Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
On eskom lies
Eskom has admitted it lied when it defended making payments totalling R1.6bn to Gupta linked financial advisory firm Trillian and global consultancy McKinsey. In June Eskom strongly defended the payments in response to questions posed by Business Day following the release of a damning report into Trillian by advocate Geoff Budlender. At the time Eskom said another global management consultancy, Oliver Wyman, had conducted an external review and concluded that “all payments” were “based on prudent costs incurred and value created”. But on Monday Eskom made an about-turn and conceded this information was false.
