Today's education system is not what we fought for in 1976
Let me detour for a moment from the collective amnesia of many South Africans, who stoically believe the Soweto secondary and high school students who took to the streets of Soweto on that fateful cold morning of Wednesday June 16 1976, when we marched in protest, that we were marching to demand jobs or opportunities from the white apartheid economy which thrived in its business endeavours because the protectionist apartheid labour laws enabled it to do so...
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TimesLIVE
34 minutes ago
- TimesLIVE
‘If people want to start their own party they should go ahead': Jacob Zuma
MK Party (MKP) leader Jacob Zuma has come out guns blazing at those who have criticised the party's decisions to remove Floyd Shivambu and others from the position of secretary-general. The fledgling political party, formed in December 2023, has seen at least seven secretary-generals. 'We are not playing, even if you deem yourself to be powerful, well-liked or you are everything,' Zuma said. 'There is no one who would occupy a position until such time they go to heaven. There is no such thing.' Zuma was addressing thousands gathered at the launch of the MKP'S youth branch in Claremont, west of Durban, on Monday. The former president turned opposition party leader said he was aware of resistance from some within the party after people were removed from the position. 'Some are wanting to protest the move. This means we have not begun to build party we want. You entertain such things by not only talking about this but you write about it. We want freedom and we are not protecting anyone,' said Zuma. He said despite the MKP experiencing the exit of a succession of leaders, it was not the party's intention to boot them. 'There were wrong things they were getting up to but we did not want to embarrass and humiliate them publicly. We never wanted to tell the nation because they themselves know they had done some wrongs,' said Zuma. He urged followers to steer clear of internal ructions in the party. "If those people want to start their own party they should go ahead. I have full trust and confidence in the youth of this country to build a future. We are not going to be apologetic and bow down to individuals in this party. No matter how good, important and educated you are,' said Zuma. He also issued a stern warning to those who sought to enrich themselves in the party. "Let us not take this organisation as an one in which we want to make money. It's an organisation to liberate South Africans. It is why if we have one of us go astray, we don't tolerate them,' said Zuma. A nine-member youth team headed by Qiniso Cibane was announced. Cibane is the former eThekwini regional convener for the party.
IOL News
an hour ago
- IOL News
Dr Pali Lehohla: Debating the labour force survey- a response to Fourie's critique
Gerrie Fourie. Image: File. When Ashraf Gadar said he sensed anger in my voice during an interview on the topical labour force survey, I said certainly there is anger in my voice. This is because if Fourie's rendition of the Labour Force is an understanding and representative of what goes on the in Boardrooms of business in South Africa then only god must help us. Through Statistics South Africa the citizens of this country have engaged in a dialogue about their lives and have made South Africa and South Africans discoverable and knowable to themselves and about themselves. Anything else equivalent to what Fourie was saying is abracadabra and can only be adjudicated by magicians. You see StatsSA runs a national statistics system which implies that it has designed a project based on systems design and driven by systems thinking. In such a system I had to listen to Tito Mboweni when he said, Statistician-General the Producer Price Index (PPI) is fine but the Consumer Price Index (CPI) does not make a lot of sense. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ I had to listen to John Stopforth of Investec when he said the housing index is wobbly. I had to listen to Trevor Manuel when he arrived huffing and puffing from Automn meetings in Washington asking about why the CPI is stubbornly on the up. Certainly, the system did not cohere then. The reason was that the national treasury had stubbornly refused to depart with a R 6 million for a general household survey that would have provided us weights for housing measurement component in the CPI. We put up a fight, they would not budge. Since 2003, StatsSA has not made any silly mistake save for a typo on the manufacturing statistics matrix over which I tendered my resignation in 2005, but the resignation was not processed. The typo in a thousand cells is a discussion for another day, suffice to say yet again there, the 2005 typo emerged from a 2003 dossier alleging corruption and theft of money and the process I intended to implement to avoid such was sabotaged internally. It is a topic for another day. There was an arduous process of reengineering the CPI which included direct price observation in outlets by data gatherers instead of telephone based surveys which could run the risk of the Portuguese pyjama CPI syndrome. One is mindful of the fact that citizens inform themselves by freely providing their most precious of themselves to Statistics South Africa in the firm belief that society cares and those to whom society has entrusted with the care will respect their trust which is the result of what they have provided for policy attention. StatsSA processes the responses dutifully following acclaimed standards. The United Nations Statistical Commission convenes annually in New York to address methods. Over five days the bean counters of the world prepare and present methodological programmes on population, economic and social statistics. They interrogate geospatial data and now the focus is on information technology and the world of data and how statisticians lead in this role. The World Data Forum which Statistics South Africa had the benefit of hosting as an inaugural programme of the commission in 2017 shows where Statistics South Africa ranks in the world. Whilst questioning and contesting is not a problem by itself, but failure to inform oneself before contesting