Publisher

Youth matters

A group of youths from the Driefontein community brought joy to a pensioner along the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast when they built him a new home.

A better life

Youth matters

Home Affairs Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, has called on South Africans, especially the youth, to apply for IDs. This will give them the ability to register to vote in the 2011 Municipal Elections on 18 May.

Winning letter - Crime is our nightmare

Crime is one of the greatest nightmares our nation faces every day. It’s sad that most of us turn a blind eye on incidents of crime. But ignoring crime only lasts until you or your loved ones become the victims of crime.

It will also allow SASSA to achieve its objective of standardising its services and reducing overall costs.

The agency said the contract would run over a period of five years at a cost of about R10 billion, with the winning bidder expected to distribute grants to the value of about R500 billion over the same period.

Evaluation

The department spends 37 per cent of its annual budget funding projects aimed at minimising poverty among disadvantaged communities in the province.

“We have people on the ground who are helping us locate such families and investigate the situation. If our investigation reveals that the family qualify to get assistance, we intervene,” department spokesperson Ronnie Masilela said in an interview on Tuesday.

Amplats will build 12 000 houses in North West and 8 000 in Limpopo over the next 10 years, as part of the Each-One-Settle-One campaign, launched by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale last year to help government address the housing backlog estimated at more than 2,3 million.

This has resulted in many families being forced to live in poorly constructed houses in unsuitable areas that exposed them to floods, health hazards and fire. Government has built over 3 million subsidised housing units since 1994. In this regard, South Africa is the only country with such a rate of delivery.

Thanks to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, as well as good neighbourliness and a willingness to learn, a group of former farm workers in Limpopo became successful cucumber farmers and their business is still growing.

It has been a case of "sweet returns" for a KwaZulu-Natal North Coast farmer who ensured that his investment in a sugar cane farming business did not leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Although Joseph Mbuyazi only started leasing 187 hectares of land about three years ago, his Big Cedar Trading 250 sugar-cane farming business is growing rapidly.