Fixing the civil service is vital

Civil servants are failing poor people like Cassiem Mahommed and many others. The decline of our civil service is one of the most important political problems facing South Africa.

GroundUp Editor

News | 14 January 2014

The need for real media transformation

Transformation of the media in South Africa is essential. But we should be very clear about what we mean by such transformation.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 14 January 2014

How to hold local government accountable

The elections this year will be for our provincial and national governments. But it is our local government, our mayors and ward councillors, who are responsible for much of the service delivery that affects our day-to-day lives, such as refuse collection, sanitation and day clinics.

Fergus Turner and GroundUp Staff

News | 14 January 2014

Labour Department fails to follow up on sick workers’ claims

On 13 November 2013, GroundUp reported that Cassiem Mahommed has been waiting for over six years for compensation from the City of Cape Town for asbestosis. The Department of Labour immediately contacted GroundUp after publication and promised to follow up with Mahommed Disturbingly, there has been no progress on the matter.

Jonathan Dockney

News | 14 January 2014

Court orders access to Stellenbosch’s deadly initiation school

Seven boys were admitted to Stellenbosch Hospital on the evenings of 25 and 26 November. Two were dead on arrival. One had sjambok marks on his body. They were about 20 years old. They were the victims of an initiation school.

Jonathan Dockney

News | 9 January 2014

School marked for closure gets it right

Peak View Secondary School in Bridgetown, Athlone was one of 27 schools marked for closure by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). Nearly two years later Peak View's matric results are top in its district.

Sibusiso Tshabalala

News | 8 January 2014

Clarity, Kriel and the Cape Times

A lack of adequate resources and asset-stripping by the Irish carpetbagger Tony — now Sir Anthony — O'Reilly are the real problems with the Cape Times, not the undeniable quality, let alone pigmentation, of the staff. But there are other issues too that require examination.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 29 December 2013

Rent a crowd protest - an attack on media freedom

Cape Times editor Alide Dasnois was fired by Iqbal Surve, executive chairperson of the Sekunjalo Consortium, the day after Mandela’s death.

Shireen Mukadam

Opinion | 18 December 2013

Cape Times demo: plot thickens

It now appears that it was the fairly recently ordained pastor and political changeling, Wesley Douglas, who was one of the organisers of the group that gatecrashed a Right to Know (R2K) protest in Cape Town yesterday.

Terry Bell

News | 18 December 2013

Goons attempt to disrupt protest for press freedom

The saga of the Cape Times and South Africa’s Independent Newspapers (INL) group plumbed new depths of farce this afternoon (December 17) when a rent-a-crowd arrived in the city to support the putative new owner, Iqbal Survé.

Terry Bell

News | 17 December 2013

Mandela and the dangers of deification

As everyone from monarchs to the labouring masses this week sought to share in the Mandela memorial moment, the myth machine went into overdrive, the very machine Mandela had so disparaged when I sat with him in his Johannesburg office in 1992. One sentence he uttered then has resonated with me throughout the years: “I am no messiah.”

Terry Bell

Opinion | 17 December 2013

Madiba

News | 13 December 2013

When the ANC jeered Madiba

Do any of the members of the ANC's 1997-2002 NEC now regret the way they heckled and jeered Madiba at an NEC meeting in March 2002?

Roy Jobson

Opinion | 12 December 2013

Week in political activism

This week we have reports from Lawyers for Human Rights about refugees being prevented from informal trading, and SERI who successfully represented Johannesburg's informal traders at the Constitutional Court.

Compiled by Brent Meersman

News | 12 December 2013

Unity after Madiba?

After the departure of Nelson Mandela, where is this unity we talk about? On the day of Tata's memorial the world was watching. It was a day where South Africans from different backgrounds, through the rain, walked, drove, took buses, trains and taxis to Soccer City to witness the memorial of an African hero.

Axolile Notywala

Opinion | 12 December 2013

Hatched the day before Madiba’s release: a born-free speaks

I was born the day before Madiba's release from prison. Most of what I know about him I was told by my parents or I learnt at school. I never met him. Nevertheless, the way he shared his life made it feel as if I knew him personally.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

Opinion | 12 December 2013