TERS fraud: What is happening with charged UIF officials?

It has now been over a month since disciplinary hearings for 7 Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) officials – implicated in TERS fraud – took place, and the Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, is refusing to report on the outcome.

The disciplinary hearings followed a recommendation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) that charges be brought against three senior- and four middle managers for contravening supply chain management regulations relating to the payout of the TERS benefit. The SIU investigation itself followed findings by the Auditor-General that, among other things, the UIF had paid R30 million to people with invalid ID numbers, over R40 million to state employees who were ineligible for the TERS benefit, as well as large sums to prisoners and the deceased.

Members of the UIF’s suspended top brass – including the Commissioner and the chief financial officer – have been sitting at home on full pay since last September at a combined monthly cost of R450 551.39. Meanwhile, thousands of workers are still struggling to get their TERS benefits as the UIF’s systems are closed until 1 April due to financial year-end.

Last month, at a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour, MPs were told that charge sheets had been compiled and handed to the implicated officials. Furthermore, presiding officers and prosecutors had been appointed for disciplinary hearings which were scheduled to take place from 19 February 2021 to 26 February 2021.

When I submitted a parliamentary question to Minister Nxesi asking for information on the officials appearing at the disciplinary hearings, their designations, the charges against them, and the names of the presiding officers and prosecutors, he refused to answer – claiming that the information requested was “highly sensitive in nature and possibly prejudicial to the officials”.

This constitutes a dereliction of duty on the Minister’s part. There is no reason for him to shy away from accountability and transparency on the matter. He owes it to the workers – many of whom have borne the brunt of the UIF’s ineptitude – to play open cards and demonstrate that there are going to be serious consequences for UIF officials guilty of malfeasance.

The DA therefore challenges the Minister to make this information publicly available as a matter of urgency.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

An illegal bailout for SAA Technical? 

The DA has submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, to establish what the source of funds for the payment of SAA Technical (SAAT) salaries for March 2021 is to be or have been sourced from.

Reports indicate that SAAT has run out of cash and does not have sufficient funds to pay salaries for March 2021 and the following months. Reports indicate that as at 25 March, SAAT had a mere R10 million in cash available which, given the massive overheads and excessive staff compliment, is a fraction of the cash required to meet staff salaries and other current liabilities.

The SAA Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) who claim to have no jurisdiction over SAAT and other SAA subsidiaries, never-the-less included a massive R2,7 billion taxpayer bailout for the SAA subsidiaries in the R10,5 billion business rescue plan bailouts. According to the Minister, this R2,7 billion bailout will only be available once a special Appropriations Bill has been passed by Parliament sometime later this year and probably not before the end of May 2021. This means that SAAT will be without the necessary funds to pay salaries and other operating expenses not only for March 2021 but also for April and May 2021.

So where will the money for salaries come from?

There would seem to be three potential, although not all legal, methods of bailing out SAAT:

  1. The most likely source of ready cash for salaries will be the cash remaining in SAA hands from the R7,8 billion bailouts recently paid to airline. The use of these bailout funds for the SAAT salaries will be in contravention of the conditions attached to the bailouts paid to SAA.
  2. If commercial banks make short-term loans to SAAT on the basis that the R2,7 billion bailout will be made available to SAAT by Parliament it will be an arrogant slap in the face for hard pressed South Africans who are battling daily to feed the families.
  3. If any government guarantees, without parliamentary approval, for commercial banks to make bailout funds available to SAAT, it will illustrate the need for the Private Members Bill, Public Finance Management Amendment Bill, to be passed by Parliament. This, to prevent irresponsible government guarantees being issued by the ANC as they have done for SAA, Eskom and other SOEs.

The DA will oppose any attempt by the government to steamroll Parliament to approve the R2,7 billion bailout proposed by the ANC. We will do everything in our power to block the appropriation of R2,7 billion for SAA subsidiaries.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

DA calls for SIU probe into Arts Council’s dodgy administration of Covid funding

The DA will write to President Cyril Ramaphosa to request an urgent Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into alleged Covid-19 corruption at the National Arts Council (NAC) regarding the distribution of aid for individuals and companies during the pandemic.

