South Africa should consider help from the IMF to fix its economy

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The prognosis that the South African economy is in dire straits is pretty obvious even to the untrained eye. The solution to the country’s present predicament is also pretty much understood. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently produced a comprehensive view which deserves to be considered.

The IMF identifies three key ailments as causes of the country’s anaemic economic growth. These are low consumer and investor confidence and policy uncertainty.

Continued slow growth should be a matter of grave concern and ought to be treated as an emergency.

Thus far the short and medium term outlook suggests that growth outcomes will continue to be pedestrian. What is even more worrying is that over the past four years global economic growth has gained momentum, suggesting that the solution to South Africa’s vanishing growth lies in the country.

The new minister of finance, Malusi Gigaba, recently hinted that South Africa may be compelled to seek assistance from the IMF. I think the conditions are right for serious consideration of the proposal even though IMF programmes are not very popular with politicians.

There are a number of reasons for this. Requests for IMF assistance suggest that those who manage the domestic economy have failed. The fund’s programmes also come with clearly defined milestones, often described as “conditionalities”. But in most instances, these are well-intentioned and aimed at success.

It’s better to enter an IMF programme early before the situation becomes frantic. As medical doctors might argue, it is easier to deal with an ailment in the earlier stages before it reaches an advanced stage.

Desperate situation

The alternative to asking for help now would be continued poor growth outcomes which would have serious social and economic costs.

The country’s poor economic growth record spawned a number of problems.

A shrinking economy means tax revenue shortfalls. The fiscal policy response would be higher taxes or bigger budget deficits.

And then again, interest payments, the fastest growing government expenditure item, would grow even faster. Already, about 11 cents out of every rand goes into servicing public debt.

As the economy shrinks, more and more income would have to be spent on interest payments. Government’s ability to provide a social safety net in the form of social grants and other services, like education and health care, would be much more constrained. The service delivery protests that have become increasingly the norm would become even more widespread as the fiscus comes under serious strain.

Ultimately, the brigade of the unemployed would bear the brunt. Of course, the employed would also suffer because slow growth affects incomes.

Low and anaemic growth dries out consumer confidence. Job losses and subdued growth in incomes as a result of poor growth outcomes and prospects chips away at consumer confidence.

South Africa’s growth performance post 2008 has been very low. Over the past 10 years, the economy recorded an average of 2% growth per year. If this continues it will take more than 30 years to double average incomes in South Africa.

But if the country can increase growth to 5% as projected by the National Development Plan, it would take only 14 years to double average income. The higher the growth rate the shorter the time required to double incomes and bring people out of poverty.

Investor confidence deficit

The investor confidence deficit is largely as a result of ever increasing political risk, policy uncertainty and wrangling in the ruling party and lately revelations of alleged looting of public funds by the political elite.

But not everything’s broken. The performance of the country’s monetary authorities in the management of monetary policy is admirable.

Where there appear to be lapses is the asset and liability management of the National Treasury. And here, the massive losses of state owned enterprises readily come to the fore.

This is a blot on the canvas of fiscal policy management. And the much touted structural reforms that are required haven’t been forthcoming because the government lacks the capacity to formulate and implement the appropriate policies. In fact, even if it designed the correct ones, the investor community has little faith in its ability to carry them through.

Hence, the need for an IMF programme.

The IMF has the solution

An arrangement would achieve a number of objectives.

Firstly, the fund could help the country formulate policies that would unblock the problems that continue to inhibit economic growth and job creation. The mere adoption of an IMF programme would help address the question of policy uncertainty.

Secondly, the IMF is well placed to provide foreign exchange loans, bringing stability in the rand foreign exchange rate market. This in turn would improve investor confidence, leading to more investment in the country. Economic growth would pick up and there’d be an improvement in consumer confidence.

An IMF programme would send a clear and unassailable signal to investors that the country was committed to pursuing a given set of policy options. And it would make the commitment appear credible.

Matthew Kofi Ocran, Professor of Economics, University of the Western Cape

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Voices of the poor are missing from South Africa's media

A typical community protest over the delivery of basic services in South Africa. A study shows protesters often resort to violence to attract attention.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings

Poor communities in South Africa feel that their voices are not heard and their issues not taken seriously by the media.

This is clear in the findings of an international research project on the role of media in conflicts arising from transitions from authoritarian rule to democratic government. It focused on four countries – South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Serbia.

The study shows that in all four countries, citizenship conflicts are frequently reduced to judicial factors. The media’s approach to conflicts is to look at them from the perspective of rights rather than cultural factors.

In South Africa, rather than wilful distortion or neglect on the part of journalists, the findings expose systemic problems underpinning news agendas and coverage.

The project, now in its second year, has drawn on content analysis of print media and interviews with journalists and activists.

Understanding conflict in South Africa

South Africa’s formal transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994 is often heralded as peaceful and smooth when viewed in institutional and procedural terms.

But there are lingering problems. Dissent over the unrealised dividends of democracy for the poor and widespread perceptions of government as corrupt have resulted in ongoing protests.

Anger over unemployment, housing, water and sanitation, electricity, corruption in municipalities, and health and crime have all been listed as reasons for the rising number of protests which started in the early 2000s.

The protests are not only aimed at getting basic public services such as water, sanitation and electricity. They are also part of wider disillusionment at the failure of democracy to meet basic needs as well as an attempt by the poor to be heard and included in democratic discourse and policy-making.

This “rebellion of the poor” can thus be considered “democratisation conflicts”. They are similar to those in other transitional democracies where the struggle for equality and human rights did not end with the advent of formal democracy.

While it is widely acknowledged that violent protests are becoming more prevalent in South Africa, the role that the media plays in the cycle of protest and violence is not widely understood.

Our ongoing study indicates that South African community protests receive unfavourable coverage. The reporting also routinely fails to provide depth and context to explain the underlying issues that lead to the protests.

Frequently protests are reported only inasmuch as they inconvenience a middle-class audience, for instance to inform them where traffic may be disrupted.

While journalists are often sympathetic to protesters, they strive for “objective” coverage so as not to come across as supporting a particular side. The result is superficial and limited reporting. Underlying structural issues are not unpacked.

Journalists list time pressures and juniorisation of the newsrooms as some of the reasons for limited in-depth coverage.

And commercial pressures also result in media focusing on protests as drama in an attempt to attract the interest of middle-class audiences.

Fighting to be heard

Very few media articles about protests include interviews with protesters. It seems that protesters’ voices remain unheard, even as their actions are reported. Communities report that photographers are often sent to take photographs without being accompanied by reporters to interview them.

