GroundUp

Abandoned infrastructure, such as the ill-fated Water World project in KuGompo City, are a hallmark of financially mismanaged municipalities. As a corrective action against financial mismanagement, National Treasury has withheld the July equitable share transfers to 69 municipalities. Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, where R125-million was spent on the now abandoned Water World, is one of them.

Residents estimate that about 200 toilets were built in Ward 17 near Mthatha before work stopped. They say many collapsed within months of being built. Photos: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik A project to build toilets for hundreds of households in Ngquqa and surrounding villages under the OR Tambo District Municipality has been stalled since December 2023. Residents estimate that about 200 toilets were built before the contractor abandoned the site. They say many collapsed within months of being built.

Nyaradzai, from Bulawayo, cradles her child as she waits at the temporary repatriation centre in Musina for a bus home. Photos: Bernard Chiguvare. More than 50,000 immigrants have fled South Africa since the wave of xenophobia started last month, according to the Border Management Authority. Most have gone through the temporary repatriation centre set up near Musina. Most of those who have fled have had to abandon their possessions, often accumulated over years.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that the Judicial Service Commission unlawfully recommended advocate Johannes Hendriks Roelofse for appointment as a judge. Photo: Brian Turner via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has ruled that the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) acted unlawfully when it recommended advocate Johannes Hendriks Roelofse for appointment as a judge.

The Katse Dam in Lesotho. Photo: Sechaba Mokhethi Lesotho’s Constitutional Court has ruled that thousands of people seeking compensation over the Lesotho Highlands Water Project used the wrong legal process. The court did not decide whether affected communities are owed compensation, finding instead that those claims should be pursued under ordinary legislation, and not as a constitutional challenge.

On 7 November 2023, police officers brutally assaulted Juma Igiranieza. They punched him repeatedly, hit him with a baseball bat, suffocated him with a plastic bag, and kicked him. He wasn’t suspected of a crime. The cops simply wanted information from him — information he didn’t have. It was a textbook definition of torture: physically or emotionally harming someone in order to extract information from them. Unbeknownst to the police, the entire assault was caught on video.

Raids on clothing factories in KwaZulu-Natal and low prices offered by retailers are putting the industry under pressure. Illustration: Bronwyn Webb High-profile government raids on clothing factories in KwaZulu-Natal have focused attention on “sweatshop conditions” and on undocumented immigrant labour. Although 40 Newcastle factory owners and more than 500 workers have been arrested since September last year, very few cases were ever enrolled in court.

South Africans probably lose hundreds of millions of rands annually to mule fraud. While the banks agree this kind of scam is growing, there is not yet a properly calculated estimate of the size of the problem. Graphic: Lisa Nelson Scammers are taking over bank accounts, often by paying account owners for a One Time Pin (OTP). People who have their bank accounts hijacked are called “money mules”. Here we explain why this happens, and what needs to be done.

A sink hole which opened up in a shack in SST, Khayelitsha, last October. Archive photo: Vincent Lali The Public Protector has found that the City of Cape Town failed to provide basic municipal services to residents of Langa Flats and parts of Khayelitsha in line with the Constitution. The investigation found problems including deteriorating sewer infrastructure, poor refuse collection and water leaks.

Supporters of the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town picket outside the Western Cape High Court in February 2025. Archive photo: Daniel Steyn. The Constitutional Court has confirmed that sections of the Refugees Act are unconstitutional. Amendments to the act allowed immigration officers to deport asylum seekers who did not have valid transit visas. This violated the international legal principle of “non-refoulement”, the court ruled.