November 4, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Dylan Stewart.
Making headlines:

The University of the Western Cape and students agree on free registration.

South Africa to name two more provinces as drought disaster areas.

And, The National Council of Provinces adopts the Democratic Alliance’s motion on drought relief.

 

The University of the Western Cape's Vice-Chancellor Tyrone Pretorius has agreed to meet some student demands at his institution, following weeks of national protests.

Student Representative Council (or SRC) president Akhona Landu said a meeting was held on Tuesday night where Pretorius addressed their demands.

The meeting resolved that there will be free registration for all students in the year 2016 moving forward. Students will be registering once at the beginning of the year, Landu said.

Pretorius had also agreed to the demand that the university's executive management should not get any further salary increments.

On the matter of outsourcing, the university said it would undertake a feasibility study to address the concerns around saving and curbing unnecessary exorbitant expenditure, Landu said.

 

South Africa's drought-hit northern Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces will be declared disaster areas for agriculture this week or next, an official said today.

This would make the provinces eligible for emergency assistance from the National Treasury.

Ben Kgakatsi, director of risk management in the department of agriculture, said that the sugar-growing province of KwaZulu-Natal would soon be declared a disaster area for agriculture. The province had already been declared as such for general water supplies.

 

The National Council of Provinces (or NCOP) have adopted a motion by the Democratic Alliance (or DA) that hopes to address potential challenges relating to the drought.

In his motion on Tuesday, DA member of the NCOP Roy Jankielsohn said that the severe drought "had the potential to impact negatively on food security and political stability". He highlighted some of the knock-on effects of the water crisis, emphasising food issues.  

He added that, besides ensuring food security, the agricultural sector in the country played an important role in ensuring social and economic stability through their income generation and job creation in rural communities.

The council called on government to support the agricultural community through drought relief and by ensuring that policy and legislative proposals do not cause additional stress on a sector that was already vulnerable.

Also making headlines:

According to former Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus, a wealth tax and an increase in VAT are not the only options to fund tertiary education.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter[@PolityZA]
That’s a roundup of news making headlines today