Activists from poor communities report that they only get media attention when they go to extremes, such as causing damage. Protesters told researchers that when they called the media to cover their issues, they were asked if “anything is burning”. If nothing is burning, journalists don’t come and don’t report.

Activists report that with the failure of government channels of communication, and poor media coverage of their plight, the only way to be seen is to create a violent spectacle.

They say that participating in government-created spaces for engagement, such as ward councils and municipal integrated development plans, does not lead to satisfactory responses.

This suggests that protest actions follow a calculated logic, despite activists’ impressions that they are often depicted in the media as being out of control.

While there is some coverage in the media that protests are related to structural economic circumstances, they do not reflect the frustrations experienced by communities over government’s empty promises.

Also, scant regard is given to the failure of participatory processes to address grievances. No attention is paid to the failures of capitalism to address inequality. The heavy-handed response from government to silence protest is also underplayed.

Media coverage differs noticeably depending on the respective outlets. In print, the Daily Sun provides the most coverage of protests. This bears out the tabloid’s claims to provide news from the perspective of the poor and the working class.

Compared to their upmarket print media counterparts like the Mail & Guardian and Business Day, the Daily Sun is also the most critical of most aspects of democracy. It is often the only newspaper where sources are ordinary citizens. For media serving the middle class, sources are mostly drawn from officials or the elite.

Improving reporting of community protests

The activists we interviewed believe that media could play a big role in boosting democracy in the country by highlighting the issues poor communities face before they spill over into violent conflicts.

A focus on community politics could shine a spotlight on the most marginalised and vulnerable citizens, and in turn could help focus government attention where it is most needed. Media coverage – favourable or unfavourable – added pressure on government to quickly resolve issues.

Activists felt that they would prefer not to have to go to extremes to get media attention. But they also recognised that their protests kept community issues on the agenda.

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This article was co-authored with Rebecca Pointer, research assistant at the Centre for Film and Media Studies, UCT.

Herman Wasserman, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape Town; Tanja Bosch, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape Town, and Wallace Chuma, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape Town

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

South African protesters echo a global cry: democracy isn't making people's lives better

EPA/Kim Ludbrook

Recent violent protests in South Africa have refocused attention on the growing number of demonstrations over government failure to provide basic services, such as water and electricity. The country is known as the “protest capital of the world”.

Research by the Centre for Social Change, University of Johannesburg seems to bear this out. Based on estimates from South African Police Service data, we found that between 1997 and 2013 there were an average of 900 community protests a year. In recent years the number has climbed to as high as 2,000 protests a year.

The situation in South Africa is not unique. Protests have been increasing globally, particularly since the 2008 global economic crisis.

In a new book, my colleagues from the Centre for Social Change and I attempt to understand South Africa as part of the global protest wave.

On the face of it, protests in South Africa look quite different. They tend to be fragmented and happen mostly in black townships and informal settlements. The occupation of central public spaces in towns and cities, as we are seeing in Venezuela, happens seldom.

While there are important differences there are also commonalities. Whether protests focus around the “1%” as they did during the Occupy movement or around the lack of service provision in townships, protesters around the world are critiquing the failure of a representative democracy to provide socio-economic equality.

Broken promises

South Africa’s governing ANC came into power in 1994 on the promise of a “better life for all”. There have been important gains, such as increasing access to electricity from 51% of the population in 1994 to 85% in 2012, but inequality remains endemic. Recent data from the World Bank confirms that South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world.

As part of research by the Centre for Social Change we spoke to protesters all over the country. A new book from the centre highlights the extent to which protesters are raising not just concerns about the quality of service delivery but also about the quality of post-apartheid democracy. As Shirley Zwane, from Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, explains:

We don’t have democracy!… We [are] still struggling… you see if we are in democracy there’s no more shacks here… No more bucket system… we supposed to have roads, everything! A better education… There is a democracy?…. No, this is not a democracy! They have, these people in Constantia, Tableview, Parklands, they have a democracy, not for us!

For Shirley the quality of post-apartheid democracy is linked to the provision of basic services. She is not alone in this view.

Research by Afrobarometer has found that compared to other countries in the region South Africans are much more likely to emphasise the realisation of socio-economic outcomes as crucial to democracy. That South Africans should view housing and services as central to post-apartheid democracy is unsurprising given that apartheid systemically denied the majority of people these rights.

Crisis of affordability

Community protests are fundamentally about the exclusion from democracy experienced by many black working class citizens since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Although the provision of services to the previously marginalised black majority has increased substantially, black working class households face an increasing crisis of affordability.

In sectors covered by a minimum wage, the real median wage increased by 7.5% between 2011 and 2015. But last year inflation on an average working class food basket was 15% and certain staple foods, such as maize meal, increased by as much as 32%. This has put a real squeeze on working class households especially when, due to high levels unemployment, each black South African wage earner supports four people.

Structural challenges

The crisis of affordability facing black working class households also compounds the structural crisis within local government.

In South Africa local governments are responsible for delivering services. Over the past 15 years local municipalities have increasingly had to find ways to fund these services through their own tax base. Many have resorted to cost recovery measures, for example by introducing prepaid meters. Their introduction has been behind many protests.

The financial difficulties for local and provincial governments looks set to get worse. In the country’s latest budget the National Treasury cut their funding as part of R25 billion budget cuts. In the case of Gauteng, the scene of the most recent protests, this amounted to a R2.9 billion rand cut over three years.

To fill the gap, municipalities and provinces are going to have to look increasingly to their own tax base to fund service provision. A difficult prospect when slightly more than half the population survives on R779 or less a person a month.

A global crisis

As Professor Michael Burawoy argues in our new book, the nature of the crisis varies from country to country. In South Africa the crisis represents the forcible exclusion of many black working class households from democratic institutions, largely because of their inability to afford socio-economic goods. For instance, while access to electricity has increased, access is increasingly mediated by prepaid meters, therefore the ability to access service is inextricably linked to the ability to afford them.

It’s this exclusion that leads many to say that democracy is only for the rich. Globally, people are beginning to search for new solutions to these problems with many being drawn to left-wing movements and political parties, such as Podemos in Spain. Whether such a comparable movement can emerge in South Africa remains to be seen.

Carin Runciman, Senior Reseacher, Centre for Social Change, University of Johannesburg

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Parents and learners shut down East London high school

They demand that the Department of Education provide transport for learners who walk over 8km

By Mbulelo Sisulu
31 July 2017

Learners, teachers and SGB members outside Uviwe Senior Secondary in Scenery Park township. Photo: Mbulelo Sisulu

Parents and learners of Uviwe Senior Secondary in Scenery Park township in the Eastern Cape shut the school down on Monday. This came after their requests for scholar transport to the Department of Education went unanswered.

