Salute effort to help matrics

This was the week that was:

Thamsanqa School

Good Luck to the matric class of Thamsanqa School. The efforts being made to prepare these matric students for their trial exams and later for their finals is noteworthy.

The department of education appointed Justice Tutu as the school’s interim administrator to assist!

He has arranged for the whole class to stay at the military air base to get extra tuition and organised motivational speakers for the children. This school was on the brink of closure after an abysmal 4% pass rate, but now there is hope.

Zimbabwe Sanctions

Now is the time to reconsider sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe during the Mugabe era. The democratic elections have taken place and the Zimbabwe constitutional court has declared the winner, Emmerson Mnangagwa as president.

Independent observers have said the elections were fair. SA could not only assist but also benefit hugely from a stable and growing Zimbabwe.

Software developers in NMBM

It is great to read about the software developers’ success and growth in NMBM . The NMU IT department must take some credit but I also see that there are learning institutions specialising in “robotic coding” . . . surely this is a growing need for our IDZ-based international production companies? There is a growing demand for PE’s young software developers. Well done!

Amathole District Municipality

The Eastern Cape provincial legislature is putting its head in the sand. The ADM has been given 30 days to come up with a plan to overcome its bankruptcy.

The ADM has a budget of over R1,5bn – and almost half of this goes on salaries.

This is typical of a lot of municipalities owing billions of rands to Eskom and other suppliers.

The provincial MEC for local government has an oversight and monitoring role over these municipalities . But they do nothing. They let the taxand ratepayers feed money into the salaries of civil servants. Shocking!

Tony Wadsworth, Port Elizabeth

‘ SA could not only assist but also benefit hugely from a stable and growing Zimbabwe