The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the fundamental right of the poor to services such as clean water, sanitation, waste management, affordable energy, public transport, health, education and social security.
Richard Pithouse -
In 1987, in the midst of a Cape Town winter, Jeremy Cronin wrote a poem about being on the run under the state of emergency, his picture on the walls of the police stations that still squat, square and fenced, across the country like forts on the borderlands of some incompletely subdued colony. The poem speaks of the “snuffling soul” of his newborn son as he stretches out his fist in the afterglow of the timeless pleasure of an infant at the breast. “In the depths of their...
Saliem Fakir -
The worst time to impose a tax is when a country’s economic woes are entering a new era of economic uncertainty. Nobody knows exactly what 2012 holds for us, but most believe it is unlikely to be easy for already stretched pockets.
Margaret Thatcher learnt the hard lesson: never push for more taxes when people are already feeling the pinch. After she almost stripped Britain of the last vestiges of a caring economy, she added more salt to the wound with her community poll-tax idea in...
Mandisi Majavu -
Almost two decades into post-apartheid South Africa many black academics still feel that the “white networks that have de facto run academic decision making” are derailing the transformation agenda. This is according to the Charter for Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), a report commissioned by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, that was published in June this year.
In many respects, the CHSS echoes the 2008 Report of the Ministerial Committee on...
Charlene Houston -
October 15, 2011 was World Revolution Day – a physical manifestation of the discontent sweeping through the world at this time. South Africans joined in the protest action. October has also historically been “Transport Month” in South Africa and as the long brewing discontent increasingly spills over, I can’t resist wondering if we will see collective action emerging to champion public transport issues.
The absence of organised public reaction to the pathetic...
Charlene Houston -
Public transport emerged out of the need for commuters to get from one place to another for social and economic reasons. Transport serves another important function too, shipping goods such as agricultural produce from one point to another. Indeed, the first train in South Africa was planned to run from Cape Town to Wellington in order to service the wine industry.
These days, while cars dominate our roads, public transport is still critical for getting the workforce to and from work...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Take your pick in the national education blame game. Your choices would include teachers’ trade unions, an ideological curriculum unsuited to South Africa, the National Treasury because it does not adequately fund schools or even just the principal at your local school.
Of course, these stakeholders participate in the blame game too, each pointing the finger to the other. Truth is, there is evidence – often anecdotal – to backup the assertion that any one of these...