Uviwe Senior Secondary has many times since 2009 asked the provincial government to provide the school with transport for its learners.

According to the School Governing Body (SGB), the education department had failed to meet its own promise to provide transport for learners like 18-year-old Thandile Gujulwa. He is among a group of learners that travels over 8 kilometres to and from school. This is because there are no high schools in the neighbouring township of Khayelitsha where he lives.

On 30 July, the SGB, parents and learner representatives met. They decided to close the school until the department provided Uviwe with scholar transport.

SGB treasurer Nwabisa Mgxwati told GroundUp that they were “sick and tired” of empty promises. “Since 2009, this school has been applying for scholar transport. Our government wants something to happen first in order to act. There are many bodies that have been found in the bushes where [Gujulwa] travels through when he comes to school,” she said.

Mgxwati said that they had informed the department last week of their intention to close the school until their demands were addressed. “We did not get answers from them,” she said.

Student leader Sibulele Sinqane said that learners supported the shutdown. “The final exams are just around the corner but we [agree on] this decision. We cannot be happy while other kids risk their lives when they go to school,” he said.

Fundiswa Jose, Ward 5 committee member that deals with education at the Buffalo City Metro Municipality, said she was concerned after hearing about Gujulwa’s situation. Acting school principal Vuyani Mgqolozane said that there was nothing the school could do when parents and learners closed the gates on Monday morning.

Eastern Cape education department spokesperson, Mali Mtima, said the department was aware of the matter. Mtima said that a committee has been set up to deal with the issues at Uviwe. “We hope the committee will fast track this matter so that kids can go back to classrooms,” he said.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Ice causes death in many ways, overdose is just one of them

Most people are unaware of the severe impact ice has on the heart.
from www.shutterstock.com.au

Methamphetamine (usually colloquially referred to as “ice”) is a major public health problem in Australia. When we think of methamphetamine-related death, however, we tend to focus on overdose. This is a very real and valid concern. But the extent of the problem extends far beyond drug toxicity.

Methamphetamine dependence is associated with an array of serious social, mental and physical health problems that include heart disease, stroke, suicide, mood and anxiety disorders, psychosis, and violence. The footprint of methamphetamine is far wider than that of many other drugs. Close to half of deaths occur in rural and regional areas, a great many users are employed, and half have never injected a drug. These are not the “usual suspects” for drug-related death.

In a new study we looked at all of the methamphetamine-related deaths that occurred in Australia from 2009 to 2015. There were 1,649 such deaths over that period, and the annual rate doubled from around 150 a year to 300. Of these deaths, 43% were due to drug toxicity.

In the case of methamphetamine, overdose typically results in heart arrhythmias (where the heart isn’t beating properly) and seizures caused by the drug. Importantly, even modest amounts of methamphetamine may cause heart arrhythmia and death. The remainder, however, were due to other causes.

How methamphetamine affects the heart long-term

In a fifth of cases, death was due to methamphetamine combined with disease, most commonly heart disease. Methamphetamine is cardiotoxic, meaning it causes damage to our heart muscle, and causes disease in our arteries.

There’s a circular pattern here. Methamphetamine damages the cardiovascular system. The drug also places strain on this system by increasing the force of the blood against the artery walls (it’s a “hypertensive”). Users are then placing strain on damaged hearts. And this damage accumulates and does not reverse.

There’s also a real risk of stroke, and we saw 38 such cases among young people, a demographic not commonly affected by stroke. Importantly, the damage to the cardiovascular system occurs regardless of how the drug is used. Smoked, injected or swallowed – it is the drug that does the damage.

How methamphetamine fatally reduces inhibition

Methamphetamine is also associated with traumatic injury and death, as it causes a high degree of disinhibition, impulsivity, aggression and impaired critical judgement. There were 300 completed suicides related to methamphetamine over our study period.

There were around 300 deaths from suicide linked to methamphetamine, and the methods used were more violent, which is linked to the aggression, violence and aggravation caused by the drug.

Some 15% of all methamphetamine-related deaths were due to traumatic accidents, most commonly motor vehicle accidents. Methamphetamine users commonly believe the drug improves their driving. It does not. What it does improve is the risk of injury and death. All of these deaths were avoidable.

What can we do?

Knowledge of the risks is a start. Many users might assume a racing heart and chest pains are part of the experience of using methamphetamine and not realise these are signs of a system under stress. The heart disease we are seeing in methamphetamine users will be a problem for decades to come, long after they cease use.

In terms of our treatment system, drug treatment centres need to be aware their methamphetamine patients may be at risk of heart disease. Doctors also should ask about methamphetamine involvement if young people are presenting with heart conditions.

Over the past few years there has a been an intense focus on methamphetamine in the wake of evidence of increasing use and harms, including in rural and regional areas. By examining the causes of these deaths we have uncovered that, unlike many other drugs, the harms are very diverse, particularly with regard to the extensive association with heart disease.

This suggests that even if use goes down, we will have a major public health problem for our hospital and community health services for many years to come.

Another striking finding of this research is that very few of those who died were in treatment at the time. Our treatment services are already under intense pressure and this underlines the urgent need for more resources to go into treatment and trials of new medications.

Shane Darke, Professor at the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Civil society mobilises to end Zuma presidency

March in Cape Town to be held on 7 August

By Zoe Postman
30 July 2017

Activists met in the Central Methodist Mission Church on Greenmarket Square to mobilise for a march on 7 August. Photo via Facebook (photographer unknown)

#UniteBehind held a public meeting on Saturday at the Central Methodist Mission Church on Greenmarket Square in Cape Town to prepare for mass mobilisation in support of the recall of President Jacob Zuma.

AmaBhungane journalist, Micah Reddy, explained the #GuptaLeaks and its implications for democracy. The city’s biggest civil society movements participated in the meeting, using the opportunity to mobilise for a “People’s March” to be held on 7 August in advance of the no confidence vote in Zuma in Parliament scheduled for 8 August. The march will demand that Zuma be recalled by the ANC. Large protests are expected to take place in Johannesburg on 8 August as well.
Reddy, one of the journalists recently attacked by (almost certainly) Gupta-funded Black First, Land First (BLF), spoke about two examples of “abuse of power” by the Gupta family and the government. The first example was the extravagant Gupta wedding and the second was the Transnet tender awarded to a Gupta linked company.

