Pravin Gordhan again evades accounting to SCOPA for the SAA funding debacle

The Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, has again evaded accounting to Parliament over the source of the R10.4 billion required by the South African Airways (SAA) Business Rescue Practitioners for the Business Rescue Plan that they have devised for the airline. This R10.4 billion is over and above the R16.4 billion already budgeted for in the 2020 budget.

Minister Gordhan and the SAA Business Rescue Practitioners, Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana, were summoned to appear before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) today but at the eleventh hour, with a mere 24 hours to go, the Minister sent a letter to the SCOPA Chairperson to request yet another delay until the week beginning on 26 October 2020 that he claims will be after the funding required for the SAA business rescue plan has been secured. It appears that the SCOPA Chairperson has agreed to this delay.

The week of the 26th of October is the week immediately following the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement due to be made by the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, on 21 October 2020. What this means is that by the time Minister Gordhan and the SAA Business Rescue Practitioners finally appear before SCOPA, if indeed they do actually deign to appear and actually answer questions, the funding will no doubt have been included in the Adjustments Budget.

For the past five months, Minister Gordhan has obfuscated about the source of the of the R10.4 billion required to keep the defunct airline afloat. He has failed to answer questions in committee and simply ignored requests for detailed written replies to questions.

This obfuscation has clearly been an attempt by the Minister to evade accountability on the government’s morally bankrupt decision to hand out billions to a vanity project in the face of increasing joblessness and poverty across the country.

Conflict of interest as Hawks’ Spokesperson receives R3 million from the NLC

In July 2020, the Limpopo Mirror reported that the Hangwani Mulaudzi Foundation which was founded in 2017 by Hawks Spokesperson, Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, received R3 million from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) to establish a sports centre for the community of Mashamba in Limpopo.

The publication stated “that the sport centre, which would comprise a block of toilets, an office and a change room facility, a borehole with running taps, and fencing, would be handed to the community in three months’ time”.

The DA has also seen an internal NLC document which confirms the name of the beneficiary , the amount disbursed and the date of payment to this organisation.

While the DA is supportive of initiatives that aim to develop our rural towns and villages, one has to question the fact that a senior member of the Hawks has received such funding from the NLC.

This is because the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) has recently handed over evidence related to Denzhe Primary Care scandal to the Hawks to investigate.

There is no doubt that this is a clear conflict of interest which has the potential to derail the entire investigation into large-scale looting at the NLC.

Therefore, the DA will be submitting parliamentary questions to both Ministers Ebrahim Patel and Bheki Cele to ascertain whether or not they were aware of the disbursement of funds at the time and whether or not they deem it to be a conflict of interest.

State of disaster and lockdown must end now

The DA calls on Ramaphosa’s cabinet to resist the urge to once again extend the state of disaster, which is otherwise due to end on Thursday 15 October. South Africa’s prolonged lockdown must end immediately and completely. Indeed, both should have ended five months ago. SA’ epidemiological models massively exaggerated the size of the covid risk.

The World Health Organisation has now echoed what the DA has been saying for months: that lockdowns are net harmful and unjustifiable. WHO has appealed to world leaders to stop locking down their countries and their economies.

The state of disaster undermines democracy, oversight, and policy certainty. Extending it will be no more than a continuation of the government’s attempt to use bad science to promote a climate of fear that gives false legitimacy to the ANC’s growing authoritarianism. It has massively enabled the theft of state resources, which is why the ANC government has been so reluctant to end it.

Of course, the real disaster is the state of our economy, which was already in an ANC-induced crisis before the pandemic hit. But it was dealt a deathblow by the ANC’s irrational, unscientific, unethical lockdown with its senseless, arbitrary regulations ineffectively targeting a single risk, a risk which is nowhere near as dangerous to our country as many other risks.

The WHO’s statement supports the DA’s position that this prolonged lockdown has been unjustifiable and that the economic devastation it caused could and should have been avoided.

The main things South Africa’s lockdown has achieved is a catastrophic increase in poverty, unemployment and inequality, with poor people and young people paying the highest price for what has largely been an ineffective policy. Three million jobs have been lost. Schoolchildren have lost around 40% of their school days this year. Hunger is widespread, a long-term consequence of which will be childhood stunting. All with terrible consequences for public mental and physical health.

