Walking in Woods’ steps

Iwould like to applaud the Daily Dispatch for an excellent leader on Tuesday. You are certainly walking in the footsteps of Donald Woods who, some 40 or so years ago, repeatedly railed against the ongoing atrocities of the apartheid regime.

In Tuesday’s leader you revile the ANC for the recent election of the disgraced former Gauteng MEC Qedani Mahlangu to its Gauteng provincial executive. This individual, as you rightly point out, was culpable in the Life Esidimeni tragedy. On her watch 144 mentally ill patients died of neglect, starvation and ill-treatment and another 1,400 survived torturous conditions, a saga former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke said was a “harrowing tale of the death, torture and disappearance of utterly vulnerable mental healthcare users’ in the care of a ‘delinquent provincial government’.”

That this happened on the ruling party’s watch is a disgrace. That Mahlangu has escaped punishment so far is even more serious. But that she’s now appointed to the Gauteng PEC is the last straw! Who can we vote for in 2019? I’m not sure! But surely last for sensible voters must be the ANC – it has sold its soul for a mess of pottage. — Rev Canon Graeme Deas, Beacon Bay

Your new-look newspaper over the past few weeks refers. I would like to congratulate the Dispatch editor and his team for producing a really exciting upgraded publication.

I find the content positive, very readable and peppered with very interesting articles. In short your paper has become an inviting read and thumbs up to you.

The only downside is the extra time that it takes my wife and me to read from cover to cover in the mornings! May I wish all at the Dispatch much success in the future. —