Since the African National Congress came to power in 1994, unemployment (on the expanded definition) has risen from 3.67 million to 9.30 million. To issue a report 23 years later blaming colonialism and apartheid for this state of affairs no doubt satisfies the needs of political correctness, but it is irrational.
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The latest estimations based on 74% of branch general meeting nominations place Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in the lead for the ANC presidency. Yet, the race is still too close to call, says the IRR's Frans Cronje.
Following the white paper, the department has already invited nominations for seven new committees to help implement NHI. These will deal with tertiary services, training and development, pricing, benefits, the consolidation of financing, and technology. There will also be a national health commission.
The government is pressing ahead with implementing the National Health Insurance (NHI) proposal even though the state still does not know how much the new system will cost or how it can be financed. The Department of Health (DoH) seems determined to proceed by trial-and-error, irrespective of the massive damage that is likely to result.
Some in the media still describe the DA as “white” or “perceived as white”. The narrative didn’t change after most of the Coloured community in the Cape jettisoned the ANC for the DA. The Indian community nationally joined them. What the criticism means is that “black” really just means “African”.
Founded in 1929, the IRR is but two years away from celebrating its 90th birthday. Throughout its history, the organisation has fought racial discrimination and promoted the principle of equality before the law. It has also argued that promotions and appointments should be made on merit rather than on racial grounds. It has also applied these principles in its own operations.
With the ANC's elective conference approaching, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma may have a majority of the league votes. To be sure of victory, Cyril Ramaphosa must enter the conference with a comfortable branch majority,
Opposition politics had a perception problem right from the start in democratic South Africa. Understandably, it is harder to tell which side of history you are on when you are in opposition to a majority government following hundreds of years of a privileged minority franchise. To be in opposition was to be in opposition to the liberators.
It takes so little to unmask Mmusi Maimane’s new policy framework as a poorly thought-through imitation of that of the ANC that the DA must be quite confident that President Zuma’s camp will win the ANC’s end-of-year leadership race
Arguably, however, it has undermined that system in that the sentences imposed are heavier than the crime itself warrants. One of the men, Theo Martins Jackson, was given a sentence of 19 years' imprisonment, of which five were suspended, so that his effective sentence is 14 years. The other, Willem Oosthuizen, was given 16 years of which five were suspended, leaving an effective sentence of 11 years.
There is a myth held by some, who try to make racial identity compatible with the idea of self-definition, that racial identity is acceptable so long as individuals can define blackness* for themselves. This view is nonsensical. But some liberals cling to it because they wish to bridge the gulf between individuality and racial identity; either because race is an important part of their own identity or because it is an important part of the electorate’s identity.
On this projection, public debt will soon have quintupled from the R627bn at which it stood in 2008/9, before the start of the Zuma presidency.