Level 1 lockdown continues to harm South Africa. It continues to damage certain sectors of the economy, particularly tourism and the alcohol industry, and it continues to interrupt education, with no benefits to society. This charade must end now.

Specifically, the DA calls on government to:

  • Lift all restrictions on international travel. The tourism industry is being unnecessarily damaged as a result of these.
  • Lift all restrictions on the trade of alcohol.
  • Lift the curfew, which is an unnecessary invasion of civil liberties including an unnecessary restriction of people’s freedom of movement.
  • Allow schooling to return to normal operations.

The ANC government has brought SA to the precipice of economic ruin, to avoid a single risk which is small relative to the myriad other risks we as a nation faces. This government remains the biggest risk to the country’s wellbeing.  Nothing which gives them more power should be supported.

Ramaphosa’s words on farm murders ring hollow, we need to see action

746 day ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the world via an interview in New York, that no farmers were being killed in South Africa. Yet in the year he made that claim, there were 394 attacks and 56 murders. In 2019, there were 419 attacks and 56 murders. And in 2020 there have been some 200 attacks, and over 50 murders to date.

In June, the Democratic Alliance (DA) launched an awareness campaign and asked the President not only to retract that statement, but additionally to apologise to the men and women in our rural areas who are living in fear while still working 24/7 to feed our country.

Only now, today, because the flood of fury and anger has finally broken its banks, has President Ramaphosa been moved to respond. He referred to the murder of young Brendin Horner – who was horribly tortured to death. But failed to also include the hundreds of others who have been murdered since he claimed there were no farmers being murdered in our country.

He then said Brendin’s killing “should anger and upset every one of us”.  What country does the President live in? It can’t possibly be the one we live in – where farm murders are glorified? Where farmers are vilified on a daily basis?

Mr President, you are quite correct that the majority of victims of violent crimes are black and poor, but surely someone has told you that it is four times more dangerous to be on a farm than in any other area of South Africa?

We are already 26 years into our democracy, and only now does the President notice that we have a huge task to bring an end to murder, assault, robbery and rape? Is it that he has only recently noticed – despite our speaking out about these farm attacks for over 20 years? Did it take our concerted campaign that we began in June, to finally bring this to his attention?

Or did the fulminating signs of a potential civil war in response to these tortures and murders finally catch the President’s attention?

The President’s newsletter today is a case of too little, too late. Had he ever shown the slightest care for our farmers, farm workers, or their families – they may not today be so terribly at risk that they are leaving our country in droves. They are moving into the welcoming arms of many other countries – Malawi, Zambia, the USA, the UK and much of Europe – growing food for them, and no longer for us. Since 1994 we have dropped from 120 000 commercial farmers to 38 000.

And this weak newsletter with its hollow words is all the President can offer.

Those of us without bodyguards know what is going on. The whole country knew what a powder keg Senekal was. Yet somehow the President and the South African Police Service (SAPS) didn’t notice until it was too late. Instead, in the face of murder after murder after murder, Ramaphosa spouts homilies.

South Africans do not need a lecture from the President. They want solutions. They want certainty that their President will ensure that these murders are declared Priority and Hate Crimes. They want to see funding go to the rural police stations so that farmers may actually sleep at night rather than patrol. They need the President’s promise that there will be investigations when farmers report that police are in on the stock theft syndicates.

Instead, the President tells farming communities that private security must work with the SAPS. Sir, they already do.

The President should dismiss whoever it is advising him, and spend a few days speaking with those who live and work in terror on the ground.

Ramaphosa should retract his 2018 statement, apologise, and listen to our farmers – and in case his advisor hasn’t told him, our farmers are white, black, coloured and Indian.  And all of them are in terrible danger and need equal protection from the police.

DA lays incitement charges against EFF’s Malema and Paulsen 

Please find the attached soundbite  and video by Natasha Mazzone MP, Chief Whip of the Official Opposition. Pictures can be found here, here , here and here

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has today laid criminal charges at the Cape Town Central Police station against the EFF leader, Julius Malema, and EFF Member of Parliament, Nazier Paulsen, over social media posts that incite violence.

