News

How do top three parties deal with womxn? Not just on GBV and representation - On all areas of life? GBV is an issue of the day – what about land and housing and jobs?

2 May 2019 - New research based on a feminist analysis of party manifestos show none of the top three political parties’ manifestos will make a real difference in the lived realities of womxn.

Parliament Watch, today released a Scorecard reflecting selected portfolio committees in the National Assembly’s poor to average performance. The Scorecard based on committee performance in 2018 also includes selected committees in the Eastern Cape Legislature. It focused on the Portfolio Committees on Social Development, Communications, and Police and how they handled three politically hot issues. These were the social grants crisis in the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), the SABC-crisis and the issues discriminatory police resource allocation.

South Africans are no stranger to loadshedding and increasing train passenger woes that can be linked to the capture of strategic State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) like Eskom and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa). These institutions over the years turned into places where it was a free for all to steal money and board appointments became proxies for the creation of opportunities for looting. Given the prevailing ills of state capture there is a need for greater transparency and quality in these board appointments.

The Socio-Economic Rights Project hosted a roundtable discussion on elections and service delivery on 2 April 2019 at the University of the Western Cape. This roundtable provided an opportunity to for social justice activists, advocates, academics, community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations, policy makers and stakeholders to enter into a meaningful engagement centred on elections and service delivery.

Voters may under our current electoral system not be able to directly elect their political representatives for Parliament and the legislatures, but at least they have the right to object to candidates nominated by political parties contesting the national and provincial elections on 8 May. Voters now have until may not directly elect their political representatives may not have a say now have until next week 17:00 PM on 2 April to lodge objections.

It was his own personal loss and experience that moved Paarl resident Hendri Terblanche to petition Parliament to amend labour laws to allow for elder-care leave. He lost his mother-in-law to cancer last year and shortly thereafter, his godmother. His father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and his mother, Susan, with multiple sclerosis. “Our parents have dedicated their whole lives to take care of us to the best of their abilities and now it is our time to take care of them,” Terblanche told Parlybeat. He had also paved the way for the historic paternal leave amendment in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act after he petitioned Parliament.