can be a source of great anger to the listener, especially when the soliloquy becomes equivalent to somnambulism. Reading Fourie's soliloquy was annoying because it showed that he did not bother to read the methodological notes because if he did, he would have answered himself. But more irritating and annoying were the ANC MPs in the portfolio committee and Minister Tau who amplified Fourie's soliloquy and resisted to pay attention to the MKP and EFF MPs who actually understood and explained in detail not only the numbers but expatiated on the context of their meaning and implications. As though it was not enough my brother Siyabonga Radebe has amplified the debate and I thought I should shed light on this before it goes out of hand based on misinformation and speculation. You see Bungani I have to provide history to the QLFS. I may appear abrasive but I am actually factual and the concerns and comparative analysis is all answered in a report that prompted StatsSA to adopt a quarterly labour Force survey. In 2004 government was concerned that despite rise in fixed capital formation and growth in the economy, there was no corresponding growth in jobs. Then we were conducting the Labour Force Survey twice in a year. Given the concern, I roped in two experts who provided a critique on the labour force survey and one of them was from Brazil. They made a number of observations and recommendations that we adopted. These included amongst others line of questioning but the most fundamental recommendation was to run a quarterly labour force survey to capture seasonality. We then roped in two Canadian experts from Statistics Canada who helped us to answer and implement the recommendations and their counterpart group was under the leadership of a formidable Yandi Mpetsheni who ran with the ball over the four years of implementation of methods. A parallel survey of the old method and the new method was conducted throughout and a major one for implementation was in 2007. Linking factors for the old and new survey were implemented and in 2008 the new quarterly survey was implemented after a four year period of careful work. Bungani's balancing act from interesting corners of the mouth is appreciated. However, if he read the expert critique and recommendations, as well as the report on implementation of the recommendations which considered especially comparisons with Brazil and other countries, he will discover that he has no case to argue. There is no legacy to protect on my part Bungani nor language to polish. When a lie is told there is no reason to give it a different word. It is simply a lie and when an argument does not make sense it is called nonsense in the English language and when nonsense is given wheels and wings to fly it is called rubbish. Those who wish to opine should do so from research rather than from a hailer. Two issues stood out in the expert report, the question of agricultural activity linked to land ownership and high levels of concentration answers Bungani's balancing and supposition act. That is why South Africa is unique and an outlier. The land question is not just a fleeting imagination by the EFF and other parties in Parliament. It is at the core of differentiated employment status with all other countries referred to. South Africa Land Act systematized impoverishment of skill, practice, participation and empowerment. So, it is not surprising that its unemployment is an outlier, it is an outlier in land ownership too. All the other speculations have no room to sleep in this debate. Closed case. If there is anything important that Fourie's provocation elicited in this debate is the land question and parliament should engage fully if it wants unemployment of South Africa to be in line with that of other comparable countries. Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa. Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, among other hats. Image: Supplied BUSINESS REPORT Visit:
Daily Maverick
4 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Mthatha floods turn homes into graves
The head of Gift of the Givers' search and rescue team, Ahmed Bham, says he has not for a long time seen devastation such as that caused by the Mthatha flood last week. Debris, including beds, furniture and refrigerators, was swept out of homes and piled up to 30m high by floodwaters in Mthatha. But Gift of the Givers' Ahmed Bham said the worst was the elderly 'uncle', walking with a stick, who approached them while they were searching for bodies at the Mthatha dam. 'He was an old man, walking with the help of a walking stick,' Bham said. He came to us, very courteously. He said he could see we had found the body of a person. He said, 'Could you please just turn the body so he could see if it was one of his children,' Bham said. 'He had been walking for days to find his children.' The head of Gift of the Givers' search and rescue team, Bham, is a veteran of disaster response. When nobody else wanted to go, he got into a plane to fetch South African students in Wuhan at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago. He has been on the frontline, responding to some of the worst disasters in the world. But while working on the Mthatha Dam wall earlier this week, he was left without words when that elderly man approached him. 'This disaster,' Bham said on Monday, 'we have seen the devastation. Mthatha hasn't seen such a flood such as this. For me, it was very intense. The volume of water was much more than we usually see,' he said. 'Mthatha is flat, in a way – so at first we couldn't gauge the devastation,' he said. Bham said the Gift of the Givers search and rescue team was asked to help the police and rescue medics from the Department of Health. They arrived in Mthatha on Thursday. 'By then, you know those who were alive would have been helped. We found a lot of bodies,' he said. 'Flash floods come and go, and as the water recedes, you find what the flood has left behind,' he said. 'This flood hit Mthatha at a very bad time, as people were on the road to travel. Schoolchildren were on their way to school,' he said. 'We found people drowned in their beds.' 'Many houses are built around the river as well,' he said Bham said it was very difficult work for the rescuers. 