Author: Ground Up
By Tania Broughton, For Ground Up Justice in lockdown is being hampered because some judges, who earn almost R2 million a year, refuse to use their personal computers for “virtual hearings”. This has emerged in a letter written by the Chair of the General Council of the Bar, Advocate Craig Watt-Pringle, to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and judge presidents in which he cites several issues in getting access to high courts. While some courts are doing well under these difficult circumstances, he says, others are not, and there are huge disparities in how divisions are functioning. “Many judges complain that they do…
By Kimberly Mutandiro, For Ground Up It is around 2pm on a cold afternoon in Tsakane. Two friends, Musa*, 12, and Thato*, 11, are trying to sell the last of the stock of cigarettes and rizlas which they hide in their pockets. They are not wearing warm clothes or masks, and they haven’t showered or had breakfast yet. There is nothing to eat at home. What they can get for the cigarettes will be their meal ticket. Musa has six siblings and they all live with their elderly grandparents. They hardly ever have enough food to eat at home. They used…
By Jeremy Seekings, For Ground Up Summary The emergency ‘COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress’ grant was announced on 21 April and we were told that payments would begin on Friday 15 May SASSA’s slogan is that it gets the right payments to the right people at the right time. The right time is now. Setting up application, verification and payment systems is a massive challenge for SASSA. SASSA’s new application process will need to cope with millions of applications and allow for automated verification Payment requires unprecedented cooperation from banks (including the Post Office), mobile phone companies and retailers. The application system…
By Bernard Chiguvare, For Ground Up Every day Dorres Molalakgotla from Ga-Kobe, Limpopo, walks to collect water from a large flooded pit, five kilometres away from her village. At the pit, donkeys, sheep, goats and cattle drink while people fill their buckets. She takes three 25-litre containers by wheelbarrow on each trip, and she does about four trips a day. By the end of the day she has unbearable back pain, she says. The pit was created by Public Works employees while tarring a road through the village. It filled with water from heavy rains and has remained a water source…
When a novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 first entered the world stage on the heels of the Chinese New Year in January 2020, little was known about it and its impact on people, health systems and countries. This was understandable given its recency, novelty and unknown transmission dynamics. Early on, in an anxious and data-sparse time, models were relied upon in order to guide country responses to the menace of a new pathogen. The lockdown that began in South Africa 52 days ago was both rational and a necessary response. It bought the country precious time in which to…
By Nicholas Ashby, For Ground Up While there is general scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus is of zoonotic origin and various groupings are advising that wildlife markets must be closed, the South African government has been putting forward legislation that could massively expand the wildlife industry to become mass meat suppliers to the world. Last year, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development amended the Animal Improvement Act, redefining 32 wild species. The practical effect of this is “to legitimise this part of the ‘game meat value chain’ and therefore to develop the industry, especially the export of…
By Mosa Damane, For Ground Up “Ithink the government is violating the rights of smokers by banning cigarettes. It is my money and health and I have a right to decide when to quit,” says Veli Hlongwane from Maliwa street, Mzimhlophe in Soweto. “I do adhere to the rules of Covid-19 lockdown … If a friend asks for a smoke I give because it is their risk not mine, but I don’t ask for a skyf anymore, ” he says. “The price of a Savannah fag jumped from R1.50 to R4.00 and the cheapest RG fag jumped from 50 cents to R3.50…
By Peter Luhanga, For Ground Up In the overcrowded township of Dunoon, Cape Town, dire warnings and the lockdown cannot convince residents to stay in-doors or wear masks in public. Here the streets are full. The Dunoon Community Health Centre started community screening on 17 April. By 8 May, 8,816 people from 3,306 households had been screened. 320 people had been referred for testing, and 77 had tested positive. This is according to data provided by Dunoon ward councillor Lubabalo Makeleni. He sits on the Dunoon Community Health Committee which interacts with hospital staff to get pandemic updates. The Western Cape government…
By Fatima Hassan, For Ground Up The COVID-19 global pandemic has unprecedented health and socio-economic consequences for millions of people across the world. Each country affected has introduced numerous measures, including public health interventions, restrictions on movement, as well as state and other relief and stimulus packages to reduce its impact. South Africa has a history of grand corruption and low public confidence in the state’s ability to ‘become uncaptured’ or to address its long-standing inability to expedite the delivery of basic services to communities, such as housing, water, sanitation, health and education, or prevent high levels of violence, mainly against…