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.
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa’s dual healthcare system depicts a crudely unjust and shameful state of affairs.
To state the obvious, our grossly unequal system is typified by a world-class privately funded health care system serving a narrow group of materially comfortable South Africans; sharply contrasted against a hopelessly inadequate state-funded public health care system, which the majority of South Africans, under conditions of poverty and powerlessness, use at their peril.
The...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a three-part series on public service performance. The first article in the series examined holding politicians accountable. The final instalment will focus on performance management at lower levels in the public service.
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Recent reports by the Auditor-General on lapses in the Public Service Code of Conduct by senior managers provide a worrying picture of the state of the public service. The major finding of the report was that there...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa has some of the highest levels in the world of mental health disability and disease, with around one in five people affected. While popular belief holds that mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, obsessive behaviours, depression, bipolar disorder and various phobias are caused solely by individual susceptibility to these maladies, the reality is rather more nuanced.
It appears that susceptible individuals are more likely to exhibit symptoms when stressed by personal or...
Fazila Farouk -
Throughout my encounters with the healthcare system, it's been the doctors that have left a lasting impression on me. I've wanted to say something about them for a long time. Long before the well-publicised doctors' strike started. After all, a visit to the doctor is an intensely personal experience.
The thing that I am most struck by is the number of doctors I have access to.
I am not one of those ill-fated South Africans referred to by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its...
Saliem Fakir -
Julius Malema may have been asked to put the cat amongst the pigeons to test the national waters on the question of the nationalisation of our mines and the general role of a more interventionist state in the national economy.
Since then, there has been a lot of rhetoric going to and fro. Some arguing that nationalisation will lead to disinvestment and job losses.
Fingers have been pointed at the state's incapacity to manage some of its own prized state enterprises, such as the SABC,...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Public Enterprises Minister, Barbara Hogan's comment that public enterprises requiring massive bailouts will be considered for sale, has elicited a polarised response.
On the one hand, the statement has found support as an expression of the self-evident. Taxpayer's money should not be used to subsidise loss making enterprises, because it is a waste of taxpayer money, the argument goes.
On the other hand, the African National Congress (ANC) has indicated that the statement does not reflect...
