Colonialism and apartheid alive and well in KZN
THE whole question of Ingonyama Trust land is being blown up out of proportion, including through inflammatory rhetoric, and it seems to me that the king is being misled by politicians who have their own agendas (“King to escalate land battle,” The Mercury, July 5, refers).
Former president Kgalema Motlanthe merely chaired a panel appointed by Parliament which solicited public input on legislation that had been passed.
In public hearings many rural
Youth need to know their votes do count
VOTING is a not only a right but an honour and a privilege. It is a duty and an obligation to ensure that we vote.
We should not have to plead, beg or cajole citizens to perform their duty to this nation.
We must stop with this complacency and apathy. The right to vote and participate in governance is one of the most cherished rights in South Africa.
If more young people would vote, then politicians would be forced to focus on topics that millennials find important.
But if they have never seen politicians solve issues important to their generation, why should they take the time to engage the political system?
Here again, voter education can help. More young people need to understand that the power of their votes only works when they vote.
They cannot wait for politicians to choose to listen.
Young voters need to force them to listen.
And we need to help by educating them to develop a habit of engagement.
Young people are interested in politics and engage in many civic and political activities, from demonstrations against university tuition fees to the boycotting of products and campaigns against smoking or environmental issues.
Young people are often interested and engaged in key issues but are put off by politicians and political parties.
We need to do a better job of teaching our younger voters that their votes do indeed matter. We cannot expect young voters to process information only at voting time.
This process must be continual and better integrated into the institutions we rely on to inform and educate us. It is on our schools, our government and our media professionals to provide them with better and more accessible information.
How can one not experience the joy and satisfaction of participating in one of the greatest gifts they have ever been given? NAUSHAD ALLY ISMAIL
Durban North
Stand up to this government!
The eThekwini Municipality has been rocked with another scandal. An investigation into Thabisile Ncayiyane, who is referred to as the “mayor’s helper”, is under way.
And to top it all eThekwini is currently at the centre of another investigation after leaked reports revealed fraudulent payments to ghost employees.
There have been a lot of scandals in this government and corruption at municipal level and I hope citizens will remember this when they go to the ballot boxes and about how deceitful this government was.
All levels of government are like that anyway and those people who abuse funds just get off clean.
They are not held accountable for anything.
Now citizens must stand up to this government and speak up because you have to stand up for your rights as a citizen.
I know that some people are just giving up because they say the gov- people voiced concerns about the conduct of the trust. The trust made a presentation to the panel.
The king and traditional leaders are merely custodians of land. They do not own it in the modern commercial sense of the word, for long-standing rural residents have rights which are spelt out in the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act.
The trust is accused of abusing its position in some areas by making people sign leases, which not ernment will not listen. But you still have the right to have a quality life which is being taken away through mismanagement of finances.
I want to see our justice system being fair to all, but for this to happen we must first put the right persons in place to run our country and not run it down the drain.
I want to see individuals with the right mindset who are willing and able to get the job done exactly how it should be done.
This is what our country has become, normal individuals in suits and ties who seemingly are above the law and above the people.
We must open our eyes and stop being fooled; we must analyse the economy and heads of government and see if both these are moving in an upward mobility or downward mobility or moving opposite each other.
A proper system of accountability and checks and balances should be implemented. Justice delayed is justice denied. In time justice can minimise corrupt practices.
Stable governments are essential for justice to prevail and to help uproot corruption.
Public awareness is a must in eliminating corruption.
It is multi-faceted problem so it should be countered on all possible fronts with sincerity. We must reform ourselves.
Only proper planning and strictly implemented policies with public support can put a halt to this growing menace. YASMINA SADECK Durban only jeopardises their rights but opens them to eviction if they cannot afford to pay.
It also stands accused, together with some traditional leaders, of colluding with mining companies who pollute, and drive rural residents off, their land.
A cursory glance at the map of Ingonyama Trust land shows that it is not the historic Zulu kingdom (which was not a homogeneous entity), but the KwaZulu homeland territory which was based on reserves
Medical students project a huge waste
DESPITE KZN Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo’s hype around the return of 260 KwaZulu-Natal Cuban Medical Students (CMS) the reality is that the province’s universities will only be able to take in 90 individuals to complete the final leg of their studies.
The remainder of the students will be deployed to universities in other provinces where they are set to become an additional burden as a result of their plight.
The revelation was made by departmental officials during a meeting of KZN’s health portfolio committee (HPC) in March.
We have long maintained that the CMS system is fatally flawed on the following basis:
1. CMS must still complete 18 months of training in a South African university when they come back from Cuba before they can play an active role in hospitals or clinics. This as there is still a need to orient them into the South African system of managing disease and work because, by their own admission, they study medicine in Spanish.
The disease profile of Cuba and the working environment in facilities is also vastly different;
2. According to a parliamentary question, 104 graduates came back to South Africa up to and including the end of 2016.
3. The HPC was not briefed of any new arrivals in 2017 which means that the programme has cost KZN an average of R195 million annually.
4. The programme costs KZN demarcated by the colonial government in the 19th century. It includes land which was never part of the kingdom.
Colonialism and apartheid did away with the accountability of traditional leaders to their subjects, and the democratic government has done nothing to restore it.
Some leaders are more responsive to their constituencies’ needs than others, but the problem is that when serious abuses by leaders occur, no sanctions are brought citizens about R250 000 per student per year – far more than the cost of sending any medical student to a South African university.
We are also aware that the 260 students arrived on a chartered flight from Cuba.
We have previously sent parliamentary questions to query the cost, but KZN’s DoH – while confirming that the students would be repatriated on such a flight – had neither a plan nor cost at hand to provide an adequate response.
In light of this, the DA will submit further questions aimed at establishing projected travel costs during the next few years.
While it does ensure the return of trainee doctors, the truth is that the CMS programme has cost far too much, has not ensured the re-curriculation of the South African medical training programme and has lost over R1.1 billion from KZN coffers to the Cuban economy since 2012.
Furthermore, it has prevented this province from realising the potential of opening a private medical school to cater for such a need, not to mention how the added spin-off of keeping students here would have been job-creation and massive economic growth.
Despite all of this, the MEC himself told me that “the ANC is allergic to private medical schools”.
The DA-run Western Cape has opted out of this programme and has successfully used local medical schools to keep South African rand in South Africa.
This has worked so well that a recent response to parliamentary questions to Health Minister Aaron against those who break the law. Even more worrying is that the government continues the colonial and apartheid system of imposing traditional leaders on communities which do not want them.
There appears to be a worrying trend to subsume individual land claimants into traditional communities they do not want to be part of. Colonialism and apartheid are alive and well in this province. MARY DE HAAS
Durban Motsoaledi confirmed that the province’s health department has the highest doctor/patient ratio in the country. DR IMRAN KEEKA MPL DA KZN spokesperson on health
Nkutha’s views of letters bias spot-on
WITH regards to Jack Nkutha’s article (The Mercury, July 9), I could not agree more with him.
I had taken issue with a similar view, whereby I noticed and felt that preference was given to Muslim writers and at least half the page was set aside, while the other half had a mixture of writers.
However, the explanation provided to me at the time was that it was just a mere co-incidence, for which I must admit I never gave the newspaper the benefit of the doubt.
Well, I won’t hold my breath expecting this article to be published. J KANIA
Durban
Sensible few simply have more to offer
IN RESPONSE to the plaintive bleat from Jack Nkutha (The Mercury, July 9) about a supposed bias for publishing readers’ correspondence, I must say the reason is painfully simple.
There are those who have something valid and sensible to offer, and then there are the rest of the people. DAVID CARTWRIGHT
Hillcrest