Perhaps 2024 can be our 1994

a former activist and was once the country’s youngest director-general.

Funders have pledged a rumoured R1-billion donation. But there is a small matter they will have to navigate – the rules limit private donors, both individuals and entities, to donating no more than R15-million per party per year.

On 4 December, after a meeting of MPC leaders to discuss Jardine, the charter’s joint statement said it was too early to talk about a joint presidential candidate.

They made us proud

It wasn’t politicians who made us proud or happy this year – it was our sportswomen and men, our musicians, our poets, our writers, our sheep-shearers and honey-makers who took top international honours.

The Springbok one-point victory in France at the Rugby World Cup in Paris was like a balm poured into the weary souls of South Africans. It was a spectacular win, with captain Siya Kolisi and the team catapulted to immortality.

The year was named “The Year of Women in Sport” and by midyear there were growing calls for equal pay, benefits and sponsorships for women athletes.

Banyana Banyana and their coach Desiree Ellis may not have won the 2023 Fifa World Cup but their performance, as the first senior team to reach the knockout stage of a world tournament, was an inspiration to all.

Similarly, the Proteas became the first senior women’s South African team to make an International Cricket Council World Cup final. Despite missing out on qualifying for the semifinals at the Netball World Cup held in Cape Town, the national team gave outstanding performances.

According to Sumaya Khan, deputy director-general in the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, a draft policy on equal benefits, approved by the Cabinet in March this year, is expected to be passed into law soon.

In August, the President hailed 2023 as a great year for women in sport but highlighted the “huge disparity between the remuneration of female athletes and their male counterparts. Equal pay for work of equal value is one of the most fundamental tenets of gender equality,” he said.

Up close and local Joburg

Local government collapse and failure have dominated the headlines this year with a revolving door of mayors in Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay in particular. Next year will be more of same-old-same-old until the elections.

The President hailed 2023 as a great year for women in sport but highlighted the “huge disparity between the remuneration of female athletes and their male

counterparts”

In January, Mpho Phalatse was ousted for the second time as mayor of Joburg before finally resigning from the DA to return to private practice.

By August, as Ferial Haffajee noted, it was just “another day, another chaotic sitting” in the Johannesburg City Council, which at the time had pitted the DA against its new MPC partner Actionsa.

Joburg is, in some places, a gibbering wreck of a city with stolen traffic lights, exploding streets, waterless suburbs and crime syndicates running amok.

Tshwane

Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality has racked up a debt of around R2-billion to Eskom and had a cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, caused by an apparent leak from the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant into drinking water. It is viewed as one of the worst municipalities in the country. So says the auditor-general.

The parliamentary Select Committee on Cooperative Governance, Traditional Affairs, Water and Sanitation and Human Settlements issued a stiff memo about the City of

Tshwane in July.

DA mayor Cilliers Brink, elected in March 2023, has had to deal with the aftermath of years of mismanagement, the cholera outbreak and wage strikes in the capital city.

Nelson Mandela Bay

In Nelson Mandela Bay, city manager Dr Noxolo Nqwazi went to the Gqeberha High Court to get her job back after a suspension during an emergency council meeting in September.

Nqwazi had declared executive mayor Gary van Niekerk, leader of the National Alliance, and his fellow NA councillor Stag Mitchell’s seats in the council to be vacant.

Van Niekerk headed to court confident that he would “still be in charge” after an application to prevent the Independent Electoral Commission from removing him. So it goes. Until it won’t.

ethekwini

2023 was the year the Westville Ratepayers Association approached the Durban High

Court for an urgent interdict to prevent the ethekwini

Municipality from disconnecting residents who were boycotting payment of their property rates and utility bills. Although the association lost the court application, the legal action highlighted for the municipality the mood of ratepayers and potential voters.

In November, the acting senior manager for plants and logistics at ethekwini’s water