronage have largely paralysed Cosatu in recent years. That, broadly, is the view of the labour federation’s embattled general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi and of Jay Naidoo, Cosatu’s first general secretary.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 9 March 2015
In February the City of Cape Town’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit (ALIU) dismantled a family’s shack in Mfuleni. This acrimonious incident raises important questions about how informal settlements are to be upgraded.
Nathan Geffen
Opinion | 9 March 2015
Wednesday was Budget day in South Africa, an annual event for the state. But for most citizens, budget day is every day or, if they a slightly luckier, a weekly or monthly calculation to try to remain at least afloat economically. So what happened last week, along with the plaudits and the protests reflected in the media, will not cause any excitement for more than half the population.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 3 March 2015