There have been numerous complaints and allegations regarding the NAC’s conduct during the past year, which has nearly decimated the arts and culture sector in South Africa. The most recent maleficence regarding the maladministration of the R300 million the Presidential Economic Stimulus Programme (PESP) relief funding and the NAC’s efforts to break contracts with more than 600 artists, has resulted in multiple sit-ins at various artistic and cultural institutions across the country, with the initial sit-in at the NAC’s Braamfontein offices continuing to this day.

The DA has also written to the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, to request an independent forensic investigation regarding the distribution of the PESP funds, and challenges the Minister to give direct feedback to the artists at the NAC on 7 April 2021 when the parliamentary portfolio committee for sports, arts and culture conducts its oversight at the Council.

The DA has obtained a list of approved NAC beneficiaries compiled by the South African United Cultural and Creative Industries Federation (SAUCCIF), one of the organizations that helps the Council in assisting beneficiaries. This list seems to confirm recent reports that individuals and companies linked to producer Arthur Mafokate have unduly benefited from Covid-19 aid to the tune of R10 million with news breaking earlier this week of musician Chomee’s company, Divatainment, receiving R2 179 000 for an online broadcasting development program that never saw the light of day.

Artists and individuals from the arts and culture sector have continually raised their numerous concerns regarding the NAC and the implementation of relief aid since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. Only a Minister completely out of touch with an industry whose interests he’s supposed to represent would be blind and deaf to the unfolding tragedy.

Despite Minister Mthethwa’s recent assurances that senior officials implicated in the mismanagement of NAC funds would be disciplined, he has consistently shown his disinterest in saving the industry and protecting its artists. President Ramaphosa must step in urgently before there is no industry left to rise from ashes of the NAC’s ineptitude.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

Lockdown Scorecard: Government gets a resounding ‘FAIL’

Saturday marked exactly one year since South Africa went into lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19. The DA has therefore produced a scorecard rating each Minister together with their department between “A” and “F” based on their work during the pandemic.

Covid-19 presented a massive challenge to the South African government and while a few ministers stepped up to the occasion, the majority buckled under the pressure.

After a year of assessing the government’s response to the crisis, here is a scorecard of various ministers and their departments’ performances as well as that of the President and his Deputy:

The Class Captains

President Cyril Ramaphosa (E): In the last year, the President has tried desperately to provide leadership to a country in troubled waters. “Family Meetings” on occasion inspired, sometimes entertained, but mostly exasperated. He has often passed the buck: rising unemployment figures are the fault of the pandemic or of South Africans who buy cooked chicken – everyone except him and his cabinet. Covid exposed exactly how weak Ramaphosa’s position within the ANC is as he has failed time and again to act against wayward Ministers.

Deputy President David Mabuza (F): It is hard to grade an absent pupil but an “F” seems more than fair.

The Star Students

Naledi Pandor – International Relations Minister (B): While not without its glitches, the Minister must be commended for leading a global repatriation effort for South Africans who were stranded at various ports across the globe.

The In-Betweeners

Angie Motshekga – Basic Education (C): The pandemic highlighted the chronic problems at schools such as a lack of water and poor infrastructure. This was also amplified by the 44.1% real matric pass rate. With regards to the delivery of PPE, tenderpreneurs delivered poor quality PPE to schools as tender processes were not streamlined. And while the temporary employment of 300 000 teacher assistants was a great initiative, the Department failed to pay many of them timeously.

Tito Mboweni – Finance (C): While the Minister must be commended for managing to rein in public debt to some degree and cutting unnecessary expenditure here and there during the lockdown, the mistakes of the Minister simply cannot be ignored. SAA and the Land Bank still received handouts at the expense of social services. Treasury also failed private businesses and failed dismally in ensuring timeous payments to secure vaccines.

