Innehållsförteckning för 2023-12-21 från Cape Argus

With 600 000 people on the housing waiting list in the Western Cape, of which 350 000 applicants are from Cape Town, population growth rates have placed added pressure on Human Settlements, the provincial Department of Infrastructure said. This comes as mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis this week said the metro was preparing to overtake Johannesburg as the most populous city in the country, nearing the 5 million residents mark. Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers’s spokesperson, Ntobeko Mbingeleli, said the department was exploring the feasibility of an Incremental Starter House – a 40m² frame structure with a 20m² area enclosed under a roof. “The housing backlog is an important indicator for the department, as it provides valuable insight about where the need is for human settlement development. “According to the Western…

The Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation has been accused of failing to develop and pay artists, art adjudicators and artists’ organisations for their work. This comes after scores of affected artists face a blue festive season because they are yet to be paid or have their projects funded by the provincial department following an aid and grant funding request in February this year. Sources close to the situation said the payment delays – communicated in close circles – involve ordinary artists and some of the country’s leading personalities, who want to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter. Scores of artists and service providers who were contracted to the department have not been paid. According to Showbiz Scope, board members of the Gauteng Arts and…

Israel has been both a Jewish and a democratic state since 1948, and it will remain so forever. (“Genocidal maniacs like Netanyahu will lead Israel to ruin”, Cape Argus December 19). In spite of the hostility surrounding it, Israel is a liberal democracy. All citizens enjoy the same rights and obligations. They all have political parties, members in the Knesset, and judges on the Supreme Court. All citizens go to the same hospitals as doctors, nurses and patients. Israeli Arabs are over-represented in its universities. Arabs in Gaza are under the brutal control of Hamas. Almost all Palestinian Authority Arabs are administered by the PA. They are not Israelis, nor are they under Israeli law. There is some security co-operation between the PA and Israel, as per the Oslo accords.…

Undoubtedly, it is much easier to work in a country if the people understand the topic, such as South Africans, and are friendly in the institution, like those at the Western Cape Archives and Records in Roeland Street. Last week, the head of the Cape Archives, Erika le Roux, informed me about 22 files on Palestine in their collections. One of the documents contains an interesting note about the Palestine Liberation Organisation and mutual concern for the Zionist Israeli Government and Apartheid South Africa: “In wese is hierdie publikasie n aanval op die beleid en optrede van Israel asook die VSA. Klaarblyklik is die doel van die publikasie om die PLO in so n goed moontlik lig te plaas in die oë van lesers. Die publikasie is niks anders as…

IN AN unexpected twist following the removal of a yellow-speckled Cape cobra thought to have ingested a poisoned mouse in Kuils River, the reptile surprised her rescuer with a batch of seven eggs on Tuesday morning. Snake rescue co-ordinator Shaun MacLeod said he was called out to Zevenwacht on Monday night after a resident spotted the cobra in their backyard between the rubble. When he picked up the snake, aged around eight or nine years, it was lethargic and did not put up a fight, which MacLeod said was highly unusual. He suspected that it had ingested a poisoned mouse. After taking the snake to his residence to monitor her and nurse her back to health, MacLeod said he was pleasantly surprised the next morning to find she had laid…

THERE is so much wrong with Mohamed Saeed’s horribly one-sided letter that I would need pages to refute his ludicrous claims. I will therefore hone in on the one thing missing from his letter that negates everything else he has to say: any mention of Hamas. David Teeger’s message of support of the IDF wasn’t uttered in a vacuum. It was said at the Absa Jewish Achiever Awards that took place some two weeks after Hamas terrorists broke through the Gazan border and proceeded to rape, torture, dismember and kill 1 200 Israelis and kidnap a further 200-plus in what was both the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and one of the most depraved attacks against civilians in modern history. Teeger, like almost every Jew on the planet,…

The Minister of Employment and Labour is facing a crisis with his senior management and staff. By now it is well known to the public that both the biggest entities under the Department of Labour, namely the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and the Workmen’s Compensation Fund, missed their audit and were unable to give proper information to the auditor-general. Both of these entities have failed in the past and both these entities are not servicing the public at all. Over and above the failure of the UIF and the Compensation Fund the minister is facing enormous trouble with his senior staff, who don’t seem to be doing anything properly. It must be remembered that the commissioner of the UIF was suspended for months during Covid. All sorts of maladministration and…

