South Africa is in the process of reviewing its local government system. The process is about reviewing the White Paper on Local Government. This is a document that made policy assumptions from which the 'Big Five' local government legislations were enacted: the Municipal Structures Act, the Municipal Systems Act, the [...]
These were the loudest words said to one of South Africa's billionaires, Patrice Motsepe, at the African National Congress's National General Council in Birchwood. Patrice Motsepe was 'recognisably standing' in the 'front row' as the ANC's Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula, was also 'standing' and courting the 'attention' of delegates, some [...]
In the absence of a seamless ANC leadership succession plan, and with a vicious battle to take over at all levels, the entry of anyone with formidable credentials is bound to cause a stir. Beyond the Tambo-to-Mandela-to-Mbeki succession transition, the ANC has never had an open discourse on the type or [...]
The digital revolution was sold to us as the great emancipation of knowledge: a technological uprising against distance, scarcity and the old gatekeepers of information. Social media and digital platforms were celebrated as instruments through which humanity would democratise access to ideas. Yet the revolution carried a naïve assumption—that the [...]
It is not the reality of Comrade Squire’s passing that unsettles us most. It is the lens through which we must now make sense of life without him.A man larger than life, anchored by one of the most stable and rare internal loci of control, has left us. Death, in [...]
As South Africa prepares for the local government elections, few, if any, questions about the bureaucracy supporting the politics of the local state loom large. It is not only a country's elected officials who make it competitive and capable, but also the technical capacity and capabilities of its appointed officials [...]
It is increasingly difficult to sustain the belief that the 1994–1996 democratic breakthrough and political settlement ushered in a truly post-race constitutional order as a vehicle for social and economic justice. What it has also enabled is something more complex: the capacity for individuals, institutions, and communities to weaponise the [...]
(Originally written on 30 April 2009; language edited for this 2026 posting)Did the Jacob Zuma ANC victory expose a dearth of rational discourse in our democracy, or did it reignite it?Rational debates are expected to assume scientifically justifiable objectivity, particularly in the often muddy terrain of political theatre. The role [...]
Beyond the recklessness of scholar transport drivers, the unregulated nature of the booming scholar transport industry, and the general road safety challenges in South Africa, the deaths of schoolchildren in the Vaal point to a deeper local government issue: spatial injustice.The real problems are not surfacing for decisive policy action [...]
The African National Congress (ANC), arguably the nexus of political life in South Africa, is under increasing pressure from history to undertake one of its most consequential internal reviews since its formation. Throughout its existence, it has carried the burden of leading society amid competing interests. What is becoming evident [...]
