ARTICLE: PRESIDENT ZUMA’S SONA RESPONSE
2015-02-27
Many South Africans were charmed by the more conciliatory tone that President Zuma adopted in his response last week during to the State of the Nation (SONA) Debate.
Many South Africans were charmed by the more conciliatory tone that President Zuma adopted in his response last week during to the State of the Nation (SONA) Debate.
According to “Rapport” of 30 November 2014, the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande, has threatened to withdraw the registration of the private university, Akademia, if its language of tuition remains exclusively Afrikaans.
In comments that he is reported to have made at a luncheon yesterday, President Zuma apparently asked why there was so much criticism over state expenditure on his personal residence at Nkandla, if the state had been prepared to build an airport for PW Botha in George in 1977?
He also pointed out that he lived in official accommodation without paying rent and that he made use of official aircraft without having to pay the costs involved. Were these unfair benefits, he asked? When it was pointed out that Nkandla was his own personal property he asked whether it was not the state’s duty to protect the president and the deputy president?
In a statement issued today, the President’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, has taken “strong exception to the attack on the South African government by the Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Ms Patricia de Lille”, because “she blamed government for the cancellation of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Laureates.”
People who are sceptical about big government sometimes observe that society can afford lazy and ineffective public servants because, on the whole, they do little harm – apart from consuming taxpayers’ money.
Jonathan Jansen is one of our most outspoken and influential academic leaders. From time to time he has taken sensible and courageous decisions in navigating the minefield of transformational politics at his own university, the University of the Free State.
In an article that he wrote for Rapport last Sunday, Frans Cronje of the Institute for Race Relations quite rightly warned South Africans to plan for all eventualities.
According to media reports, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is getting ready to introduce indigenous language courts “in an attempt to speed up justice” and “make courts more accessible”.
A pilot project for indigenous language courts was run in 2009, but was stopped after an assessment by the Department. The Department stated last month that it was reopening the project.
According to the Department, the objective is to introduce and promote the use of indigenous languages in a few courts, then to expand to other courts.
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) has just published its final policy proposals on land reform titled “Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working the Land“.