Panyaza Lesufi, you have started the year with shameless antics of shifting blame and accountability. Your disingenuous move to blame parents for their children not being placed in a school by the start of the academic year has deservedly earned you the title “Mampara of the Week”.
Since the implementation of the Gauteng department of education’s online application system, parents have been complaining about how long they wait for their children to be placed at schools. When they are eventually placed, it is a school that they had not applied for, or the school is up to 90km away from where they live.
Parents then must make a choice: do I send my child to the school chosen by the department, which is not in my immediate area, or do I wait for the new school year to begin, then go to the district office to find a school closer to home?
This is why the DA has been calling for an overhaul of the online application system. Online applications for grades 1 and 8 must be opened earlier to avoid the delays we are seeing in the placement of pupils.
Part of the problem is the severe school infrastructure backlog. Currently, the infrastructure repair backlog sits at about R31.1bn. This backlog includes unsafe buildings, overcrowded classrooms, sanitation failures and incomplete maintenance. Only 1.36% of this backlog is funded annually.
At least seven infrastructure projects worth R900m have stalled, with some dating to 2021. The reason given for this is that there are issues with the contractors.
The province is failing to plan properly every single academic year, and schools are unable to absorb all the new pupils. Parents cannot be blamed for your lack of planning, premier
— Solly Msimanga, leader of the opposition in Gauteng
These unnecessary delays have resulted in the province having more than 700 schools facing classroom shortages, yet fewer than 30 new schools have been built in the province. Between 2014 and 2023, enrolment rose by more than 300,000.
The province is failing to plan properly every single academic year, and schools are unable to absorb all the new pupils. Parents cannot be blamed for your lack of planning, premier.
The Western Cape is fast-tracking school infrastructure through a rapid school-build programme designed to deliver schools and classrooms within months using modular and alternative construction methods.
By the start of this academic year, the Western Cape had completed nine new schools and initiated additional phases on two more schools; 175 new classrooms had been added to schools, and the plan is for the province to deliver 29 new and replacement schools over the medium term, supported by strict project management, transparent reporting and multiyear funding certainty.
For too long, we have been calling on the Gauteng provincial government to implement alternative mechanisms that will ensure that schools can accommodate children in an environment that is conducive to learning and teaching. This has included repeated calls for the admission process to start earlier in the year and for it to stay open for much longer.
Premier, you must take accountability by fixing incompetent departments that are failing our children, particularly the Gauteng department of infrastructure development.
It is high time that the parents and children of this province were provided with educational facilities that are conducive to learning and teaching. All pupils starting at a new school should be able to do so without hassle at the start of the academic year, not weeks later.
— Solly Msimanga, leader of the opposition in Gauteng
The arts deserve better
South Africa’s arts and culture sector has long been treated as a bargaining chip in coalition politics. From the early days of democracy under president Nelson Mandela, the ANC ceded the portfolio to opposition leaders as part of power-sharing arrangements. What began with the IFP in the 1990s has now resurfaced in the government of national unity, in which the Patriotic Alliance’s Gayton McKenzie is at the helm.
This pattern has had profound consequences. During the first decade of democracy, IFP leaders Ben Ngubane and Lionel Mtshali presided over what was then the arts, culture, science & technology portfolio. The sector became vulnerable to neglect and political expediency. The dismantling of professional orchestras during this period remains one of the most devastating outcomes.
By 2000, only two full-time orchestras survived — the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic and the Cape Town Philharmonic. At just 28, I was retrenched as a full-time professional orchestral musician. Many colleagues fled to Durban to keep their careers alive. I remained in Johannesburg, where retrenched musicians from the SABC’s National Symphony Orchestra, the State Theatre Orchestra and the National Chamber Orchestra from the former Bophuthatswana formed the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra — a musician-owned organisation born of resilience rather than state support.
Fast forward to today, and the sector faces yet another crisis. McKenzie’s decision to cancel participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale has sparked outrage. This act of censorship undermines freedom of expression, a right enshrined in our constitution and reaffirmed in the white paper on arts, culture & heritage. The white paper emphasises the role of the arts in fostering democracy, diversity, and dialogue. Yet, McKenzie’s move silences South African voices on one of the world’s most important cultural stages.
When political horse-trading reduces the portfolio to a token of coalition politics, the consequences are felt not only by artists but by society at large
— Shadrack Bokaba
The dysfunction extends beyond symbolic acts. Key institutions such as the National Arts Council and the National Film & Video Foundation have been unable to appoint permanent CEOs for years, crippling their ability to deliver on their mandates. This institutional paralysis betrays the white paper’s vision of a vibrant, well-governed cultural sector that empowers artists and communities alike.
The arts are not a luxury but a cornerstone of nation-building, reconciliation, social cohesion and global engagement. When political horse-trading reduces the portfolio to a token of coalition politics, the consequences are felt not only by artists but by society at large.
The cancellation of the biennale submission is not an isolated misstep; it is symptomatic of a deeper malaise. Unless the government recommits to the white paper, invests in institutional stability and protects artistic freedom, South Africa risks erasing the cultural narratives that define its democracy.
The arts are more than entertainment. They are memory, identity and imagination. To undermine them is to undermine the nation itself.
— Shadrack Bokaba, postdoctoral research fellow, Wits School of Arts, former MD of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and former acting CEO of the NFVF
How to make Africa great again
Your columnists and scribes have an inflated opinion of South Africa’s importance in the world and especially to the US. Most Americans I’ve met only know Mandela and Cape Town and don’t know Gqeberha from Nairobi.
As for President Donald Trump’s hostility towards us, whose envoy was kicked out for vilifying the president of the country where he was ambassador? Mike Siluma calls Trump evil and even blames him for the invasion of Iraq and suggests he could foment civil unrest and intervene in South Africa.
Trump does not need to foment civil unrest; the ANC is busy doing that all by itself simply by having destroyed the well-run municipalities and service delivery we had up until 1994.
Lawlessness and corruption abound. The criminal justice system is an absolute mess. We actually need a black Trump. I look forward to the day when Barney Mthombothi, Hogarth and Peter Bruce are cured of their raging Trump derangement syndrome.
— Dave Nicoll, Bushman’s River Mouth
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