The University of Pretoria (UP) successfully won a court challenge against its “English only” language policy in December 2016. Since then, it prepared the way for this policy to be implemented. Last week, the UP found it necessary to announce that from this year, all first-year students will only be taught in English. This is not new, as the decision was already taken almost three years ago. 

Nevertheless, the statement by the UP warrants analysis and commentary, for three significant reasons.  Firstly, the media statement made by the UP’s spokesperson, Rikus Delport; secondly the comments by the newly-appointed Vice-Chancellor, Prof Tawana Kupe; and thirdly the tweet on the issue by the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni (being a former Chancellor of the former University of the North-West in Mafikeng).

The Employment Equity Amendment Bill, now before Parliament, is the latest move in a long process that is progressively diminishing the economic space within which minorities can operate.   

It is, of course, essential that the economy must be open to all South Africans at all levels – but this can be achieved far more effectively through natural economic evolution and by prohibiting unfair discrimination than by imposing a system in which appointments, promotions and tenders are based on race rather than on individual merit and effort.

The Amendment Bill will give the Minister of Labour the power to establish sectoral numerical targets to ensure “equitable representation of suitably qualified people from designated groups (black South Africans, women and persons with disabilities) at all occupational levels in the workforce.”  “Designated employers” – i.e. those that employ more than 50 people – will have to ensure that the “numerical goals” in their employment equity plans comply with the applicable sectoral numerical target. 

The United Nations (UN) has numerous days on the annual calendar dedicated to some or other cause or campaign. Many of these pass by almost unnoticed. International Anti-Corruption Day, commemorated on 9 December every year, should not be one of those. For South Africans, this day, is (unfortunately) all too real.

The UN brought together a number of nations 15 years ago to adopt the Convention Against Corruption. Today, 186 states are party to the Convention and subscribe to its anti-corruption goals and ideals. In terms of the Convention, nearly every country in the world has laws in place making corruption a crime. Every country has further committed, through the well-known Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), “to reducing corruption and bribery, strengthening the recovery and return of stolen assets and developing effective, inclusive and transparent institutions”.