Know Your Public Protector | The role of the Public Protector South Africa
@PublicProtector

Accountability | Public Protector South Africa (PPSA) welcomes the strides made by the Free State government and the Mangaung Metro in implementing the remedial action aimed at rectifying the wrongful registration of over 1000 title deeds in Thaba Nchu.
@PublicProtector In her remedial action, Public Protector Adv. Kholeka Gcaleka ordered the Premier together with the Executive Mayor of Mangaung to issue a public apology to all beneficiaries in Thaba Nchu who had suffered prejudice. They also needed to submit an action plan to fix the problem.

Child Support | Public Protector South Africa will tomorrow, Tuesday 10 December, launch public hearings into undue delays and maladministration in processing childcare maintenance. The Gauteng leg starts tomorrow, as shown in the attached poster.
@PublicProtector @The_DSD The public hearings, which will be rolled out in all the 9 provinces at different dates until the end of Jan 2025, seek to give stakeholders and communities an opportunity to express their views relating to the challenges experienced in the processing of child maintenance claims.

#OversightBodies | It's all systems go for the start of the two-day conference aimed at highlighting the role of oversight and compliance bodies in state capacity building.
@PublicProtector @thedpsa @EUinSA The conference will focus on the role of oversight bodies across various sectors and on how compliance contributes to holding government and state organs accountable. Promoting good governance in public institutions ultimately leads to improved service delivery.

Accountability | Speaking at the special AGM of the SA Association of Public Accounts Committees (SAAPAC), @PublicProtector Adv. Kholeka Gcaleka said a third of the cases under investigation by the Public Protector SA deal with “conduct failure” as opposed to service failure. A significant portion of such conduct failure cases relate to the procurement activities of government institutions at all levels, she said. Some of irregularities include:
* the procurement of unauthorised medicines from Cuba by the Department of Defence.

Accountability | .@PublicProtector South Africa (PPSA) today presented its 2023/24 annual report before the Portfolio Committee on Justice & Constitutional Development. In a nutshell, the institution received over 10,000 cases, with 6,205 (2022: 5,366) of them resolved.

Ombuds Day 2024 | Today is the International Ombuds Day. Since 2017, every second Thursday of October people from around the world take time to celebrate ombuds. This year the theme of the is “Ombuds: Here to Hear You.”
@PublicProtector @AOMAOMBUDSMAN The International Ombuds Day serves as an additional opportunity to educate and raise awareness among the public about the history and practices of the ombuds profession including the various ombuds models, the roles they play, the services they offer, and the value they provide.

ACCOUNTABILITY | Public Protector SA (PPSA) this week released a number of reports based on the investigations that it conducted in Q2 of the 2024/25 financial year. Below is a snippet of the report on the installation of set top boxes to indigent households.

.@PublicProtector Adv. Kholeka Gcaleka (middle), flanked by Prof. Nadine Petersen, Executive Dean: Faculty of Education at UJ, and Prof. June Bam-Hutchison, Executive Director: Centre for Education Rights & Transformation at UJ at the Harmony of Hands Indaba yesterday.
@go2uj The Indaba, which was organised by the University of Johannesburg (UJ), sought to shine the spotlight on the rights of left-handed people who often encounter a world that is predominantly designed for right-handed people, leading to a range of challenges that affect their lives.

.@PublicProtector's Q1 Reports | Maladministration in R82m Mayibuye school construction exposed via @TheCitizen_Newscitizen.co.za/news/pp-report… CASE 3: Allegations that the functionaries of the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development (GDID) and the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) improperly constructed Mayibuye Primary School on an old sewer line without conducting a wetland study.

The Public Protector South Africa (PPSA) today issued its reports based on the investigations it had conducted in the first quarter of the 2024/25 financial year. During the period under review, the PPSA received 1,850 new complaints, of which 926 were early resolution, 571 related to lack of service delivery, while 88 of the cases related to allegations of maladministration and related improprieties in the conduct of state affairs.

In case you missed it | Summary of the @PublicProtector's investigation into systemic administrative deficiencies relating to gender-based violence (GBV) within the South Africa's justice system

Dark Sky Week | April 22 - 30 is the International Dark-Sky Week. For billions of years, all life has relied on Earth’s predictable rhythm of day and night. It’s encoded in the DNA of all plants and animals. Humans have radically disrupted this cycle by lighting up the night. Plants and animals depend on Earth’s daily cycle of light and dark rhythm to govern life-sustaining behaviors such as reproduction, nourishment, sleep and protection from predators, says the International Dark-Sky Association.
darksky.org/light-pollutio…

'New data from South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope helping to solve mysteries of the universe' | ‘Odd radio circles’ that baffled astronomers are likely explosions from distant galaxies | The New Daily thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/03/2… Astronomy’s newest mystery objects, odd radio circles or ORCs, have been pulled into sharp focus by an international team of astronomers using the world’s most capable radio telescopes.

Origins of the Universe | SA Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (SARAO's) Deputy Managing Director Dr Adrian Tiplady will be a keynote speaker at a webinar hosted by the Botswana International University of Science & Technology this Thursday, 10 June 2021. biust.ac.bw/events/the-squ… REMINDER: This evening at 6:30pm SARAO's Deputy Managing Director, Dr Adrian Tiplady will be a keynote speaker at a webinar hosted by the Botswana International University of Science & Technology. See the attached invitation on how to join the session.

In his first state visit to South Africa, President Emmanuel Macron said France would join the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in due course. French participation in the SKA project has been coordinated by the National Center for Scientific Research. @CNRS @SKA_telescope @SKA_Africa The SKA project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square kilometre (1 million square metres) of collecting area.

COVID-19 budget pressures threaten curiosity-driven science. That's a bad thing theconversation.com/covid-19-budge… via @TC_Africa "In the year since COVID-19 first emerged as global pandemic, my colleagues and I have watched scientific agility in action in South Africa on a number of fronts," says Vanessa McBride of the Office of Astronomy for Development: International Astronomical Union.

@jamesstyan You might be on to something here, James. The statement issued yesterday has all the hallmarks of the usual political interference (or political intervention depending on your school of thought) that has come to characterise the relationship between the SOCs and the government. @jamesstyan Based on past experiences, starting from the 2009 FIFA Conferederations Cup, the 2010 Fifa World Cup, local and national elections, amongst others, Pretoria has played a major role in the deferment of what engineers call maintenance philosophy, leading to huge maintenance backlog

Higher Education, Science & Innovation Minister, Dr. Blade Nzimande today visited the MeerKAT radio telescope in the Karoo, Northern Cape. This was the minister's first visit since his appointment in May 2019. The facility owned and operated by the SA Radio Astronomy Observatory. Minister Nzimande said he was impressed and "star-struck" by the amount of data that is being generated by the MeerKAT's 64 dishes, and the resultant scientific discoveries and /or solving of long-standing galactic mysteries.

The world’s largest radio telescope should open its skies to all nature.com/articles/d4158… Even though the SKA has only just been formally launched, it has already yielded some impressive results. In South Africa, MeerKAT, a 64-dish precursor telescope to the SKA that is already up and running, has taken the most detailed radio image yet of the centre of our Galaxy.

"We are excited by the fact that the SKA Observatory will be the first, and only, science inter-governmental organisation where Africa will play a strategic leading role," says Higher Education, Science & Innovation Minister Dr Blade Nzimande.

https://twitter.com/SKA_telescope/status/1357299083879342082

"The SKA project will act as a catalyst for science, technology and engineering innovation, providing commercial opportunities to local high-tech industry, and creating the potential to put Africa on the map as a global science and innovation partner," he added.
@dsigovza