Thomas Johnson - The Blog

Cape Town councillor Jack Miller's media release on DA speaker Felicity Purchase's ejecting him from council for using term "migrant": Thank you to everyone for the support! Yes, I am doing perfectly fine. And yes, it is true that I was thrown out of the Cape Town City Council earlier for using the word "migrant". On behalf of a local community in Cape Town I was giving a speech and raising an objection over some of the concerns that this community had. They were worried that the project's objective to build low-cost housing would not go to local residents, but rather would be allocated to economic migrants coming in from the Eastern Cape. This is a concern we have heard on countless occasions in our community work across Cape Town over the last two decades. I am not concerned that the EFF or the ANC took offense to the content of my speech. I am not there to keep them happy. I am there to share real life stories and issues from and for the people of the...

There's a short YouTube video of Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis standing outside the civic centre holding pages he says is Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey. The video's title is "DA creates 86,000 jobs".  Looking like a pupil who won a medal for good marks, unable to contain himself, he points to a page and says Cape Town has 86,000 more jobs than - I didn't get which period - last quarter or last year.  Recently mayco for economic development James Vos similarly wrote in an advertorial they - he, DA and city - are personally responsible for the city's upward "economic trajectory". Little to no credit for citizens and business who actually do the work.  The DA keep making these unfounded, unprovable claims that they "created" x number new jobs in the Western Cape and Cape Town over a period. When Hill-Lewis was the DA's finance spokesman, he made a speech in Parliament claiming such. I emailed asking for evidence, which...

 The shit-show in the Oval Office last week where Donald Trump confronted the South African delegation led by Cyril Ramaphosa put the world's attention on an inconvenient truth SA society, that is, in particular ANC, ANC government, leftwing public intellectuals and mainstream media, prefer remain unspoken and unchallenged. From president to press, the left has reacted with outrage repudiating the 50 Afrikaner refugees to the US. They say the victimhood these people claim, a tiny minority of the Afrikaner population, is false.  But the left are the last to talk about fake victimhood. Just recently Ramaphosa was in Eastern Cape blaming the poor state of services on apartheid. And, they say, white males occupy most management positions which they're going to stop. Apartheid, the gift that keeps on giving. I once chatted with an Afrikaner, an acquaintance, about this and that. I incidentally mentioned the book on Cape Town's history I was reading. One chapter was about the dis...

 The City of Cape Town said it would introduce relief measures after protests against the proposed huge property rates and taxes increases in the 2025/2026 budget. These measures remain to be seen but it's unlikely to offset increases of over 20% for residents whose properties are valued over R3 million. The city has received 14,000 comments to the budget and has extended the period for comments. Below are my comments submitted: Comment on Cape Town's 2025/26 Budget DA opposes budget increases  In negotiations with the ANC-led coalition, the DA supported the 2% and then 0.5% VAT increases if it received concessions on other matters. But when these were not forthcoming, it turned 180 degrees and opposed the increases citing it was unaffordable to citizens and would worsen the poor economic conditions in the country.  Their main point, though, was Treasury could make savings in various departments by eliminating dysfunctional and unnecessary departments and wasteful expendi...

On his CapeTalk show this morning, host Lester Kiewit indicated nurses are not well remunerated. According to the internet, the average nurse salary is R330,000, a year (R27,500 a month). I daresay this excludes benefits. Public sector salaries across the board are generally above the private sector by - numbers vary - 30%. So public health nurses would earn more than their private peers. The average salary (across all employed) in SA is R28,200 per StatsSA so nurses are about there. Related, a Bhekikisa Health article republished in Daily Maverick a couple months ago quoted a Health Department official who stated junior doctors earn R800-900,000 a year (R66,000-75,000 a month) excluding overtime. A senior doctor over R1 million. That's one reason why they can't hire more doctors, he said.  Per internet, the average salary for an (experienced) private GP is R550K; starting salary for a junior GP R22K. Both categories are what professionals - lawyers, teachers, engineers etc - e...

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is broken, financially, organisationally and its ethos. This article explains why. When I saw the title of the op-ed "Universities under siege: UCT and the assault on its autonomy and academic freedom" by Nazeema Mohamed in Daily Maverick, I thought it was going to be about how UCT's academic freedom is being threatened from within, and threats to university freedom in general. She is a member of UCT's council. Instead, it was tirade against the Trump administration, Israel and UCT's donors who object to its resolution suspending academic ties with Israel. Although it's specifically about the US and other donors cancelling and threatening to cancel funding, Mohamed's wrath is directed against everyone who disagrees with UCT's council and executive policies and decisions.  I'd never heard of Mohamed until now. But then I don't know who most council members are. I suppose I should; I'm an alumnus who has the...

 I was shocked to read entry-level medical officers in public health earn R80-90,000 a month excluding overtime. This compared to R15-20,000 for other professionals like engineers, lawyers, accountants, etc. This reveals how unrealistically high public sector salaries are. It's well-known these workers, in all disciplines, earn more than their private sector peers - 30% is often given - for typically a lower standard of service. The unsustainable and irrational public employee costs over the past 30 years is partly to blame for SA being driven to a fiscal cliff in recent years.  According to the internet the average annual salary for an (experienced, private) general practitioner doctor is about R540,000. This excludes benefits like medical aid, pension etc that public workers take for granted. Private doctors must fund their own. The starting salary is around R222,000, similar to other junior professionals. They too, like white-collar workers in the private sector, work or ar...