One of PRASA's new blue trains. Archive photo: Tariro Washinyira One of PRASA's most vital capital contracts – to upgrade its depots to accommodate its new blue trains – has been delayed by irregularities. Dozens of new blue trains have been left to stand idle. A settlement agreement between a failed tenderer and the contract award winner may be against procurement rules. New blue trains, which promised a renewal in commuter rail for the country, keep coming out of the Gibela factory in Dunnottar, but the depots of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) are not ready to receive them.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/new-blue-trains-stand-idle-as-prasa-fails-to-upgrade-depots/

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About 100 health workers convened on Sunday at Dan Qeqe stadium, Zwide, to show their disapproval after their contracts were terminated by the Eastern Cape Department of Health. Photo: Joseph Chirume Eastern Cape health care workers whose contracts were not renewed last December have warned that this will put pressure on already stretched permanent staff. About 100 workers affiliated to the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) met on Sunday at Dan Qeqe stadium, Gqeberha, where they aired their grievances.

http://www.groundup.org.za/article/eastern-cape-health-workers-warn-about-staff-shortages

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Shack dwellers and homeowners from Kleinskool in Gqeberha blocked the Old Uitenhage Road on Wednesday to demand electricity, houses and that blocked drains in the area be fixed permanently. Photos: Mkhuseli Sizani About 300 shack dwellers and homeowners from Kleinskool in Gqeberha blocked the Old Uitenhage Road with burning tyres, rocks and branches before sunrise on Wednesday. They want shacks to get electricity, blocked drains in the area to be cleaned and RDP houses to be built. DA Ward Councillor Tyrone Adams told residents that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was to blame.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/pensioner-joins-protest-after-pigs-swim-in-overflowing-sewage-and-rub-it-on-her-rdp-house/

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Panelists at the event (Left to Right) were Ellen Boriwondo of Scalabrini Centre, Pulmonologist Dr Emmanuel Taban, Jamala Safari of HCI Foundation and Aureli Kalenga of EyeWitness News. Photo: Tariro Washinyira The Scalabrini Centre and its partners hosted an event on Monday to highlight the need for tertiary funding opportunities for refugees and immigrants excluded from government bursary and scholarship opportunities. During the event, several former refugees spoke about how getting bursaries changed their lives.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/more-tertiary-education-support-and-funding-for-refugees-and-immigrants-says-scalabrini-legal-advisor/

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Maggots cover the toilet seat of this pit latrine because the Makana municipality has not sent the truck to homes in Riebeek East to clean them for weeks. Photo: Loyiso Dyongman Residents of Riebeek East under the Makana Municipality say the government is neglecting them. Most of the pit latrines, built during apartheid, are not cleaned regularly. Most families are forced to relieve themselves in the bush near their homes because their toilets are overflowing and filled with maggots. The community of Riebeek East say the Makana Municipality is neglecting them by allowing them to live with filthy toilets.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/pit-toilets-overflowing-and-filled-with-maggots-as-municipality-fails-to-send-cleaning-truck-for-weeks/

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Ephraim Simango and his mother Veronica who says she was speechless when she heard of her son's seven distinctions in matric. Photos: Peter Luhanga Twenty-year-old Ephraim Simango had to study between midnight and 6am to escape the noise in crowded Siyahlala informal settlement next to the N7 in Cape Town. But he still managed to collect seven distinctions in matric. Simango, who got the highest marks in Sinenjongo High School in Joe Slovo Park, has been accepted to the University of Cape Town to study science and engineering.

http://www.groundup.org.za/article/dunoon-matrics-beat-odds

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Protesters say there is sewage running in the streets of Indwe in the Eastern Cape. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik The Grahamstown High Court has granted an interdict against further disruptive protests in Indwe in the Eastern Cape. The Emahlahleni Local Municipality said in its court papers that in protests which have been going on since January the protesters had insulted municipal employees and removed them from their offices. However the protests resumed last week. Protesters say they want the municipality to fix the ailing water and sewerage systems.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/eastern-cape-municipality-goes-to-court-to-block-protest/

