Afternoon Drive with John Maytham

Guest: Siviwe Gwarube

 President Cyril Ramaphosa last night announced country's move back to level 3 of the government’s risk-adjusted approach to the Covid-19 pandemic in a bid to slow down the rate of transmission.

He said Gauteng, the Free State, North West, and the Northern Cape are officially in the third wave – while the other 5 provinces are approaching that point.

Ramaphosa said over the past two weeks, the average number of daily new infections has doubled, with the country recording some 7,500 additional cases daily.

  He described Gauteng as the current epicentre of the pandemic and said hospital admissions due to the virus have been 59% higher over the past 14 days than the preceding two weeks.

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Guest: Christina Hagen

BirdLife South Africa says the attempt to re-establish an African Penguin colony on the south coast of the countrytook a big step forward this week with the release of 30 juvenile penguins at the De Hoop Nature Reserve.  It has partnered with CapeNature and SANCCOB in this bid to help save the endangered species.

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Guest: Dr Carmelita Jacobs

Earlier this week, Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande, announced the findings of a comprehensive study on the social impact of Covid-19 on students.

The report revealed that more than 65% of students who participated in the study had experienced mild to severe psychological distress during the pandemic.

We speak to Dr Carmelita Jacobs, an educational psychologist and lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology at Stellenbosch University.

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Guest: Mia Malan | Director at Bhekisisa Health Journalism Centre

With Covid-19 cases rising exponentially, we speak to the director of the Bhekisisa Health Journalism Centre, Mia Malan, about whether stricter lockdown measures are imminent.

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Guest: James Hodge | Chief economist at Competition Commission

South Africa's Competition Tribunal has confirmed a consent agreement in which Pick n Pay exclusivity provisions in lease agreements must be immediately scrapped against privately black-owned supermarkets, small businesses and speciality stores.

 

This means that supermarkets that are privately owned and controlled by historically disadvantaged persons can immediately access letting space in all shopping centres where a Pick n Pay store has exclusivity provisions in its lease agreement.

 

To find out more, we speak to James Hodge, the chief economist at the Competition Commission.

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Guest: Johan Olivier

Employers are now required to give their workers paid time off to get vaccinated against Covid-19, and if they experience negative side-effects that must be allowed to take paid sick leave without having to produce a medical certificate. 

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Guest: Angela Gomes

An woman in Masiphumelele is appealing to the community to assist her in setting up a community garden to help feed the many hungry children in the area.

Yandiswa Mazwane – affectionately known as Mamma Yandi ­– created the Masi Creative Hub which fed more than 250 children per day during lockdown.

She also runs a girls’ club and hosts a creche in Masi for outdoor playing and art classes. 

She is unfortunately not well today, so to find out more, we're joined by Angela Gomes from Jardim Family Organic Garden in Noordhoek who has been assisting with the community garden project.

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Guest: Dr Brenda Matthews, a South African educationist who specialises in bullying, writes in the Daily Maverick  that it is deeply entrenched in the country's school culture.

And she believes that so-called 'likes' on social media are a key driver in the problem.

Between April 2019 and March 2020, police recorded nine murders and 19 attempted murders as a result of bullying in schools.

And there have been several reports of suicides by school children as a result of this.

We speak to Dr Matthews.

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Guest: Prof Heidi Grunebaum 

The University of Western Cape is expanding its footprint in the city centre, and will be using a former derelict school building in Woodstock to become its first arts and humanities research hub. 

It says this is a significant step in breaking through the spatial and intellectual circumscriptions of apartheid for a university that had once been denied arts education.

To find out more, we speak to Prof Heidi Grunebaum, the new director of the university's Centre for Humanities Research, which will have programmes running in the building

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Guest:   Kevin McCallum

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