These charges follow tweets by Malema this past week which state “Magwala a chechele morago! (Cowards move to the back) Fighters attack!” and a picture of a machine gun. His initial tweet was followed by a post by Paulsen which included a picture of him with a machine gun captioned “Get ready!”.

The DA strongly condemns this reckless attempt by the EFF leadership to further violence at this increasingly delicate time in South Africa’s democratic dispensation.

We have already seen numerous posts over the weekend of EFF followers posting pictures of guns and firing shots in videos in support of Malema’s utterances.

The EFF is showing its true colours. Malema and his thugs have no regard for the rule of law, their only contribution to the South African political landscape has been chaos, violence and a clear attempt to destroy democratic institutions.

The DA has already referred both Malema and Paulsen to Parliament’s Ethics Committee to request an investigation for these inflammatory utterances which are a serious offense of their Oath of Office.

The South African Police Services (SAPS) can no longer sit on its hands and ignore Malema’s violence. Especially in light of the swift action and vigor in which the police pursued the alleged instigator of the violence at Senekal.

The ball is now in Parliament and the police’s court to hold Malema and his band of quasi revolutionaries to account for their brazen incitement of violence. For too long the EFF has gotten away with this kind of behaviour, which has made them increasingly emboldened to say and do what they want.

#Jetgate: DA asks Treasury to clarify ANC‘s undervalued payment

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to National Treasury to ascertain whether the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, was consulted by the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in terms of the Defence Act before she and the ANC went on a trip to Zimbabwe aboard a South African Air Force (SAAF) jet to meet with ZANU-PF.

We also sought to determine if Treasury was involved and approved Minister Mapisa-Nqakula’s calculations of total costs invoiced to the ANC for the flight.

The Defence Act is clear, Section 80(3)(a)(i) states that, the Minister of Defence must first consult the Minister of Finance before allowing conveyance of any person who is not an officer or employee of the State on board a SAAF aircraft.

However, there is no reference in any of the two reports submitted by Minister Mapisa-Nqakula to President Cyril Ramaphosa of any consultation with the Finance Minister. If, as we suspect, Minister Mboweni was not consulted, then the use of the SAAF jet by the ANC delegation results in irregular, wasteful and unauthorised expenses.

The DA wants to know what steps Treasury will take against Minister Mapisa-Nqakula and the ANC’s blatant and unauthorised abuse of State resources.

Additionally, as far as the costs are concerned, the DA wants to know if Treasury was consulted by Minister Mapisa-Nqakula to determine a reasonable amount the ANC must pay back for abusing State resources.

The DA is not convinced that the R105 545, 48 calculated by the Minister is sufficient. We have found this amount to be disproportionate as it excludes other expenses.

For an example:

  • The R86 000 per hour confirmed by the Minister of Defence to the President excludes the costs related to the landing rights and parking of the Falcon 900 for nearly 24 hours, the costs related to onboard food and drinks, as well as the costs related to the pilots and onboard staff.
  • We are of the view that the direct costs for this junket must include: R86 000 x 2.7 hours = R232 000 + onboard entertainment + landing rights + parking on the airport + costs related to the pilots and onboard staff.
  • In addition to this, the official passenger list indicated the Minister plus 6 members of the ANC’s NEC were on board, which correlates with the 7 people she indicated in her letter to her Zimbabwean counterpart on 7 September 2020 when she requested a visit to Harare.

We are of the view that Minister Mapisa-Nqakula grossly under-calculated the total cost and we hope that the Minister of Finance will be able to provide us with a much clearer picture on how these determinations were made and whether he supports such calculations.

The ANC should pay back all the money for the flight, and not just a small percentage calculated by a Minister who has already proven that she would put her party before her country.

As the DA, we are committed to accountability and unlike President Cyril Ramaphosa, we will not accept a report that is riddled with discrepancies at face value.

So desperate is the President Ramaphosa and the ANC to hide the truth of this abuse, that they disregarded Parliament’s programme to prevent Ramaphosa from accounting on #Jetgate.

The President’s call for a Joint Sitting of Parliament on Thursday, is a last-minute attempt to avoid questions and accountability on this highly problematic trip.

President Ramaphosa cannot avoid accountability in a scandal he is very much part of. The truth must come out.