Thoko Didiza – Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development (D): The disbursement of Covid relief funds to distressed farmers was erratic and the criteria potentially excluded a lot of small scale farmers. The pandemic also amplified the Department’s land reform failures as witnessed by the illegal evictions of farmers. However, the Department must be commended for generally ensuring that the sector remained open during the lockdown.

The Failures

Zweli Mkhize – Health (E): While we appreciate the mammoth task faced by the Minister, his Department failed to prepare the health system during the lockdown. This was particularly evident in the heartbreaking stories from Eastern Cape hospitals. We also saw rampant PPE corruption take hold of the country. Even Mkhize himself was drawn into nepotism and corruptions claims. The most prominent failure of the Department however has been the failure to implement a real vaccination rollout. At the current rate of inoculations, South Africa will reach its herd immunity target in 10 years’ time.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs (F): Since the declaration of the National State of Disaster in March 2020, Minister Dlamini-Zuma, has arbitrarily extended the emergency measure on a monthly basis using a procedural flow in the Disaster Management Act. These extensions have given the national government wide-ranging powers over the lives of citizens, with almost no limits, and little to no oversight from Parliament. She has also refused to be held to account be Parliament.

Bheki Cele – Police (F): Instead of attempting to do their job within the bounds of the Constitution, SAPS’s behaviour during the lockdown was characterised by officers abusing their powers and violating the rights of South Africans. Minister Cele was actively encouraging heavy-handed policing. To make matters worse, the DNA backlog has hit the 200 000 mark recently. There is also a clear leadership crisis at SAPS with Cele and the Police Commissioner openly blaming one another for the mess.

Lindiwe Zulu – Social Development (F): The Minister thought it wise to block food distribution by NGOs. Due to court action brought by the DA, this decision was reversed. The R350 unemployment grant process was riddled with problems and vulnerable South Africans were forced to sleep and queue outside SASSA offices to reapply for their disability grants. We also recall the Minister addressing these applicants from a police Casspir, once again proving how out of touch she is.

Other Ministers who form part of “The Failures” group include Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula (E) who lurched from one scandal to another in the enforcement of lockdown restrictions; Thulas Nxesi (F) who simply failed to oversee the implementation of a proper system for UIF; and Ebrahim Patel (F) for his frivolous bans on the sale of flip-flops and roast chicken.

To see the full government scorecard please see here.

The pandemic exposed the deficiencies within the government and how the years of mismanagement, corruption and cadre deployment have hollowed out the State and its ability to effectively react to a national crisis. Covid also highlighted the lack of political leadership and vision in the Executive.

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DA exposes ANC’s desperate attempt to hide the truth about cadre deployment and state capture

In the interests of transparency, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is today releasing the full set of correspondence between us and the African National Congress (ANC) following our submission of a request in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) last month.

Click here to download the correspondence.

The purpose of our PAIA application is to assist the Zondo Commission with its investigation by obtaining the full records of all cadre deployment meetings and decisions taken since President Cyril Ramaphosa became the chairperson of the committee in 2013 – including all meeting minutes, records of decision, attendance registers, documents produced or considered, Whatsapp and email conversations, and communication with government officials.

Unfortunately, and in contrast to Ramaphosa’s repeated claims that the ANC supports the work of the Zondo Commission, the office of secretary-general Ace Magashule has refused to grant the DA’s request to make public the cadre deployment records. Instead, Magashule’s office – through the ANC’s legal adviser – came up with a series of arrogant and dishonest excuses. In effect, the ANC’s response to our request was to pretend that the request itself does not exist.

The DA submitted our PAIA request on 22 February, which means that the ANC had until 24 March to grant or refuse the request. By responding with rank obfuscation and deceit, the ANC triggered clause 58 of PAIA, which clearly stipulates that a request is deemed to be refused if no decision around granting the request is communicated within 30 days.