The R30 million wedding was funded by Free State Provincial Government’s budget to start a community dairy farm. According to the #GuptaLeaks emails, several well-known businesses were instrumental in the money laundering process. Among these is one of the “big four” auditing firms, KPMG, who wrote the R30 million off as “business expenses”. [This is not an isolated example of KPMG turning a blind eye to corruption. Read this. - Editor]

Reddy explained that this was an important example of how corruption has a direct impact on communities who are supposed to benefit. [Other multinational companies to be implicated in the Gupta corruption include consulting firm McKinsey, and German software firms SAP and Software AG. - Editor]

Reddy also explained the second incident, which highlighted the method the Gupta family uses to benefit from foreign investment. Tequesta Group Ltd, a company owned by a Gupta affiliate Salim Essa, entered into an agreement with Chinese South Rail (CSR). Tequesta’s mandate was to land the tender for CSR to supply Transnet with over 1,000 locomotives. As a result, the Guptas earned R5.3 billion in kickbacks and R10-million from each R50-million locomotive that Transnet was buying. “I asked my friend to do a calculation of how many social housing units can be built with R5.3 billion. R5.3 billion can build 53,000 RDP houses”, said Reddy.

While the #GuptaLeaks have been reported extensively in the mainstream media, during question time, a member of #UniteBehind urged Reddy to bring this information to communities, by which was presumably meant townships and poorer areas in the country. He explained that some people may think #GuptaLeaks is a politically motivated ploy against the ANC if the information is not explained adequately.

Zackie Achmat, who co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and is helping the #UniteBehind effort, used an analogy to explain the scale of the Gupta corruption: “It’s like going to a bank, but you don’t rob it. Instead, you go to the big bosses and steal money from everyone’s bank accounts”.

Another member of the audience said that the post-apartheid government has been captured by a minority once again: “Maybe we should do what we did to get rid of the apartheid regime”.

A member of Equal Education raised the issue of access to education and jobs for the youth. She explained that there are children in communities who complete matric but are unable to find jobs or access education due to the failure of government to create opportunities for the youth.
Towards the end of the mass meeting, Equal Education, Right2Know and Social Justice Coalition encouraged people to mobilise and participate in the upcoming march. Vuyisa Mbayi, Organising Coordinator of Equal Education, said that this is a “fight against corruption” because corruption diverts money away from education.

Vainola Makan, from Right2Know campaign, urged people to act against the state capture. “We didn’t allow it for PW Botha and we won’t allow it for any president”, he said.
Axolile Notywala, Secretary General of SJC, concluded the meeting by saying people need to march to tell the government: “We elected the ANC, not the Gupta family”.

According to a report circulated on WhatsApp by Achmat, there are many efforts underway by at least 16 organisations to mobilise for the march. The march will start at 3pm on 7 August at Keizersgracht Street.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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There are dangers behind giving South African MPs the right to a secret ballot

South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng making a ruling on secret ballots in Parliament at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

It happened as many suspected it would. South Africa’s Constitutional Court ordered that, despite the Constitution’s silence on the matter, the speaker of parliament has the constitutional power to prescribe that a vote on a motion of no confidence in the country’s president may take place by way of a secret ballot.

It also found that Baleka Mbete, the speaker of South Africa’s parliament, was mistaken when she decided earlier this year that she did not have this power. The court set aside her decision.

But the court didn’t go as far as the United Democratic Movement, and other opposition parties that had challenged Mbete’s decision, had hoped. It would not force Mbete to order a secret ballot in the upcoming motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma. It felt that this would go against the separation of powers, by unduly prescribing to parliament how it should carry out its functions.

Accordingly, the court ordered Mbete to retake the decision on whether to allow the secret ballot. It emphasised that in doing so, she must act rationally. It ordered that she has to take account of all surrounding circumstances, including the possibility that MPs may feel intimidated by their political parties to vote in a particular way.

The court emphasised that parliament has a constitutional obligation to hold the executive to account. Members must therefore act in accordance with their constitutional obligations, their consciences and their oaths of office.

From a constitutional law perspective, the court’s stance is undoubtedly correct. As always, it has shown great respect for parliament’s power to guide its own processes. At the same time, the court has clarified the extent of the speaker’s discretion in a way that aims to ensure that she, and parliament as a whole, exercise their powers in a way that is consistent with their constitutional obligations.

What the opposition asked for was always going to be a long shot. Wanting a court to order the speaker to exercise a discretion that is legitimately hers alone, before she has even applied her mind to the question, would involve a real stretch of the separation of powers.

So, what will Mbete decide? And will her decision, if it was to go against a secret ballot, be challenged? More pertinently, ought it?

Competing notions of accountability

Many believe that a decision not to hold the vote secretly would simply be a thinly veiled attempt to shield Zuma from accountability. Such a decision would therefore, if not irrational and unconstitutional, at least be unconscionable. But, as the Constitutional Court acknowledged, there are different, and perhaps competing, notions of accountability at stake here.

On the one hand, the dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) in parliament and its own internal structures of political accountability have seemingly compromised the constitutionally designed accountability of the executive to parliament. An open ballot could only exacerbate this.

On the other hand, a secret ballot would sacrifice MPs’ accountability not only to their party peers, but also to the country’s citizens.

How can we be assured that an ANC politician who votes differently under a secret ballot than she would under an open one is doing so based on her conscience rather than on some other, less honourable whim? What is to stop a cynical group of Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition politicians from voting in favour of retaining Zuma because they believe that his continued scandal-prone presidency would better serve their chances in the 2019 election? Would it not make it more difficult for such politicians to subvert the public interest in these ways if the citizenry, and their fellow MPs, could see them?

Perhaps South Africa’s current political crisis is so dire that these seemingly far-fetched hypotheticals don’t matter. Perhaps they represent bridges the country should cross sometime in the future.

But making rules (and rulings), especially for the naughty kid in class, is seldom wise.

South Africa is moving into an era in national politics where the ANC is not nearly as dominant. This means that coalitions will be the order of the day. In this new era, one or two votes in a parliamentary motion may make all the difference. Will the country still think secret ballots were such a good idea?

Danger of destabilisation

Early in June DA mayor Michael Holenstein was removed by a motion of no confidence through a secret ballot in Mogale City, west of Johannesburg. Both the motion and the secret ballot were called for by ANC councillors. The ballot was granted by the ANC-affiliated speaker.

The DA and their coalition partners unsuccessfully opposed the secret ballot. As it happened, the secret ballot provided the opportunity for one of their own to betray the coalition and led to the motion being carried with 39 votes to 38.

Near-comical irony and intrigue aside, this saga illustrates all too vividly how the diminished accountability (to both electorate and party-political peers) afforded by a secret ballot opens motions of no confidence not only to a politics of conscience, but also potentially to one of backstabbing and pettiness.

On top of this, governance in Mogale City is said to be suffering as a result of the successful motion. There are fears that service delivery is being paralysed and that the destabilised, hung council may be put under administration.