DA calls for SIU probe after emerging Black farmers blow the lid on corrupt land reform practices

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will write to President Cyril Ramaphosa to request that he authorises an urgent probe by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) into allegations that a group of successful emerging Black farmers in Mpumalanga have been harassed and face eviction from farms by corrupt officials in the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), simply because they refused to pay bribes.

These emerging farmers have endured many years of harassment inflicted by these officials who are in influential and decision-making roles at the department’s Mpumalanga office.

The DA has been working alongside these farmers and have evidence of the relentless tug-of-war they have been subjected to by these corrupt officials within the DALRRD. We will submit this evidence to the President in order to support our request for the SIU to investigate and for these farmers to get justice.

Previous attempts by the farmers for the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, to intervene failed because she did not give the farmers’ request for intervention the required thought and care.

They also wrote to the Rural Development and Land Reform Director-General, Mdu Shabane, who unjustly referred them back to the very same provincial offices central to their disgruntlement.

If Minister Didiza was serious about helping the farmers she would have set up an independent panel to ensure that these claims are investigated without fear or favour. Her failure to do that amount to failure to put an end to ANC’s corruption and patronage that has been blocking land reform in South Africa for many years.

This scandal is yet another example of the corruption and exploitation by dishonest politicians and elites which continues to hinder emerging farmers from owning the land they have successfully farmed for years.

We hope President Ramaphosa will take heed of our call and authorise an SIU investigation immediately so that truth can be uncovered, and corruption exposed. As requested before, he must also make all previous SIU reports on land reform public. It is the only way to get to the bottom of corruption in this department.

The fact that Black emerging farmers have been subjected to this kind of abuse proves that the ANC is the obstacle to land reform, not the Constitution. The ANC does not support emerging Black farmers’ right to own the land but simply wants to keep these farmers in their control so that they can attend to their narrow and selfish interests.

While millions suffered under brutal ANC lockdown, nearly 60% of government employees went on paid leave

At precisely the moment that South Africans needed a capable state more desperately than ever to deliver everything from TERS unemployment payments to SASSA grants and emergency procurement of protective equipment, the ANC government decided to send nearly 60% of all public servants on paid leave. This shocking fact was revealed in response to a parliamentary question posed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to the Minister of Public Service and Administration, Senzo Mchunu. According to Mchunu’s reply, 648 313 out of the 1 169 580 people employed by national and provincial government departments decided to take time off from work during lockdown level 3 between 1 June and 17 August 2020.

Half of all absentees – 327 836 – went on paid vacation during the most acute economic crisis this country has witnessed in at least a generation. A staggering 213 291 government officials also took fully paid sick leave during this period, equal to 18% of the entire government workforce. Another 72 911 public servants used the lockdown to take special paid leave to catch up on their studies and examinations as the private economy imploded due to the destructive lockdown.

Are South Africans supposed to simply believe the outlandish claim that nearly a quarter of the entire government workforce suddenly became ill or had exams scheduled right when the country needed true public servants more than ever?

If ever there was indisputable evidence that the ANC government’s cadre deployment and patronage politics are rapidly collapsing South Africa’s public service, it is this: while at least 2.2 million people in the productive private sector lost all they had during one of the world’s most brutal lockdowns, the government could not even be bothered to ensure that its fully-paid employees showed up for work.

The callousness of a government robbing South Africans of effective service delivery during an unprecedented economic emergency caused by the policies of that same government, simply beggars belief.

The latest revelations by the DA comes after we earlier exposed the fact that the government spent R11 billion on salaries for 84 337 public servants to not work during the lockdown. Adding up the 84 337 officials who, according to Mchunu, “had their workloads reduced significantly” to the 648 313 who went on paid leave during lockdown level 3 means that up to 732 644 – or 63% of the entire national and provincial government workforce – could not be bothered to show up for work in the midst of a national crisis.

While millions of South Africans were forced into a struggle for survival because President Cyril Ramaphosa stood on high and demanded that citizens sacrifice all they had in the name of his disastrous lockdown, the ANC’s incapable state seized the opportunity to go on paid vacation.

