September 2026, Author: Hassen Lorgat

These often-quoted words by Charles Dickens, which he wrote in his book Oliver Twist— where a young Oliver, “desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery,” is supported by others to go and ask for another bowl of porridge—are apt for this article. South Africa is in the process of employing 10,000 new labour inspectors to police workplaces—a welcome and long-overdue intervention Yet the dams that threaten entire communities, holding billions of litres of toxic sludge, are monitored by just a handful of inspectors. This is to be welcomed, but like Oliver Twist facing his guardians in front of the porridge pots, we must ask: why urgency here and not elsewhere, which too has been crying out for more?

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