The consequences of a motion of no confidence in the president will, of course, be far more destabilising. For one thing, Section 102 of the constitution requires the entire cabinet to resign alongside the president, should the motion pass. A member of parliament deciding how to vote on a motion of no confidence in Zuma is therefore also deciding whether to throw the entire national government into disarray, however temporarily.

This might well be preferable over another day of a patently compromised, Zuma-led government. But there is value in ensuring that such a hefty decision is made only after due deliberation, and is made openly and with courage of conviction. If such courage should prove to be lacking in the members of the majority party, should South Africans not be allowed to see this and to think, in turn, about the vote that in a constitutional democracy can and should matter far more: their own?

Marius Pieterse, Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Sherlock Holmes and the case of the forged Stradivari: did we miss a vital clue for 130 years?

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock.
Flickr/Theresa275, CC BY-SA

In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was published after a long period of rejections. The detective finally made his debut that November in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual – the story narrated as always by his faithful assistant Dr John Watson.

Long before any mention of the deerstalker, pipe or magnifying glass, Watson informed us of Holmes’s love of his violin:

That he could play [violin] pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other favourites.

When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognised air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee.

We later discover in The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (1893) that this violin is a Stradivari, the Italian hallmark of violin perfection. Few readers will have thought this more than a pleasing additional dimension to Holmes’s more famous characteristics. I believe it is much more than that.

Doyle may have been using this violin to give us a vital clue to the enigmatic character of Baker Street’s most famous resident. If so, it has gone unnoticed for 130 years. Let me lay out the case one step at a time.

Fiddles and forgeries

The piano and the violin both rapidly grew in popularity in the Victorian era. No craftsman was more famous than Antonio Stradivari of Cremona (Stradivarius is the Latinised name that usually appears on the labels). Along with other great Italian names such as Amati and Guarneri, these fabulous instruments became much sought after.

Second to none.
John Stillwell/PA Archive

In many cases, however, the violins were not real. Forgers took advantage of people’s ignorance, conning those seeking the finest old Italian violins by creating cheap factory-built instruments and labelling them as masterpieces.

One notorious example was the case of Hodges vs Chanot of 1882, which exposed Georges Chanot as falsely presenting a violin as having the Carlo Bergonzi imprint. It was popular in the press and well known to the general public.

Many of these forgeries are still with us today. Walk into most local auction houses in the UK and I guarantee you will find at least one old Victorian violin, strings broken and looking a bit sorry for itself. Inside will be a label for Antonio Stradivarius or another old Italian maker. Buyers will be left in no doubt that it is a fake rather than a fortune.

Context, dear chap

Academics and fans have done much work into tracing the origins of Doyle’s stories and characters. We know Holmes was partly modelled on Joseph Bell, a surgeon and medical lecturer whom Doyle would have known as a student at the University of Edinburgh.

We know he was influenced by the Victorian public appetite for true crime and detective fiction. We see, for example, the hand of James McLevy, Edinburgh’s first police detective.

McLevy published a series of incredibly popular true-crime books in the 1860s based on cases he worked on. The way he consulted medics and scientists at the University of Edinburgh seeking new ways of solving new crimes in an age before forensics is very similar to Holmes’s near-forensic approach to detection.

More recent version.

Also exceptionally popular was James McGovan. McGovan too appeared to be a detective who had investigated the streets of Edinburgh. It only later came to light that the books were fiction, written by a well known Edinburgh violinist named William Crawford Honeyman.

The McGovan books came out between 1878 and 1884, which heavily overlaps with Doyle’s own time in the city (1876 to 1881). This makes it highly probable that Doyle was familiar with the series at the very least.

The Real Cremona

The final McGovan book is Traced and Tracked, or, A Memoire of a City Detective (1884). It includes a short tale called The Romance of a Real Cremona, about McGovan’s investigation of the theft of a Stradivari from a stately home near Edinburgh. During the investigation, McGovan interviews the owner, a Mr Cleffton, and asks about the value:

“Worth £400 – refused £200 for it the other day, [Cleffton] continued […]

"£400!” I echoed. “Is it possible you gave that sum for a fiddle?”

“No, not quite so much, but that’s its value,” he slowly admitted.

“How much did it cost you?”

“£40”, he rather reluctantly answered.

Watson tells a similar story about Holmes in The Adventure of the Cardboard Box. He talks about how the detective had “purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew broker’s in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings”. Note that both instruments were bought for significantly less than their supposed value.

Another similarity is that in both stories, the violins passed through the hands of a pawnbroker. In real life, it was very common for fake instruments to move through pawnbrokers as a way of removing the identity of the forger or reseller.

In the Real Cremona, McGovan visits a Mr Turner, an “eccentric connoisseur” who “had a craze for buying fiddles which he never did, and never could, play upon”. In Doyle’s original sketched notes for his detective, Holmes was to be a collector of rare violins.

This never made it into the books in the end, yet it does say in A Study in Scarlet that Holmes “prattled away about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati”. Certainly, he demonstrated the same Victorian collector’s enthusiasm as Mr Turner.

The language that describes playing the violin is also comparable. In the Real Cremona, Cleffton comments that “some of the servants may have taken it [the stolen violin] out to have a scrape”, and that the violin was of no use to another character “for he is only a wretched scraper”. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson talks about how Holmes would “scrape carelessly at the fiddle”.

To be sure, scraping violins appear elsewhere in Victorian literature. But it is one more unmistakeable similarity with Honeyman, and at the very least illustrates how Doyle was steeped in the same Victorian context.

Deer oh deer.
Richard Peterson

Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that the McLevy story came out in 1884. This was two years after Hughes v Chanot and various other documented suspicions around classified Stradivari adverts that appeared around the same time.

As a violinist himself, Honeyman would have been particularly familiar with these cases. Indeed, in his later writings on the violin, he tells a story of a violin bought for £22 by an unwitting gentleman, dreaming it would be worth £1,000, but was actually worth no more than £5.

Case closed?

In short, the very strong implication in both the Real Cremona and the Doyle books is that the Stradivaris are not genuine. They are products of the Victorian forgery trade.

Which begs the question: if Doyle deliberately wrote this detail into the Holmes books, what was he trying to say about him? Perhaps it points to the detective as a flawed protagonist, cutting through his greatness at solving crimes to remind us he was not infallible.

Every time Holmes puffed his pipe and explained to Watson who the culprit was, there appears to have been one unsolved case under his nose that he didn’t even know about. Perhaps Doyle was laughing about it quietly to himself until his own death some 40 years later.

