Author: Sue Maclennan

“Even one day matters in our matric year.” Grade 12 learners spoke to GMDirect outside Mary Waters Secondary on Monday morning, as the school remain closed for a second day after Grade 8 and 9 term reports showed minus-one scores for four subjects. Outraged parents discovered their children hadn’t been taught those subjects, because there were no teachers to teach them, and insisted the school close until the shortage is resolved. Local Department of Education officials met with the school’s senior management team (SMT) and the school governing body (SGB) late Monday morning; however, parents insisted they want the head…

Staff and learners at Mary Waters Secondary in Makhanda have an uncertain start on Monday 17 May, after parents saw to it that the school closed last week. Parents of Grade 8 and Grade 9 learners protested outside the school on Friday 14 May when their children’s term reports showed minus-one scores for four subjects. The parents were shocked to discover this was because they hadn’t been taught those subjects, because there were no teachers to teach them. They insisted the school be closed until the crisis was resolved. Outraged parents told GMDirect that the school is short of teachers…

Local stakeholders have welcomed the Festival’s return this year to include its traditional live format, at its Makhanda home. The National Arts Festival this week announced a multi-medium and multi-city format for this year’s event. The National Arts Festival Experience will revive its live 11 day National Arts Festival in its home city of Makhanda from 8-18 July (Makhanda Live) and stage a National Arts Festival Online which will be entirely online in July. And, for the first time ever, the National Arts Festival will present a series of shows, in partnership with Standard Bank, in cities across the country.…

Parliament had Makhanda’s long-running water crisis and Makana’s management practices in its sights during an oversight visit to the municipality this week. Makana was one of five Eastern Cape municipalities Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) visited last week. In a day of relentless questioning, MPs shredded officials from Makana, Amatola Water and the Department of Water and Sanitation. And as if to test the Committee’s assertion that nothing would stand in their way, a deafening thunderstorm exploding midway through the harrowing four-hour probe merely had chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa advising those asking and answering questions to “use your rally…

Civil society organisations and the DA have called for action after Parliament tore to shreds Makana’s senior leadership during an oversight visit last week. The Makhanda Legends anti-corruption action group used the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ oversight visit to Makana Municipality on Wednesday 5 May 2021 as an opportunity to ensure their concerns reached the ears and eyes of Parliament. The DA afterwards said SCOPA’s questions and comments had vindicated its call for dissolution and an independent investigation. And the Makana Residents Association called on SCOPA to support the January 2020 judgment ordering Makana to be put under administration.…

As of 5 May, 119 health care workers had been vaccinated at Settlers Hospital. Settlers opened for the continuation of Phase 1, which is the vaccination of health care workers in terms of the Sisonke Protocol research programme. Around 500 health care workers from the Health Department’s Makana Subdistrict had already been vaccinated at the Port Elizabeth Sisonke research site. The Department of Health administrative area includes Ndlambe and Makana Municipalities. South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) investigators in the Sisonke Protocol have called on unvaccinated health workers to register for and receive the Johnson and Johnson trial inoculation as…

In a court order* agreed on by their lawyers, the Makana Unity League has withdrawn its contempt of court application against Makana Mayor Mzukisi Mpahlwa and Municipal Manager Moppo Mene that could have seen them jailed for six months. The application followed Judge Miki Mfenyana’s  March 2020 ruling that two were in contempt of court for failing to comply with a five-year-old order to properly manage the Cradock road landfill. She sentenced them to six months imprisonment, wholly suspended if the conditions of Judge Jeremy Pickering’s 2015 court order were met.  He handed down a detailed court order requiring Makana…

The arrest last week of a senior manager in Makana has no current bearing on this municipality, says acting municipal manager Riana Meiring. GMDirect can confirm that the official was at work in Makhanda this week. Hawks spokesperson Captain Christopher Singo confirmed to GMDirect that the manager was among eight people arrested in Ficksburg on Friday 30 April. The arrests were in connection with alleged fraud in the awarding of a tender for toilet infrastructure in Setsoto Local Municipality, Free State, in 2018. Singo said six municipal officials and two company directors appeared before the Ficksburg Magistrate Court on Friday,…

Joza police have opened a case of murder and rape after a woman’s body was found at a stadium in Makhanda on 2 May 2021. South African Police Service spokesperson Captain Khaya Tonjeni said a Joza resident reported that he had been exercising on Sunday morning at Miki Yili Stadium when he noticed someone lying inside the boundary wall of the stadium. “Upon investigation he noticed an unknown woman with a open wound on her head,” Tonjeni said. The police and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) were called. “The 52-year-old woman, from Extension 6 location in Joza was declared deceased by EMS…

_ Makana Municipality suspended refuse collection services in Makhanda’s township areas recently, after two municipal vehicles were set alight. The incidents occurred at times when service-delivery protests were under way. In the most recent incident, on Monday 12 April, a Makana employee was forced to hand over the keys of a municipal bakkie and flee when a large crowd stopped him, seized the vehicle and set it alight. Police spokesperson Captain Khaya Tonjeni said the incident occurred shortly after 3.30pm in Extension 9, Joza, between the Mayfield housing development and eNkanini informal settlement. Tonjeni said the man, reportedly in his…