The DA will now send our full correspondence with the ANC directly to the Zondo Commission. The ANC’s arrogant and dismissive response to our quest for transparency should make it clear to the investigators that the ANC is determined to hide the ugly truth about cadre deployment’s role in state capture from the Commission and South African citizens.

The ANC’s determination to hide the truth makes it all the more urgent that the Zondo Commission should immediately subpoena the ANC to make public all of the cadre deployment records that the DA has asked for. This must be done ahead of Ramaphosa’s scheduled appearance before the Commission at the end of April, so that the Commission can have all the relevant information at hand in demanding answers from Ramaphosa over his role as chairman of the deployment committee at the height of state capture looting between 2013 and 2017.

The credibility of the Zondo Commission and, with it, South Africa’s entire quest to eradicate state capture and corruption, depends on exposing the full truth of how the ANC used cadre deployment to circumvent the law in order to appoint corrupt loyalists into positions of power. Exposing and investigating the system of cadre deployment goes to the very heart of the Commission’s mandate, and the DA will use every avenue at our disposal to assist the Commission and ensure that the full truth of how this evil practice corrupted our state is exposed and eradicated.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

No more national lockdowns, alcohol bans and curfews.

As the country braces for yet another televised address by the President tomorrow with the expectation of a return to some version of a higher lockdown level over Easter, the DA urges government to trust science, to apply common sense and to make use of its own proven localised plan to contain Covid-19 transmission.

Exactly one year into our lockdown ordeal, the full picture of the damage caused by nation-wide lockdowns has become clear. We know that these lockdowns were not used for their stated intention. We know that, outside of the Western Cape, our country’s healthcare capacity was not significantly augmented, and we know that our track and trace programme never got ahead of community transmission. But yet government persisted with this crude response to the virus because it was the only weapon they seemed to have in their armoury.

Despite all the talk about balancing the protection of lives and livelihoods, it is a balancing act government got very wrong. Lives lost to poverty, hunger and other undetected or untreated disease are just as tragic as lives lost to Covid-19.

With our economy on its knees, more than 40% of South Africans unemployed and poverty and hunger at levels never seen before in our country, we simply cannot afford the blunt tool of nation-wide lockdowns. We should not be considering blanket bans on the sale of alcohol or curfew extensions that achieve nothing other than the decimation of the restaurant industry. The devastation wrought by the past year of lockdown – particularly in the hospitality and tourism sectors – will take years to overcome. With many more businesses still on the verge of collapse, we should be doing all we can to save every single job in these sectors.

In the absence of a mass vaccination programme, the best tool in the fight against a possible third wave of Covid-19 transmission is personal responsibility when it comes to mask wearing, hygiene, social distancing and the protection of those who are most vulnerable to the virus. Programmes aimed at effecting behaviour change are effective in slowing transmission without adversely affecting the economy and destroying livelihoods.

In addition to this it is prudent, as we head into the Easter weekend, to also limit the size of gatherings, and particularly indoor gatherings, as these have the biggest impact on the spread of the virus.

What government should also make use of is their very own localised lockdown plan, as we saw last year when Nelson Mandela Bay and parts of the Garden Route were kept under higher lockdown levels due to surges in transmissions there. The data is there for government to use. Where cases, admissions and deaths are declining, as they are in the Western Cape, it makes no scientific sense to impose stricter lockdown levels and threaten businesses and jobs through bans and curfews.

While it is too late to save many thousands of businesses that did not survive the past twelve months of lockdown, it is not yet too late to save those that are now on the verge of ruin. That should be government’s top priority. That, and acquiring the quantities of vaccines needed to return our society to a semblance of normality.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

DA urges SA government to intervene as Namibia refuse entry for twin daughters of same-sex couple  

The DA calls on the South African government to intervene in the Namibian government’s refusal to issue travel documents to , who were born in South Africa via a surrogate.

