Infographic: Constitutional Awareness in SA

The Foundation for Human Rights told the Justice Portfolio Committee this week that a 2011 baseline study on the awareness of the constitution and its bill of rights, found that less than only 46% of 4 200 respondents were aware of either of these important documents. In light of this, ...

SJC and Ndifuna Ukwazi: March to Parliament for Justice and Inequality

SJC NU

According to the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), every day in Khayelitsha people are robbed, raped and murdered. Every day women, men, and children are deprived of the most basic rights to life, safety, security, justice and equality.

The Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry's report was released on ...

Five female MPs on their passion for politics

By Sheilan Clarke

Statistics show that 35.2% of South African cabinet ministers are women while 41.5% are parliamentarians. This means that of the 54 cabinet ministers, only 19 of them are women and out of a total of 400 parliamentarians, 166 are women. This is according to a United Nations ...

Ms Phumzile van Damme - DA

P Van Damme

Political background: Growing up, I was involved in politics in one form or another. My earliest memory of political activity was leading a strike in Grade 5 because our teacher would not allow us to go out for break.

At university I majored in Political Science and Law, and the ...

Ms Duduzile Promise Manana - ANC

manana

Political background: I am from Driekoppies Malelane district in Mpumalanga. I joined the ANC formally in 1994 whereas; I had been involved since the age of 12 years before then.

I then served in the ANCYL as an additional member in the executive structure of the Malelane branch in the ...

LiveMagSA: Xenophobia - what is government doing about it?

By Rofhiwa Maneta

This Wednesday, Deputy Minister Cyril Ramaphosa was in parliament to answer questions from members of the National Council of Provinces. A question or two was dedicated to the ongoing energy crisis and government’s plans to arrest the decline into a full blown crisis. But perhaps the most ...

The problem with Parliament

By Trevor Manuel

In the week Parliament fell into a chaos of #paybackthemoney, it’s a good idea to read this former minister’s ideas on how to fix it (note: it’s not about heckling, eviction or chanting)

While we have myriad democratic institutions that all play a role in supporting good ...

Budget 2014: Where we are with the NHI

At a seminar co-hosted by the Budget Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF), Section 27 and Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) yesterday, Daygan Eager from the Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP) did a presentation on what the recent budget tells us about progress on National Health Insurance (NHI).

Eager said that ...

The electoral system: Is there vice or virtue in reform?

Ebrahim Fakir

With South Africa’s 2014 elections done and dusted, it’s an appropriate time to consider serious electoral reform or, at the bare minimum, to introduce a base threshold of support that parties must receive if the pure proportional representation system is to be retained. It is almost intolerable that ...

Breaking down the budget: Your Minister on job creation and social spending

On Wednesday, 26 February, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan tabled the Budget in Parliament. The national budget is essentially the announcement of government’s estimated spending (dividing state coffers between the three ties of the state), borrowing and tax plans for the forthcoming three years.

Nene-Gordhan Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has a word ...