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Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
A well balanced article...........
- Thread starter Nika
- Start date
theratman
Honorary Master
It's good to post an interesting quote from the article,otherwise people are too lazy to go to link.
Jacob Zuma is bound to be South Africa’s next president. But what sort of country will he make it?
Yet the grounds for dropping the case were puzzling. The charges against Mr Zuma had been serious. He was accused of accepting more than 4m rand ($596,000) between 1995 and 2005 from his friend and former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in exchange for using his influence to help secure government contracts for Mr Shaik’s companies. Sentencing Mr Shaik to 15 years imprisonment in 2005, the presiding judge said that the payments to Mr Zuma “can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient”. President Thabo Mbeki promptly sacked him as his deputy. A few days later Mr Zuma was indicted in his turn. He has always denied the charges.
Jacob Zuma is bound to be South Africa’s next president. But what sort of country will he make it?
Yet the grounds for dropping the case were puzzling. The charges against Mr Zuma had been serious. He was accused of accepting more than 4m rand ($596,000) between 1995 and 2005 from his friend and former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in exchange for using his influence to help secure government contracts for Mr Shaik’s companies. Sentencing Mr Shaik to 15 years imprisonment in 2005, the presiding judge said that the payments to Mr Zuma “can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient”. President Thabo Mbeki promptly sacked him as his deputy. A few days later Mr Zuma was indicted in his turn. He has always denied the charges.
The positive side
After 15 years of uninterrupted, virtually unchallenged power, the ANC has evidently succumbed to many of the vices of one-party states: arrogance, nepotism, corruption, intimidation. Hardly a day seems to go by without some new scandal. Yet it has notched up some remarkable achievements, starting with the bloodless transition from white minority rule to full multiracial democracy. The ANC government has set up Africa’s only broad-based welfare state, providing cash benefits to 12.5m people compared with just 3m in 1996. To help get people out of the sprawling, squalid shanty towns it has built 2.7m low-cost homes, housing around 10m people. Some 80% of all households are now connected to electricity and clean water—up by a third since 1996. More than half of state schools no longer charge fees. Free health clinics are gradually being set up. After years of shameful denial of any link between the HIV virus and AIDS, some 60% of the 5.7m infected are at last receiving antiretrovirals. Violent crime may still be appallingly high, but it has been falling in almost all categories.
At the same time, a new black middle class has sprung up. An estimated 2.6m of South Africa’s 39m blacks (about 80% of the total population) now earn at least 6,000 rand a month, with many earning a lot more. That may not seem much by Western standards, but it is more than what nearly half of their compatriots earn in a year. These new rich go out to restaurants, drive cars and buy the latest fashions in air-conditioned malls. Most of the wealth, though, is still in the hands of whites—not so much because of discrimination, but because they have higher skills. Although absolute levels of poverty have dipped, the gulf between rich and poor is still widening. South Africa is now one of the most unequal countries in the world.
After 15 years of uninterrupted, virtually unchallenged power, the ANC has evidently succumbed to many of the vices of one-party states: arrogance, nepotism, corruption, intimidation. Hardly a day seems to go by without some new scandal. Yet it has notched up some remarkable achievements, starting with the bloodless transition from white minority rule to full multiracial democracy. The ANC government has set up Africa’s only broad-based welfare state, providing cash benefits to 12.5m people compared with just 3m in 1996. To help get people out of the sprawling, squalid shanty towns it has built 2.7m low-cost homes, housing around 10m people. Some 80% of all households are now connected to electricity and clean water—up by a third since 1996. More than half of state schools no longer charge fees. Free health clinics are gradually being set up. After years of shameful denial of any link between the HIV virus and AIDS, some 60% of the 5.7m infected are at last receiving antiretrovirals. Violent crime may still be appallingly high, but it has been falling in almost all categories.
At the same time, a new black middle class has sprung up. An estimated 2.6m of South Africa’s 39m blacks (about 80% of the total population) now earn at least 6,000 rand a month, with many earning a lot more. That may not seem much by Western standards, but it is more than what nearly half of their compatriots earn in a year. These new rich go out to restaurants, drive cars and buy the latest fashions in air-conditioned malls. Most of the wealth, though, is still in the hands of whites—not so much because of discrimination, but because they have higher skills. Although absolute levels of poverty have dipped, the gulf between rich and poor is still widening. South Africa is now one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Well u conveniently forget about the achievements made, but thats no surprise coming from your ilk.
It's your attitude that's at fault, not mine
are you maybe this same person ?
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=qw97733550190N200
are you maybe this same person ?
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=qw97733550190N200
Ah yes I see.
Apparently my ilk is everyone that get's incensed with the levels of crime, and has anything to say about the corruption and fraud in our precious ANC led government.
I posted a paragraph of the article about the achievements of the last 15 years. The 1st thing u did was to counter it with negativity.
Are we the only country in the world where sections of society absolutely refuse to accept anything positive, achievements?
Kinda reminds me of the Jeremy Clarkson article about Johburg a couple of months ago. "How dare he write anything positive about this city and country".
Are we the only country in the world where sections of society absolutely refuse to accept anything positive, achievements?
Kinda reminds me of the Jeremy Clarkson article about Johburg a couple of months ago. "How dare he write anything positive about this city and country".
Absolutely not. The failings of the anc is there for all to see. I just hate the popular perception on this forum and south african media in general that black south africans have not benefitted from democracy, they refuse to believe achievements but is quick to jump on the negatives and calling this country and its democratically elected government a failure because of it. I can understand that white south africans are unhappy because of these failures and how crime its effected their lives compared to pre '94.
But the 13 million sipho's recieving grants and the 15 million lerato's living in formal housing and the 4million middle and upper class tokyo's lives have improoved dramatically. That is what the ANC have done for them. They are called "ignorant" and the "uneducated" sheep that keeps the ANC in power on here and all over the internet.
U may not like it, but they vote for the ANC because of it.
TonyHawk
Expert Member
No Nika. Unhappy is understating it. So you can understand loved ones leaving the country because they've been hijacked at gunpoint once too often?
And then told they're racist for leaving because of it. Do you call violent hate crimes just a failure? Do you call our inept corrupt police force just a failure?
You fail to read that word "intimidation" in that article. The ANC are power hungry and will resort to violence to get their own way, to protect their own "nepatist" network including those comrades employed throughout the parastatils like Telkom, SAA, Eskom...
All failed companies, by the way, because of direct interference by the ANC to push their own Agenda of Self Interest in the name of uplifting the lerato's.
TheHiveMind
Banned
The crime rate:
They say levels of violent crime have continually gone down according to stats.
Are those stats released by the anc who clearly want them to show something? Cause thats weak..
apart from that its not a bad article
They say levels of violent crime have continually gone down according to stats.
Are those stats released by the anc who clearly want them to show something? Cause thats weak..
apart from that its not a bad article
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Like these stats http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/5022/ppuser/32947/sl/f
The ANC have failed ALL South Africans, but they have managed to BS the uneducated ones that they are better off with the "struggler's" ruling the country. The ANC tactic is to keep them uneducated, which is the same tactic used by the likes of the Taliban.
If only they could have built on what they were handed, but instead they let allowed the public service and infrastructure to fall into a sorry state, the infrastructure that serves ALL South Africans.
TonyHawk
Expert Member
So true... and so much later... think 6 months
What for?
Are the masses to forget the elections in that time?
Is it enough time for the ANC to claim that things have gotten worse?
You wait and see... the 2 jokers (Duarte & Malema) are probably going to break the news... letting the masses laugh it off again