Rachael Durkin, Lecturer in Music, Edinburgh Napier University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

'Stranger danger' in the online and real word

Artem Oleshko/Shutterstock

The term “stranger danger” was coined as a warning to children: beware the unknown adult, proceed with caution and be very careful what personal information you reveal. The question is, do adults take their own advice? Perhaps most would be more guarded and make sure they know who they are dealing with before revealing too much about themselves. But our relationship with “strangers” has been evolving and social media has torn down some of the barriers that used to protect us.

Now a relative stranger could be a Facebook “friend” and evidence shows that sexual predators are using this to their advantage. How we transition from stranger to non-stranger relationships is a relatively unexplored strand in research, with little recognition paid to the fact that the internet has completely transformed our level of engagement with strangers.

At the same time other studies are showing how the rate of reporting sexual offences to conviction is low. A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) concluded that 1 in 4 sexual offences should have been recorded as crimes but were not. Reasons cited for this were mainly centred on poor processes for recording the crimes and transferring them on to national recording systems.

The rate of reporting sexual offences to conviction is low.
Kamira/Shutterstock

Regardless of these issues, the reporting of sexual offences is on the rise, with this attributed to increased reporting of sexual offences and apparent improved investigative responses. In the year ending March 2015, the Office of National Statistics recorded the highest figure for sexual offences since recording began in 2002, up 37% increase on the previous year. For female victims of serious sexual assaults, 16% were recorded as “stranger relationships”. Other categories included partner/ex-partner (47%) other known (33%) and family member (4%).

What is a ‘stranger’?

What is our understanding of how stranger rapes occur? Do we believe this happens within a dark alleyway, involving victims randomly chosen by someone they have never interacted with? Given that most of these attacks are perpetrated by people the victims know – as opposed to the dangerous “stranger” – do these statistics allow us to feel safe within our online social interactions? Herein lies the problem: people we know. At what point would we say we actually know someone in the online and interconnected society of today?

One in three relationships now start online. The change in how people communicate in their day-to-day lives has impacted on the “modus operandi” of sexual offenders. The online environment has evolved a “new type of sexual offender”. Police forces have recorded a six-fold increase in the number of “internet-facilitated” sexual offences between 2009 and 2014.

The vast amount of dating and social networking sites easily accessed through smartphones has resulted in the normalisation of providing personal information to strangers. Even Snapchat now allows users to share their exact location. People are able to see your every move from your home location, work, school or college.

Snapchat states that their default setting is “off” for location-sharing and users must activate it. They claim that locations can only be shared with your friends list. Given our friendship circles are continually changing and our friends lists are likely to contain people we have never met, how practical is this safety feature?

Are you being groomed?

Grooming techniques are individually tailored to meet victims’ expectations. From child sexual grooming research, we know that trust is key in developing relationships online, with boundaries slowly broken down before introducing sexualised conversations. In cases initiated through online dating that resulted in sexual assaults, sexual communication was reported in over 50% of cases prior to meeting, with online contact to first meeting occurring within a week for 43% of cases . The frequency and intensity of interactions allows victims to feel comfortable and shifts the perception of the relationship from stranger to non-stranger quicker than offline encounters.

National Crime Agency evidence reveals 72% of internet-facilitated sexual assaults took place in the victim’s home. Exploration of attack locations of 459 internet-facilitated rapists showed more than half occurred within a 1.6km radius of the offenders’ home. This differs from previous findings where offenders travelled further to their assault location in a bid to reduce the risk of identification. Is this due to an expedited transition from stranger to non-stranger, where the regular dating precautions are dismissed, with victims meeting their victims sooner and in unsafe locations?

New offenders, new crimes

Recent research exploring sexual offending within the UK appears to back this up, concluding that the typical offender profile and crime scene behaviours have changed. Stranger rapists are appearing to be less “criminogenic” – in other words, they have fewer criminal convictions. And those with previous convictions are now likely to be for more low-level offences. This new type of sex offender is also taking fewer precautions and less likely to use forced entry or violence in their sexual attacks.

The same techniques used by online sexual offenders are being employed by so-called “romance fraudsters” targeting dating websites with the intention of extracting money from victims. Around £34.4m from over 3,100 victims was recorded regarding romance fraud last year.

More needs to be done to increase the understanding of the term “stranger” and how this is defined within criminal justice agencies. More importantly society as a whole needs to start getting to grips with the term. Our interactions online are now embedded at such a young age. They have allowed us to become comfortable in revealing personal information and speeding up the relationship process at a dangerous pace.

So before engaging with new “friends” online ask yourself: is this person really a stranger? Have you transitioned them to “non-stranger” status too quickly? Are you really being safe online?

Michelle McManus, Senior Lecturer in Policing, Forensic and Applied Sciences, University of Central Lancashire and Louise Almond, Senior lecturer in Investigative and Forensic Psychology, University of Liverpool

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Why the South African state needs to lose its fight against marijuana policy reform

Thousands of South Africans are calling for the legalisation of marijuana.
EPA/Nic Bothma

South Africa is among many countries facing challenges to their drug control policies, particularly around marijuana, known locally as dagga. The Medicines Control Council is developing guidelines for production for medicinal use and the country’s highest drug policy guardian has recommended broader decriminalisation.

The key battle ground, however, is in the courts.

A new trial is due to start in which the state is likely to expend considerable energy trying to prove that marijuana use is seriously harmful. If this is indeed the substance of its argument, it should lose. The point isn’t whether marijuana causes harm, but whether criminal prohibition is the best way to address those harms.

South African Police Service statistics suggest that most anti-drug activity is against those in possession of small quantities. These are people who are unlikely to play any strategic role in drug supply, and whose deterrence or removal from the market has little prospect of having any impact overall.

The legal wrangle to date

The first recent knock to prohibition came in 2016 with a ruling by the Constitutional Court. The court held that the constitutional right to privacy was unjustly violated by parts of the country’s drugs and drug trafficking act that allowed a law enforcement officer to stop and search any person, property or vehicle on the grounds of “reasonable suspicion” of violation of the Act. The ruling meant that police would no longer be able to enter and search private properties without a warrant.

A bigger challenge came from the Western Cape High Court. This case was brought inter alia by Gareth Prince. Prince lost a case in the Constitutional Court in 2002 that sought exemption from the laws on the basis of his Rastafari religion.

Prince’s more recent case sought not just an exemption based on religious freedom, but to challenge marijuana prohibition overall on various grounds – including that it was based on an irrational distinction from alcohol. Ras Prince brought the case with Jeremy Acton, leader of the Dagga Party.

Judge Dennis Davis, for a full bench, found that the criminalisation of marijuana within the home unjustifiably limited the right to privacy. He concluded that the state had failed to show that criminal prohibition was the least restrictive way to deal with the problems caused by marijuana. The order was suspended for 24 months to allow parliament to amend the relevant laws.