'But South Africans always rally to pull together,' he said. He was full of praise for the police and the Department of Health search and rescue teams. 'I can only give compliments on how well this whole operation was organised,' he said. 'It was such a difficult operation. Community members would come to us and say: We are still looking for this one or that one. We encouraged them to report the people as missing first,' he said. He said most of the bodies were found in the flood line. 'Some were not in a good condition, but families would be able to recognise them,' he said. 'The first day, we recovered bodies in the houses. People drowned in their beds,' he said. He said that by yesterday, as flood water receded, communities were trying to salvage what they could from the water. 'But we also found an eight-month-old baby. Still in a nappy. That was heartbreaking,' he said. He said during aerial searches, he saw the flood debris, including refrigerators and beds, piled up to 30m high by the raging water. 'There are mattresses that got stuck high up in the trees.' 'The people didn't stand a chance,' he said. 'The force of that water was indeed like a dam had burst.' He said he could understand that people believed social media rumours that the cause of the flood was that the sluices of the Efata Dam had been opened, or that the dam had somehow failed. 'Indeed, I myself also asked if there wasn't a dam that burst,' he said. 'I hope they can recover more bodies for the sake of closure,' Bham said. Another terrible feature of the flood was the number of drowned animals and livestock. 'At Gift of the Givers, we also try to make sure that the animals are cared for,' he said. 'But we didn't have to be here, because they were all dead. So much livestock – goats, sheep and cows. All have drowned,' he said. 'Terrible, terrible.' Bham left on Monday and said not all the missing children had been found. 'It was a very difficult rescue. The amount of rubble is terrible. Honestly, it looked like a tsunami had hit. 'But we take much solace in the spirit of South Africans. Those who are helping and those who are ready to rebuild,' he said. 'I love the Eastern Cape. I love working here. I was very impressed by every well-trained specialist from the provincial team who came to help us. They know exactly what they are doing. Once they cleared an area, you knew it was done well,' he said. 'I also want to say thank you to the rescue dogs and their handlers. The dogs are so eager to help and so happy when they find something. It lifted the spirits.' Minister of Water and Sanitation Penny Majodina rejected rumours that a failed dam or the opening of sluices caused the devastation. She was backed up by the executive mayors Mesuli Ngqondwana of the OR Tambo Regional Municipality and Nyaniso Nelani of the King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality. Videos circulating on social media had claimed that the flood was the result of Mthatha Dam sluice gates being opened. 'Secondly, there is another video of an overflowing dam alleged to be that of Mthatha Dam, which is also not true as the said dam is more than 20km downstream of the Mthatha dam and/or affected communities,' Majodina said. 'The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), which owns and operates the Mthatha dam, can confirm that the dam does not have sluice gates, but designed spillways which automatically release water when it reaches its full capacity,' she said. The mayors stressed that they had no jurisdiction over the dam. Majodina said the DWS deployed dam safety engineers on Tuesday, 10 June 2025, to assess the situation. The DWS was able to determine that heavy inflows were experienced from the Cicira River tributary into the Mthatha River, downstream from the dam. This resulted in flooded riverbanks. 'Upon assessment by the Department's engineers, the gauge readings at the dam indicated that on 9 June 2025 at [4pm] the water levels at the dam were sitting at 99.8%, which was a slight decline from the 99.9% of the previous week. However, by midnight on the same day, the dam experienced a sudden inflow of water from the rains in the upstream catchment, which increased the stored water from 99.8%% to 102%, leading to the dam spilling. The outflow of water from the dam coincided with the heavy flows from Cicira River downstream. 'According to assessments, the upper reaches of the tributary also experienced flash flooding in saturated conditions, and this led to the Mthatha River overflowing its banks,' Majodina said. According to a notice from the OR Tambo District Municipality, water will be fully restored to the area only by Wednesday. The Eastern Cape government confirmed on Monday evening that the death toll for the floods in the two regions OR Tambo (in and around Mthatha) and Amatole (including Butterworth) now stood at 90. Of these, 83 had been positively identified, and 56 bodies had been released to families for funeral arrangements. Several humanitarian organisations, including the Red Cross, Gift of the Givers, the Black Coffee Foundation and the El-Imaad Foundation are providing assistance to communities affected by the floods. President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the stricken area late last week. 'There shouldn't be any floods during winter. In the Eastern Cape, we expect cold weather and snow during this season. However, the occurrence of floods highlights the severity of the climate change issue we are facing. The same flooding issues are also happening in KwaZulu-Natal,' he said. Ramaphosa also praised the search and rescue teams, as did Police Minister Senzo Mchunu: 'We want to recognise you and thank you for your dedication, your bravery and your solidarity with the people,' said Mchunu. 'We know it is not necessarily a direct responsibility in terms of the police's mandate. But out of sheer realisation of the dire situation in which communities are, you did not hesitate to get involved there and then, even without waiting for someone to give instructions,' he said. 'To a large extent, this is what we expect from SAPS,' he said. 'To always be available to join forces with the people of South Africa in their hour of need. We appreciate that you went beyond the call of duty,' he said. DM