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Thabo Bester escaped from Mangaung Correctional Centre on 3 May 2022. Photo: Becker Semela ActionSA has assisted Katlego Bereng's father to lay criminal charges against various state institutions for allegedly contravening the National Health Act. Bereng was, according to police, the body burnt in Thabo Bester's cell on the night that Bester escaped. There are a bunch of unexplained inconsistencies in relation to Bereng's death and the body used in Bester's escape, but the police and other state authorities are refusing to answer our questions.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/thabo-bester-escape-katlego-berengs-father-lays-criminal-charges-against-state/

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For two weeks about 200 learners have been walking to school in Humansdorp because of a failure of school transport. Some had to walk up to 60 km a day. Photo: Mkhuseli Sizani About 200 learners in Humansdorp had not been able to attend school for two weeks because of a lack of transport. They were able to return to class on Thursday after they picketed on Wednesday to complain. Some learners had been walking up to 60km a day to and from school. School governing body chair at Humansdorp Senior Secondary says the transport company had not been paid by the provincial department of transport.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/school-buses-are-back-after-learner-picket/

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A group of about 100 homeless people living people on Sydney Street in District Six say they are regularly raided by law enforcement officers. The group recently won a case against the City of Cape Town which has been ordered to pay them R1,700 each in compensation for belongings damaged and lost during an eviction in September 2021. People living in an occupation on Sydney Street in District Six say they are regularly raided by law enforcement officers. The City of Cape Town says that allegations made by the group have not been proven in court papers, and that the group has refused alternative accommodation.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/when-it-gets-dark-this-place-is-full-of-rats-as-big-as-your-shoes-says-homeless-man-from-district-six/

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Siphe Mlawuli and Yandisa Mbhadeko are among a hundred young people from Dunoon and Atlantis working as Green Riders. Photos: Peter Luhanga Finding no job opportunities in his home town of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, 22-year-old Yandisa Mbhadeko came to Cape Town to look for work, with the hope of saving enough money to fund his journalism studies. While he was staying in a one-room shack with his brother and his brother's girlfriend in Dunoon, he noticed a man on an electric bike (e-bike) delivering groceries.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/youth-find-jobs-where-the-delivery-not-the-food-is-green/

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A R21-million sports centre started in 2019 in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape has still not been completed. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik The small Matatiele municipality in the Eastern Cape spent at least R1-million on an annual planning meeting in Durban this month. The municipality says this will not affect municipal projects and that the town is well-run. But several multi-million projects in Matatiele — a sports centre, grain silos and a fresh produce market — are unfinished or unused.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/small-eastern-cape-municipality-spends-more-than-r1-million-on-a-meeting-in-a-durban-hotel/

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Senohe Matsoara, Teboho Lipholo, Motanyane Masukela and Tieho Makhotsa in the dock. Photo: Becker Semela Lawyers for five of the accused in the Thabo Bester saga say their clients are the primary caregivers of minor children and therefore need to be granted bail. The magistrate questioned why this was not specifically argued in the affidavits submitted by the accused. Lawyers argued that the court should take all evidence and arguments made in court into consideration when making its decision and not view them in isolation.

https://www.groundup.org.za/article/thabo-bester-saga-accused-need-bail-granted-so-they-can-care-for-their-children-lawyers-argue/

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'Surely the situation leaves me with no choice but to live under the radar,' says a maths teacher who has been living in South Africa since 2008 and now faces possible deportation with the scrapping of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit. Photos: Tariro Washinyira Three Zimbabweans who held Zimbabwean Exemption Permits, which the South African government has now scrapped, share their anxiety and anguish as they face deportation, uprooting their lives and children and starting all over again in Zimbabwe, or continuing to live in South Africa as undocumented aliens.

http://www.groundup.org.za/article/mass-destruction-of-lives-south-africas-immigration-policy-on-zimbabweans/

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