The state quickly indicated its intention to appeal and to continue enforcement without any change. But it seems that several people charged with marijuana crimes have received stays of prosecution pending the outcome of the legal process.

A separate case is about to kick off in Pretoria. Myrtle Clarke and Julian Stobbs, known as the “The Dagga Couple”, have turned their arrest for possession into a decriminalisation crusade. Their team has raised funds for local and international expert witnesses to help them make their argument that the criminal prohibition of marijuana is irrational, wasteful, and unjustifiably infringes numerous constitutional rights.

This is the first time that the issues will have the chance to be properly aired in court.

It’s long overdue.

Pattern of arrests

According to the South African Police Service’s annual report, there were 259,165 recorded counts of illegal drug possession or dealing in 2015/16. These charges resulted in 253,735 arrests, accounting for almost a sixth of all arrests.

A Rastafarian lights up during a march for the legalisation of marijuana in South Africa.
EPA/Nic Bothma

Most drug arrests are made through stop-and-search or roadblock operations. National figures aren’t available but those from two of the nine provinces suggest that a vanishingly small proportion of drug charges (2%-4%) are for dealing as opposed to possession of drugs. Very few drug arrests are made at ports of entry, through special operations, or through the Serious Organised Crime Investigation Units.

Between 65% and 70% of drug charges are for possession of marijuana. The presumption is that possession of over 115 grams (about 4 ounces) constitutes dealing. This means that every year police seek out and charge about one in every 300 people for possession of an amount of marijuana​ that weighs no more than an apple.

Criminal prohibition

It isn’t clear whether criminal prohibition is an effective way to dissuade or help drug users. Evidence from other countries suggests that, generally, the greater the perception of risk, the lower the prevalence of use.

shutterstock

But the strength of this effect is debatable to say the least, and it remains far from clear whether a liberalisation in marijuana policy results in a significant increase in its use or in associated harms. The effects of the recent wave of marijuana policy changes in various US states, for example, are still being closely observed and debated.

For people who have highly problematic drug use patterns, there is even less consensus that the threat or reality of imprisonment is an appropriate or effective tool for either dissuading or helping them. Other approaches may well do significantly better.

Decriminalisation

There are many models of decriminalisation. Policies that work in the Netherlands or Colorado might not work in a developing country like South Africa given differences in drug use, drug market and price structures, regulatory capacity and political climates.

The goal must be to find a broadly acceptable balance of a complex range of harms, benefits, and rights in the context of limited resources.

For example, South Africa needs to consider what impact decriminalisation would have on small-scale, informal farmers who depend on the crop for their livelihood. Legalising marijuana could mean that they are forced out of the market by large agribusinesses, or falling prices.

On the other hand, prohibition arguably does more to harm the current producers and distributors than consumers.

The right balance won’t be found if marijuana is simply cast as a devastating alien threat to the nation’s children and communities. Instead it needs to be understood as a socially and economically ingrained pastime for which there is clearly considerable popular demand.

Harm is not enough

Justifying the criminal prohibition of marijuana is not a matter of proving that it causes harm. Evidence of major harm has not been enough to lead to the criminal prohibition of, for example, alcohol, nicotine, sugar, firearms and unprotected sex.

The case that needs to be made is whether criminal prohibition is effective, proportionate, and the minimally invasive way to address those harms. The state will struggle to prove this. An increasing number of countries have concluded that it is not.

Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape Town

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Political irrationality is ruining South Africa, but can still be stopped

President Jacob Zuma was slammed as being irrational for the recent cabinet reshuffle.
GCIS

In popular conceptions of what it means to be human is the universal notion that our species - homo sapiens - is essentially rational. It’s commonly believed that as rational beings, our thoughts and actions are informed by reason and logic that precludes the influence of emotions. On the other hand, irrationality is associated with defective reasoning, perverse thinking, being excessively emotional, or at worst, crazy.

Democracy, and by extension good governance, presupposes the capacity of political leadership to engage in reasoned debate, informed decision making and measured judgements. In the South African context, it’s assumed that this will all happen within the framework of the Constitution.

In this way democratic governance is premised on rationality. It appears to be unthinkable without it. But is this true?

No. And certainly not in South Africa now. Irrationality is the term frequently used to describe the country’s political landscape. This is clear from the coverage of the embattled government of President Jacob Zuma, and its leadership.

The growing anxiety and uncertainty in the country is aptly articulated by the news headline:

Has Zuma checked reason and rationality at the door?

In the unfolding drama of the far-reaching political scandal that threatens South Africa’s nascent democracy, known as “Guptagate”, political leadership has been repeatedly called out for its irrational behaviour. In response to Zuma’s most recent cabinet reshuffle where he replaced finance minister Pravin Gordhan, Bonang Mohale, deputy chairperson of Business Leadership South Africa, said:

We have the President [Zuma] to thank for all this turmoil, irrationality and absolute recklessness…

For its part, the opposition Democratic Alliance went to court to have the president’s decision set aside on the grounds that it was irrational and unconstitutional.

More recently the South African Reserve Bank, known for its conservative stance, openly accused the Public Protector of being reckless and irrational in her attempts to amend the Constitution. Her recommendations in a report on a bank bailout, has been widely viewed as beyond the mandate of her office and a threat to the stability of the economy.

The use of the word “irrational” in South Africa’s political debates begs interrogation. Increasing accounts of political irrationality naturally raise concerns about the effectiveness of democratic governance – and its legitimacy.

Dispelling the ‘myth’ of rationality

Irrationality as a ubiquitous descriptor of political machinations is not peculiar to South Africa. It is well documented across climes and cultures. US President Donald Trump immediately comes to mind. As a world leader he has elicited both censure and derision as grossly irresponsible and fundamentally irrational.

The fact is humans are not rational by default. The “invisible hand” that drives human behaviour is in fact, irrationality. Nobel laureate, psychologist Daniel Kahneman together with Amos Tversky and others have pioneered research in this field.

Wired by evolution, cognitive limits restrict how we select, compute, store and adapt to information. Research shows that we employ a range of heuristics (mental shortcuts) that lead to cognitive biases and distorted perceptions. Most of these we’re not even aware of. As behavioural economist Dan Ariely, author of “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” asserts:

Our irrational behaviours are neither random nor senseless – they are systematic.

For example, humans have the tendency to select information (selection bias) that confirms preexisting beliefs (confirmation bias) while avoiding contradictory information that disturbs their preferred worldview. This well-researched bias is at work when politicians choose to present skewed, biased evidence that makes them look credible with the public to achieve desired outcomes.

