Government

The debt machine and the politics of 0%

The current wave of student protests in South Africa has been mostly analysed from a national and local perspective.

Achille Mbembe

Opinion | 13 November 2015

Masiphumelele will get a police station - when it’s safe

Masiphumelele residents who have been promised a new mobile police station will have to wait until the police decide it’s safe to install it.

Thembela Ntongana

News | 12 November 2015

Waste pickers protest over access to dump site

Police used rubber bullets and stun grenades today against waste pickers protesting at a dump site in Pietermaritzburg against plans to stop them collecting on the site.

Ntombi Mbomvu

News | 11 November 2015

Government job freeze alarms health professionals

No vacant posts in Eastern Cape public hospitals and clinics are to be filled until December, according to a departmental circular. The Rural Health Advocacy Project fears that if such measures continue it could have “catastrophic consequences for health care”, especially in the rural areas.

Ashleigh Furlong

News | 9 November 2015

Zakhele Mbhele of the DA replies to R2K’s Murray Hunter

Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister for police, MP Zakhele Mbhele, replies to Murray Hunter's DA's shadow bill misses the key point on the National Key Points Act.

Zakhele Mbhele

News | 9 November 2015

Fees should not fall for all

Free higher education for all privileges the rich, argues Nico Cloete of the Centre for Higher Education Trust (CHET).

Nico Cloete

Analysis | 8 November 2015

“You are a bully” students tell principal

Students at Iqhayiya Secondary School in Khayelitsha claim that they are subjected to corporal punishment, have to pay school fees when they are a no fee school and are unable to be members of organisations such as Equal Education.

Ashleigh Furlong

News | 6 November 2015

Mother and child die in fire, and government has no answers

About three hundred people from in and around QQ community, Khayelitsha, gathered at Matthew Goniwe Memorial High School for the memorial service of Zuziwe Ngcibi and her grade 12 daughter, Zikhona, who died in the early hours of 19 October in a fire that hit six homes in the informal settlement. The family could not escape as the blaze came through the only door.

Bernard Chiguvare

News | 6 November 2015

No more segregation say District Six’s oldest evictees

Lead by two of District Six’s oldest surviving evictees, communities from across the Cape Flats marched on the mayor’s offices on Wednesday. They demanded a dignified return to the city for families forcibly removed during apartheid.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 5 November 2015

SA vaccines get a shot in the arm

The $20-million partnership between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and South Africa's Biovac Institute was “the beginning of the establishment of vaccine manufacturing capabilities on the continent”, science and technology minister Naledi Pandor told GroundUp.

Sarah Wild

News | 4 November 2015

Essential TB medicine: is it back in stock?

On 5 October, GroundUp reported that the pharmaceutical company Sandoz had stopped supplying an essential medicine for treating tuberculosis (TB) to South Africa.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 2 November 2015

Make Grahamstown a better place for all, say protesters

About 100 people gathered in front of the Grahamstown City Hall to protest against the xenophobic violence that has hit the town and surrounding townships for more than a week.

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News | 30 October 2015

UCT commits to “insourcing” - and other reports from the #FeesMustFall protests

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has agreed, in principle, to employ its workers directly, and charges were dropped against 23 protesters. But at Wits, students and reporters were intimidated by protesters. Here are reports of today's protest activities from Cape Town, East London and Johannesburg.

GroundUp staff

News | 28 October 2015

Mother accuses principal of caning her son

Despite the South African Schools Act prohibiting the use of corporal punishment, caning continues in many schools. Now a Pietermaritzburg mother has had enough, and she's laid a complaint with the police against her son's school principal.

Ntombi Mbomvu

News | 28 October 2015

Nyanga policing: Will promises be kept this time?

In October 2012, then Western Cape police commissioner, Lieutenant General Arno Lamoer, promised that a new satellite police station would be opened in Nyanga. Three years later, the promise has not yet been kept. Nor is it clear what steps have been taken to address a multitude of problems raised by a parliamentary committee a year ago.

GroundUp staff and Tariro Washinyira

News | 28 October 2015

We are putting our bodies on the line, say students at Ashley Kriel Memorial

Students will shut down universities until there is agreement on a 0% fee increase next year, representatives of student organisations said in Cape Town last night.

GroundUp staff

News | 23 October 2015