Wednesday, 7 June 2023
Selloane Khalane is a politics writer from Qwaqwa. She was a senior journalist at Media24 for seven years before joining New Frame, with a focus on politics.
The government has put stringent measures in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the National Assembly, provincial outreach programmes and municipalities have had to comply.
The continuing water shortage in the eastern Free State has led to deaths and allegations by residents that infrastructure projects are being manipulated for profit and for political gain.
Dancers from the Amandla Dance Theatre and other groups in Kimberley are using the opening ceremony of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup to share the traditional dance story of the hunt.
Despairing of help from the ruling party on the eve of its 108th birthday celebrations, Platfontein residents have called for the president to implement the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act.
The president has promised R1.6 billion to fight gender-based violence in South Africa. But can money help when the problem is rooted so deeply in patriarchy, police indifference and religion?
According to a recent colloquium on disrupting poverty, a decent standard of life is not only about earning the national minimum wage but also rests on service delivery and social networks.
Residents of Thaba Nchu, in what was Bophuthatswana, live in unsafe houses with disputed title deeds while those in the old QwaQwa area face the scourge of unrelenting poverty.
With South Africa’s economic outlook still dire, the poorest suffer deprivation and injustice while trying to support family members and find jobs that simply aren’t available.
Corruption in the Free State human settlements department has left the coffers R500 million lighter, and a trail of half-built RDP houses and unfinished projects that were meant to benefit the poor.
Residents fed up by the lack of jobs and services have accused the police of using excessive force against them and allowing local businesspeople to use the SAPS to settle factional ANC battles.
Despite poor living conditions and feeling let down by the government, voters in the northern Joburg township still made their mark in the hope that jobs and houses will follow.
Unemployed and despondent, young people in the Eastern Cape are looking for alternatives when it comes to casting their vote, all in the hope of a better life.
In the last weekend before elections, the two largest opposition parties, the DA and EFF, reminded voters of their respective manifesto promises. United on ANC corruption, they are poles apart on almost everything else.
Umkhonto weSizwe veterans from Borwa have said they will prevent parties from campaigning and stop residents from voting if the government does not address their housing issues.
Former Gold Fields workers in Westonaria face being kicked out of their homes and have vowed to disallow campaigning and boycott the election unless the government steps in.
The Thaba Nchu clan is fighting to reclaim its land, for acknowledgement by the state in line with other traditional leaders and, ultimately, its very survival.
The families of two people killed during protests over lack of water and state corruption say they will not vote in the upcoming elections.
The ruling party’s birthday celebrations and 2019 election manifesto launch drew tens of thousands of its true believers. But many others, now disillusioned, stayed at home.
While the ANC falters in its traditional stronghold, opposition parties look to take advantage.
Aquaculture farmers in QwaQwa, Free State, say the ‘tide has turned’ for the once cash-strapped venture that was launched 18 years ago to create jobs and food security.
As political infighting sows deep divisions in an already dysfunctional municipality, impoverished residents bear the pain of missing millions intended to bring them running water.