Metrorail central line resumes operation
Cape Town’s busiest train route, the central line has been reopened after 6 weeks of suspension following the shooting murder of a security guard at Chris Hani station in Khayelitsha.
Cape Town’s busiest train route, the central line has been reopened after 6 weeks of suspension following the shooting murder of a security guard at Chris Hani station in Khayelitsha.
On 17 January, Police Minister Fikile Mbalula and the new National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Khehla Sithole announced crime intelligence boss, Richard Mdluli, had finally been relieved of his duties. Since his suspension seven years ago, he has reportedly earned around R8-million and persistently meddled in affairs of the state. He will retire with full benefits and apparent impunity for his role in pillaging a Crime Intelligence secret slush fund. Mdluli has been widely blamed for the downfall of, amongst others, the former Hawks head Anwar Dramat, former NPA prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach, and Gauteng corruption-buster, former Major General Shadrack Sibiya. But he has thousands of lesser-known victims – collateral damage along the road to ‘a better life’ for some.
Lack of resources especially for science remains one of the biggest challenges in providing quality education in township and rural schools in the Eastern Cape and throughout the country.
The Eastern Cape fared poorly in the 2017 matric results and the lack of especially mathematics teachers is cited as one of the reasons. Only 42% of the province’s pupils who wrote pure maths passed the subject.
Learning and teaching is compromised in one of the schools affected by a recent storm in the Eastern Cape. The Department of Education claims that Disaster Management has not finalised the report, three weeks after the school’s roof was damaged.
The Democratic Alliance-led Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is facing a water crisis and just like how the party responded to the crisis in Cape Town, they are making the ratepayers pay for their mistakes.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled in favour of residents of Endumeni in Northern KwaZulu-Natal who have been waiting for nearly two decades to receive RDP houses. The court found the conduct of the municipality was unconstitutional.
About 300 delegates that attended the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) marched through the streets of Cape Town to hand over a memorandum to the Mining Indaba. The AMI is a conference of community activists, environmentalists and religious groups that runs parallel to the Mining Indaba, which is attended by mine owners and government officials.
There are towns in the Eastern Cape that one needs to avoid when having a running stomach. This is because these towns lack public toilets and in some you have to pay before using them. To use a clean toilet in these towns you must be willing to pay at least R2.
The redeployment of teachers is presenting some challenges for communities and schools in the Eastern Cape, since the decisions of school administrators can be irrational and can anger parents and learners.
It is not unsual for municipalities and other spheres of government to implement projects without making sure that the beneficiaries have access to training, markets and most importantly that the project is not the only “poverty alleviation” measure in the community. The end result for such projects is that they end in shambles.
The current water restrictions are already affecting small businesses that rely on water, like hair salons, car-washes and laundry businesses which are struggling to keep up.
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