But that is not the end of the sheer arrogance and entitlement of Ramaphosa’s government officials. After getting comfortable during their taxpayer-funded lockdown vacations, many of these same government cadres are still not back at work. Instead, many have now embarked on a strike for higher wages, despite the fact that government employees already received salary hikes of 66% after inflation over the past decade. As a result, South Africa now already spends over half of all tax revenue just to pay the salaries of public servants.

In addition to submitting follow-up question on the outrageous absentee rates, the DA looks forward to challenging Minister Mchunu and his fat cat union allies, including NEHAWU, during a parliamentary committee meeting on Friday, 16 October. The meeting was called after NEHAWU submitted a list of demands to Parliament, which calls for the very same public officials who couldn’t even be bothered to show up for work during a national crisis to be granted yet another above-inflation salary increase. Unlike public sector unions and their ANC allies, the DA will use Friday’s committee meeting to demonstrate that we will not sit idly by while a rapidly failing and incapable state seeks to commit fiscal treason against our country.

ANC is protecting Ramaphosa from accounting to Parliament on #Jetgate

The President’s call for a Joint Sitting of Parliament next week Thursday, is a clear, last-minute attempt on Ramaphosa’s part to avoid questions and accountability on the recent diplomatic trip to Zimbabwe by an ANC delegation.

The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) had, for over the past month, an oral question session with the President scheduled for Thursday, 15 October.

It seems that only once the President and the ANC had seen the published question paper with a question from the Democratic Alliance (DA) on #Jetgate, the Presidency and Parliament colluded to stall the oral question session.

The Presiding Officers of Parliament accepted the President’s call for a Joint Sitting while ignoring the clear conflict the Joint Sitting would have on the Parliament programme.

When I asked the Chief Whip of the NCOP during a Whippery meeting on Friday of the new date for the oral question session with the President, there was no definitive answer. Despite the DA suggesting other reasonable days and times of the same week for the Joint Sitting, the ANC would not accept any of them.

It is clear that the ANC are closing ranks to prevent the truth of #Jetgate from coming out as both the Ramaphosa and Magashule factions are implicated in this quagmire.

It is further obvious that Ramaphosa does not wish to be confronted with another scandal of his administration in an oral question session. One is reminded of the time he lied to Parliament two years ago about his son’s involvement with Bosasa.

The Joint Sitting is nothing less than a way to prevent the President from accountability, and allow him to grandstand on plans to supposedly save the South African economy that was broken by no one except the ANC national government from their disastrous, illogical lockdown.

The DA will therefore be writing to the President’s office to request a copy of his schedule for next week to ascertain whether if Ramaphosa is really too busy to have both a Joint Sitting and oral question session within the same week.

The truth will come out, whether the ANC and Ramaphosa like it or not.

DA to lay criminal charges against Malema and Paulsen for inciting violence

Tomorrow the Democratic Alliance (DA) will lay criminal charges against the EFF leader, Julius Malema, and EFF Member of Parliament, Nazier Paulsen, for social media post that incite violence.

On Wednesday Malema tweeted: “Magwala a chechele morago! (Cowards move to the back) Fighters attack!” and as a follow-up, over the weekend, he tweeted a picture of a machine gun.

His tweets were in response to a protests by farmers in Senekal in the Frees State last week.

Echoing Malema’s brazen incitement of violence, Western Cape EFF MP posted a picture with a machine gun captioned “Get ready!”.

These inflammatory utterances are a serious offence, especially by members of Parliament who are bound by an Oath of Office.

In what constitutional democracy in the world will elected public representatives be allowed to openly and.publicly incite racial warfare? The DA will not allow it to happen here. This kind of rhetoric has no place in our country

We call on the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, to act against Malema and Paulsen and ensure that their war talk, and incitement to commit violence is investigated criminally.

We also call on President Cyril Ramaphosa to publicly condemn the EFF, and for Parliament to investigate and take necessary action against them.

For too long Julius Malema and his thugs have gotten away with this kind of behaviour. In the abscence of accoutability for the actions and utterances, they feel increasingly emboldened to say and do what they want.

South Africans are sick of it.

It is time that Julius Malema and his gang of thugs face accountability for their actions and utterances. It is time that the Minister of Police and the President of the country makes their voices heard. The DA will not rest until this happens.

I will lay charges tomorrow at the Cape Town police station and release the details of this in the morning.