Democracy is not just systems and procedures that look good but it is the improved experience of people on the ground. For this reason, while democracy in countries like South Africa looks nice and systems are in place, the democratic experience is one of dissatisfaction among the growing number of people on the ground. This is our reaction to a recently-released study of voter perceptions conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) on behalf of the Electoral Commission of South Africa as well as the Institut Public de Sondage d’Opinion Secteur-IPSOS South Africa survey on the state of democracy across the world. The latter is global and the former is national, but both convey the same message. This is the experience of poor service delivery, struggling economy, rising socio-economic…

Two police officers are accused of allowing a taxi boss who is facing numerous serious charges to drive a police van. Officers Masixole Mgaqelwa, 31, and Yolisa Ngomso, 25, appeared along with taxi businessman Bonke Makalala yesterday morning at the Simon’s Town Magistrate’s Court. The heavily guarded courtroom consisted of Provincial Commissioner Thembisile Patekile and Policing Service’s head Mpumelelo Manci. Ngomso and Mgaqelwa, who are based in Nyanga, were arrested on Tuesday evening. They informed the court they would appoint their own lawyers. The State told the court the pair were charged under a schedule 1 offence and Makalala would face schedule 5 because of the other serious crimes he faces in Pretoria, Mfuleni and Athlone. These include illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, murder and attempted murder.…

SEKUNJALO Investment Holdings and its group of companies are preparing to go to the Constitutional Court (Concourt) in a last-ditch bid to keep their companies’ bank accounts open once and for all, after receiving two unfavourable rulings this week. The group was in the process of filing an urgent application to the Concourt for leave to appeal a judgment handed down by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Monday in Nedbank vs Sekunjalo, which overturned an interim interdict ruling in favour of Sekunjalo, granted in March last year. Equality Court Judge Mokgoatji Dolamo had ruled that there had been a prima facie case of discrimination by Nedbank against Sekunjalo, a black-owned conglomerate, in closing their accounts. The order prohibited Nedbank from terminating the bank accounts held by Sekunjalo chairman…

The world is wondering and cannot fathom why Zimbabwe – a country richly endowed with natural resources which include renewables such as land, forest, water, wildlife and sunshine, and non-renewables such oil, gas and minerals – is being abandoned by its citizens. They have swamped other foreign countries such as South Africa, Zambia and Botswana in search of better living standards and working conditions. Since the Zanu-PF government took power in 1980, it has dismally failed to sustain the high standards that existed pre-independence era, let alone improve the standards. The Zanu-PF political party has shown its cruelty to opposition members through persecution, torturing, abducting and murdering in cold blood, so that this nasty and arrogant political party, led by the careless, clueless and corrupt President Emmerson Mnangagwa, remains in…

The current picture being painted by Naledi Pandor and the ANC regarding the war in Gaza is extremely offensive and misleading. Driving through KZN, billboards can be seen everywhere stating: “Free Palestine”. Nowhere is there any message that remotely sympathises with Israel, which signifies the ANC’s anti-Semitic stance and obsession with what they call “apartheid”, or “war crimes”. Pietermaritzburg is littered with this anti-Semitic ANC filth! Yes, it’s very sad to see how many innocent lives are being lost during this war, and the incident where hostages had been mistaken for Hamas fighters is excruciatingly painful to witness, but what must Israel do when these Hamas cowards hide among innocent Palestinian civilians and in so doing, use these people as shields? It is sickening. It’s time for the ANC and…

Musical chairs, a game of elimination involving players, chairs, and music, has taken a different meaning in the South African political spectrum. It is also referred to as floor crossing, when one Member of Parliament (or council) leaves his or her political party to join another party. Former president Jacob Zuma has caused a political storm with the uMkhonto we Sizwe MK party saga, playing the game of musical chairs and floor crossing with finesse. On Saturday, Zuma denounced the ANC and pledged to vote for the new party. During a media briefing, Zuma called on South Africans to vote for the new party, saying that it would be a betrayal to vote for the ANC, which no longer represented the people. In just about every corner of South Africa…