The tragic, and unnecessary outbreak of cholera in Hammanskraal, which has left almost 30 people dead, is yet another example of poor governance and mismanagement in South Africa’s water sector. Reports just released by the Department of Water and Sanitation show a drastic decline in standards of management of the country’s precious water supplies.
Ahead of his visit to South Africa in July, UN special rapporteur on toxics and human rights Marcos Orellana invites all interested individuals and organisations working on issues related to toxics and human rights and implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes – including representatives of civil society organisations, journalists, experts, and academics – to provide input for the preparation of his visit.
Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts is still seeking clarity on certain points related to Eskom corruption, which former CEO Andre de Ruyter revealed earlier this year. However, neither De Ruyter, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, nor national security advisor Sydney Mufamadi have assisted the committee in this respect, all rather passing the buck than giving straight answers.
Hospitals around the country face a daily challenge of inferior or no proper infrastructure to meet the medical needs of communities – this situation exacerbates the mounting medico-legal claims with which provincial health departments have to contend. While provincial health departments have to meet their service delivery goals and ballooning legal woes mean that development money has to be used to settle claims.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured the country that implicated parties in the far-reaching network on money laundering revealed in Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia docu-series, will be investigated. But some are sceptical that the country’s bumbling law enforcement authorities are capable of carrying such an investigation through to a successful conclusion.
A good start to the year for Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke so far, as she has received some reprieve in her legal battle with the Road Accident Fund regarding reporting standards on the one hand, and managed to show a positive impact of her office’s extended powers on state institutions in her recent reporting before Parliament, on the other.
South Africans are simply not angry enough, protesting enough and shaming the ANC government and leaders enough for their corruption, state failure and decay, writes William Gumede, associate professor at the Wits School of Governance.
The Department of Public Service and Administration says it is focusing on three burning issues – the implementation of the professionalisation framework for the public sector, the problem of long precautionary suspensions which unnecessarily cost the taxpayer money, and the efficient management of vacancies in the sector.
The reality of the public education system as it pertains to the Eastern Cape province – one of South Africa’s poorest provinces – is that incompetence and corruption go on for long without punishment, and it is most frequently the children who are enrolled in its public schools that bear the brunt of these ills, writes Siphokuhle Mkancu
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