There’s also a self-interested bias where people are prone to distorted thinking because it benefits them in some way. Rational irrationality explains how:

(people) choose - rationally - to adopt irrational beliefs because the costs of rational beliefs exceed their benefit.

This goes some way in explaining the reckless actions of politicians like Zuma and Trump who devise irresponsible strategies in the interests of their “rational” endgame.

Neuroscience shows that when it comes to decision making, humans are wired to favour emotions over intellect. This means emotions have an impact on our decisions in various ways. For example, in the face of deep uncertainty – a persistent feature of our age – unconscious emotions and perceptions render us prone to cognitive biases and errors.

This refutes the ideal of the stoic “rational man”, a description that persistently devalues women and castes them as the “weaker” sex. This stereotype – of women as emotionally volatile and incapable of rational thought – has served to exclude them from the corridors of power.

Political irrationality has dire consequences

Because irrationality is inherently human, it’s been a persistent part of politics throughout history. There’s substantial evidence that entrenched and unchecked irrationality has devastating consequences. This has happened when political leaders eschew reason and logic. In South Africa’s case this is clear from the country’s crippled economy and rising discontent.

But this doesn’t mean that irrationality has to prevail. South African civil society and democratic institutions have come to the party. They are increasingly challenging the irrational, unconstitutional actions of the ANC-led government and its leadership. What’s patently evident is that a free, independent press, the rule of law as enshrined in the Constitution and an independent judiciary are the bulwarks of a democracy under assault.

Lyn Snodgrass, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Zimbabweans protest for right to vote

Demonstrators outside the Zimbabwean consulate in Cape Town demanded their democratic rights

By Tariro Washinyira
28 July 2017

A protest was held outside the Zimbabwean consulate in Cape Town by Zimbabweans demanding the right to vote in their country’s upcoming presidential elections. Photo: Tariro Washinyira

On Friday morning, about 30 Zimbabweans demonstrated outside the Zimbabwean Consulate in Cape Town. The protest was organised by the Democracy Restoration Party (DRP), a political party formed by Zimbabwean refugees in Cape Town in 2011, under the leadership of Brian Mubvumbi.

The group wore branded party regalia – yellow T-shirts and black caps. Struggle songs were sung and slogans chanted denouncing the government of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.

In a press statement, the DRP said: “The Zimbabwean government has denied the diaspora an opportunity to cast their votes in their countries of residence. The government blamed lack of funds as the main reason for the decision. This is inconsistent with the 2013 constitution which gives every Zimbabwean the right to vote; hence we demand the reversal of the decision.”

It added that: “Zimbabweans have been displaced by socioeconomic hardships and political violence.”

The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission has said members of the Zimbabwean diaspora will have to register biometrically and return to Zimbabwe to vote.

DRP Secretary General Marshal Matongo said, “The constitution says everyone has a right to vote. So when I live in South Africa it doesn’t make me a South African. I am still a Zimbabwean and it’s my right to vote because I am carrying a Zimbabwean Identity card.”

Some protesters held placards reading ‘Zimbabwe youths stop being abused’. Selule Sibanda, secretary for the DRP, explained, saying that desperate unemployed youths were being used by ZANU-PF to incite violence against opposition party members in the run up to the 2018 presidential elections.

The youngest protester was 19. He said that he came to Cape Town when he was 17 after dropping out of school because he couldn’t pay fees to take his education further. His mother is a widow. He is doing construction work to help her and his two siblings back in Zimbabwe.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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State mental health patients are being held in prisons

There is a shortage of hospital beds in the Eastern Cape for inmates with mental illness

By Ashleigh Furlong
27 July 2017

St Albans Prison entrance, Port Elizabeth. Photo: Google Maps / Street View

Over 90 people with mental illness are being held in various prisons in the Eastern Cape instead of being looked after in hospitals. They are state patients – people declared unfit to stand trial or found not criminally responsible because of their illness or “mental defect” (the state’s term). This is despite them being ordered by the courts to be placed in mental health facilities.

A recent application in the Port Elizabeth High Court hopes to change the situation. Awonke Adam was sent to St Albans prison, Port Elizabeth, in September 2016 after being declared a state patient. He was meant to be transferred to a mental health institution subject to bed availability, but to date this has not happened. However, thanks to the court application, he has been released into his mother’s care until a bed becomes available for him at Fort England Hospital.

In court papers Adam’s mother, Phathiswa, stated that her son “is extremely vulnerable due to his disability, and he does not understand why he is in prison.”

“He has, on at least two occasions, tried to commit suicide [at St Albans]. He has been assaulted by other inmates. There are no trained staff at prisons to work with persons with such disabilities. The prison is not suited for him and his current detention is wrong and traumatic to him and his family,” she stated.

Phathiswa filed the application on behalf of her son and the other state patients in the province, claiming that both the Criminal Procedure Act and the Correctional Services Act “are unconstitutional in so far as it does not protect the rights of State Patients awaiting placement in mental institutions”. She was represented by Legal Aid South Africa.

In court papers, Adam is described as moderately intellectually disabled, with speech and hearing impairments. He has never passed a school grade but was pushed through according to the school’s policies. He left school in grade 6 at the age of 17. He is also unable to read or write.

According to the Mental Health Act, if a court orders a patient to be transferred to a mental health institution it must happen within 28 days. There are only two facilities in the Eastern Cape that provide psychiatric services for inmates or state patients – Fort England and Komani Hospital in Queenstown.

In a constitutional court judgment in 2015, the court found that “imprisonment should only be available to accused persons who pose a serious danger to society or themselves”.

“If an accused person does not pose a serious danger to society or themselves, then resources alone cannot dictate that an accused person be placed in prison,” the court said.

“If resources are significantly constrained such that a bed in a psychiatric hospital is unavailable, then a presiding officer should be able to craft an appropriate order that encompasses treating the accused as an outpatient.”

On 18 July, the Port Elizabeth High Court ordered that Adams be released into his mother’s care, pending the availability of a bed for him at Fort England Hospital. The court also ordered that the rest of the application, which relates to other state patients in the Eastern Cape, be postponed for a hearing on 7 September.

In June this year, Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi told Parliament that there were 99 patients being accommodated in prisons in the Eastern Cape as there was no space at mental health facilities. The longest period that patients had waited in prison was nearly two years (22 months).

During a parliamentary budgetary review in October 2016, the responsible portfolio committee found that a policy manual on the administration of state patients had not been developed at all.

A study published in 2016 on prison mental health services in the Eastern Cape found that during 2010 there was no psychiatrist servicing any correctional centre in the province. There were also only two prisons that consulted a psychologist “when needed”.

The study recommended that the Eastern Cape government urgently develop protocols to manage, treat and discharge mentally ill prisoners.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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