Thomas Johnson - The Blog

 The right to privacy is a constitutional and common law right in South Africa. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) Act recognises that right and regulates the processing of personal information.  POPIA makes provisions for regulation of direct marketing, automated decision making and processing of cross-border flows of information. It covers  eight principles  (Michalsons):  · Personal information must be obtained in a lawful and fair manner.  · Information can only be used for the specified purpose it was originally obtained for.  · Further processing of personal information is prohibited except if the subject agrees.  · The person who processes the information must ensure the quality of the information.  · The person processing personal information should be transparent.  · There must be proper security measures to safeguard against loss, damage, destruction, and the unauthorised or unlawful access or processing of the ...

Daily Maverick issued an apology and retraction following investigative journalist and author Jacques Pauw's piece about his altercation and arrest at V&A Waterfront. Pauw's article appeared on DM on February 12.  This week Pauw apologised to all concerned. He said he had had "too much to drink" and apparently couldn't remember what had happened. DM fired him. Trying to deflect blame, editor Branko Brkic said the episode called the media's ethics into question. DM had no reason to doubt this first-person account from a prominent if not famous writer. However, it doesn't offers the same courtesy to John Public - it doesn't publish letters to the editor and right of reply as I've found from personal experience. There's a different standard for the media and its members. But Pauw's Sturm und Drang piece is another story. His previously good reputation and hazy drunkenness aside, this was poor editorial by DM, a situation I've noted of ...

Cape Town City councillors are exploiting park upgrades for votes. That’s according to a community liaison officer (name withheld) of mayoral committee member for community services Zahid Badroodien. He also said park budgets are not spent resulting in work to complete projects being performed up to midnight on the last day of the financial year before budgets lapse. In some suburbs no one uses recreational facilities like Gugulethu that has five astro-turf courts costing R5 million each within a small radius. The official told me this on December 9 during a meeting about unneeded politically driven developments to our local park (see here ). When I heard about these “upgrades” – a pathway, and for the next financial year, exercise equipment and multi-purpose courts – in September, I raised it with Badroodien, Mayor Dan Plato and city manager Lungelo Mbandazayo. Badroodien promised to investigate according to the liaison officer but nothing came of it and the pathway was constructed. T...

I read Jon Cayzer's On race, the DA is on the wrong side of history  in Politicsweb. This is a version of an email I sent him.  Cayzer is a former speechwriter for the DA and IFP. He's currently a PhD candidate and lives in London. His previous article,  The end of a party , was also about the DA's decline. Until the beginning of this year - now almost never - I regularly read PW but became increasingly put off by its right shift (from centre-right) since c2018. But I'm glad I took a rare peek and saw his article.  Except for one or two people, trying to engage in civil debate on PW's comments is impossible - like wrestling a pig; both get dirty. As a despairing PW commentator (a lawyer) wrote before disappearing, "PW comments is where rational debate goes to die among the [far-right, racist] vitriol". (The same can be said of associated BizNews.) Cayzer should be commended that he did and kept his good humour. Both articles are trenchant analyses of the D...

 The (sane) world and just over 50% of American voters (a small number, far from the predicted Biden landslide, given Trump's sociopathy, but that's rightwing middle America for you) are deservedly engaging in schadenfreude at Donald Trump's 2020 election loss, a loss he and his supporters like Fox News and pollster Robert Cahaly of The Trafalgar Group never foresaw.  While Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox and New York Post are distancing themselves from Trump, his refusal to concede is embarrassing any rational erstwhile fans, I wonder how other supporters, including in SA, are coping with the trauma.  For example, in South African media (not trolls who lurk in comments fora) Simon Lincoln Reader, a columnist for Business Live and BizNews, wrote in 2018 "Leftie anti-Trump procession a carnival of narcissism" (to the rightwing, "leftie", or "libtard", is disparaging), and last month, "Can the hysterical anti-Trump collective please sit down?"...

 The auditor-general has delayed the results of Western Cape Health Department until January 2021 apparently because of Covid-19. I’d like to say it was because of my intervention, though.   In June I wrote to AG Kimi Makwetu that the WCHD’s “clean audit” outcome for 2018/19 was not deserved mainly because their performance objectives could not be independently verified. WCHD’s annual report noted not all its performance objectives could be measured but gave themselves a pass anyway which the AG accepted at face value.    The AG’s criteria for a clean audit are financially unqualified and no material deviations in performance objectives and laws.   Every year the DA and DA-run administrations make a huge thing about the number of clean audits they receive. They equate it with good governance. The Western Cape: the country’s “ cleanest government ”, “ Another year of clean audits confirms commitment to good governance ” (2020) and “ Clean audits confirm c...

Cape Town residents like these in Rylands (ward 48) complain about the poor state of neighbourhood parks: city neglect, unmaintained, rubbish strewn, vagrancy, drug taking and prostitution. (The ward councillor is two-term Magedien Davids [1]. Christa Liebenberg is sub-council manager.) The city doesn’t maintain parks – the build and forget approach – or enforce infringements. It's left to residents to deal with the consequences of deteriorating amenities – the “broken window” problem. In the meantime, often in the same wards, the city is upgrading isolated parks. What they mean by that is not always clear but usually it’s adding or refurbishing play equipment and pathways. During a  site visit to Colorado Park  in Mitchell’s Plain mayco for community services Zahid Badroodien said the city “hears the community’s concerns”. He spoke of the importance of communication with affected communities and role of ward committees in the upgrades However, these are hollow wo...