1. We write in response to your budget and related announcements in parliament on 24 June 2020 and to the invitation for the public to participate in the process of adjusting the national budget in the light of recent developments in the economy due to increased joblessness and deepening recession both of which have been […]
General
Practical solutions needed to overcome South Africa’s child malnutrition crisis
By Claudine Bill• 17 June 2020 Maverick Citizen South Africa constantly teeters on the edge of food insecurity, and the Covid-19 lockdown has just pushed us over the edge. Inevitably, access to food will be a major social and political issue for the next two years, leading into the local government elections. For that reason, […]
Hunger and destitution in a post-pandemic world
Opinionista • Paul Hoffman • 18 June 2020 The longer-term problem of 55% (and climbing rapidly) of the population living in poverty is not yet being addressed but ought to be given serious and urgent attention by policymakers, philanthropists and all who are interested in living in peace that is secure. Try as we might, […]
A New Approach to Aid. How a Basic Income Program Saved a Namibian Village
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-new-approach-to-aid-how-a-basic-income-program-saved-a-namibian-village-a-642310.html It sounds like a communist utopia, but a basic income program pioneered by German aid workers has helped alleviate poverty in a Namibian village. Crime is down and children can finally attend school. Only the local white farmers are unhappy. Von Dialika Krahe 10.08.2009, 00.00 Uhr The full, red Namibian sun is setting outside […]
The rationality test: an intriguing appeal awaits in the lockdown regulations challenge
Opinionista • Paul Hoffman • 12 June 2020 The ruling by Judge Norman Davis in the De Beer case challenging the lockdown regulations has been widely dissected, and criticised, by leading legal academics and commentators. It has set up intriguing grounds for appeal. The long essay in Daily Maverick on 8 June (“High Court ruling […]
The Self-Defeating Executive Order Against the International Criminal Court
by Ambassador David Scheffer – June 12, 2020 (Just Security) President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated with the International Criminal Court, issued on June 11, 2020, is a predicted and destructive reaction to the judgment of the ICC Appeals Chamber a few months ago to authorize the initiation of […]
Are lockdown regulations rational in law and reasonable limitations on human rights?
Opinionista • Paul Hoffman • 8 June 2020 The two burning legal questions are whether what has been done under the mantle of the declaration of a state of disaster been reasonable in its limitation and restriction of human rights guaranteed to all, and a rational response to the health and life of vulnerable people […]
LETTER: Tackle the hunger menace now
The balance of money still held in the Solidarity Fund should be used immediately to alleviate hunger 08 June 2020 – 14:59 About 55% of South Africans (33-million souls) are marginalised, deleteriously affected by joblessness and underfed from living below the upper poverty datum line. According to Stats SA, the latest available figures (released nearly […]
When Hawks have their wings clipped and vultures circle, let eagles fly
Opinionista • Paul Hoffman • 25 May 2020 There is a culture of corruption with impunity abroad in SA. The ‘workaround’ solutions suggested by civil society have value, but until the impunity is addressed, the vultures will continue to circle the public purse, the special grants for Covid-19 relief and anything else into which they […]
‘Ineptocracy’, not Covid-19, is the problem
Opinionista • Paul Hoffman • 17 May 2020 Government by the inept or ‘ineptocracy’, is presenting the populace of South Africa with more headaches than the virus that is threatening the lives of many people worldwide. As fate would have it, the Disaster Management Act, a poorly crafted piece of legislation intended to deal with […]
