The Week Ahead: President & Legislation in the spotlight

The President's oral question session is the high point of the parliamentary week. He is required to answer questions of national or international importance once per term in accordance with the annual parliamentary programme. The questions are sifted and published beforehand in a process involving the Speaker, to ensure that ...

Infographic: Policing Gangsterism

On 21 September 2016, the South African Police Service (SAPS) briefed the Portfolio Committee on Police on its integrated approach in dealing with gangsterism. Cabinet tasked the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (NICOC) in 2014 to prepare a threat analysis looking at gangsterism as a national threat. At the same time ...

Finding Our Way Again: South Africa's AIDS Journey

By Cyril Ramaphosa

HIV is a powerful enemy. If we want to defeat it, we must continue to be on guard.

Sixteen years ago an 11-year-old South African boy, tiny for his age, stood alone on a huge stage. He had a microphone in his hand and a smile on ...

Opinion & Analysis: SA needs more accountability in its electoral system

BY THABANG MOTSOHI

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The report by Municipal IQ on the trends in service delivery protests in SA is very disturbing. A worrying component of these protests is the increasing level of violence, and even more worrying is the fact that the violence is perpetrated mostly by the youth, who should ...

Desperate and divided: South Africa has had enough

By Lizette Lancaster

Increasingly, South Africans from all walks of life are mobilising for change. Many resort to public protest in the hope of galvanising government to improve its performance and do something about unacceptable levels of unemployment and poverty. Last year saw widespread community-level protests, along with large-scale student ...

The Week Ahead: Farewells, loose ends and tussles

The constituency period beckons, with MPs due to depart at the end of the week and return to Parliament next year. But a fair amount of heavy-duty business will be done before they go.

It's a big week in the NA chamber with MPs scheduled to sit for long hours ...

The Week Ahead: Oversight visits & committee business dominate the week

This week marks the mid-way point of the third term and the programme has a familiar pattern: lots of unglamorous legislating, oversight and scrutinising, with some set piece battles in prospect.

Fireworks are expected during the debate on the parliamentary ad hoc committee report on the Nkandla upgrades. MPs visited ...

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 ...

The Week Ahead: Executive scrutiny & legislative action

There's both high policy and low politics on display in the main chambers this week. The National Assembly offers a blend of members' statements, a discussion of national importance, legislative business and oral questions to the Deputy President and Peace and Security Cluster. The programme is a bit more pedestrian ...

Infographic: School safety, violence and bullying

On Tuesday, 4 August 2015, the Department of Basic Education briefed the Basic Education Portfolio Committee on violence plaguing schools in South Africa. The Department blamed the legacy of apartheid, as well as current socio-economic realities such as extreme inequality for the high prevalence of violence in schools. A closer ...