The Namibian Ministry of Home Affairs is reportedly refusing to issue Lühl’s infant daughters travel documents as it wants “genetic proof” that Lühl is the biological father of his and husband, Guillermo Delgado’s, children. The twins currently have South African birth certificates which recognise both Lühl and Delgado as the parents.

Lühl and his daughters are now unable to enter Namibia due to the homophobic laws of the country which do not recognize same-sex marriages.

The DA calls on the South African government to act on its foreign policy which is centred around the protection and promotion of human rights on the African continent. Ministers Naledi Pandor and Aaron Motsoaledi must use the government’s diplomatic channels to stop this discrimination and infringement on the human rights of this couple and other same-sex couples across the continent.

The DA remains committed to ensuring that the rights and dignity of the LGBTQIA+ community of South Africa and the continent is respected and protected. We urge the Namibian government to do what is right.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status

DA calls on Ramaphosa to rebuke Zuma’s latest attack on Judiciary

The DA condemns former President Jacob Zuma’s latest attack on the Judiciary. In a statement issued late last night, he warned of a “judicial dictatorship” emerging and he also appeared to encourage South Africans to rise up against “judicial corruption”.

We call on President Cyril Ramaphosa to clearly and emphatically state whether he and his party, the ANC, support Zuma’s attempts to discredit the Judiciary and the Zondo Commission of Inquiry. Any further silence from President Ramaphosa could well be construed as support of Zuma’s disregard for the Judiciary and the rule of law.

In his statement, Zuma also indicated that he would not subject himself to “an oppressive and unjust court system”. This is ridiculous given that he has had numerous opportunities to follow the rule of law by either testifying before the Commission or by participating in yesterday’s court proceedings. He chose not to and instead sought to threaten the credibility of one of the basic pillars on which the Constitution was built.

President Ramaphosa now has an opportunity to show the nation where he and his party stands. A failure to do so will lead to the ineluctable conclusion that the President and his party do not stand for the rule of law.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status

One year of lockdown, President Ramaphosa owes SA answers to these critical questions

Tomorrow marks exactly one year since President Ramaphosa announced that our country was going into lockdown in order to buy time to augment our healthcare system and put in place a track and trace programme. This preparation time was initially going to be three weeks, which became five weeks, then months, and eventually a full year. After all this time, we are no more prepared to deal with Covid-19 than we were back then. If anything, we are worse off thanks to a catastrophic failure to procure vaccines.

One year on we are still using lockdowns – or the threat of lockdowns – to slow the spread, as our healthcare capacity is nowhere near what it should be, our track and trace system never properly got off the ground and our vaccine rollout is still non-existent. According to the Ministerial Advisory Committee’s Ian Sanne, “Delaying the next surge in coronavirus infections would buy more time to prepare the health system and vaccinate vulnerable people,” said committee member Ian Sanne. A year later we are still talking of “buying more time” through lockdowns.

All that this ongoing lockdown – under the cover of the indefinitely-renewed Disaster Management Act – has done is to transfer government’s responsibilities onto the citizens, and make them pay a heavy price for government’s failures. That price was confirmed in a report just published by the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), where it was found that the consequences of lockdowns are especially severe and long-lasting for the most vulnerable South Africans. According to the report, half the people living in informal housing on the fringes of South Africa’s urban centres lost their main source of income, two-thirds of them ran out of money for food and one third went hungry during the initial lockdown.

The survivalist strategies of poor South Africans are severely undermined by constant economic disruptions. The cost of any further lockdown will far outweigh the benefit, so other than restrictions on large gatherings – and particularly indoor gatherings – there cannot be justification for any escalation of our lockdown levels.

Using lockdowns to “buy time” comes at a cost that our government, secure in their own guaranteed income, just doesn’t seem to grasp. But this is made far worse by the fact that the only way out of this predicament is a fast and comprehensive vaccine rollout, and this has been completely botched. We still don’t have a rollout plan and we still don’t have the vaccines for such a plan, and this is entirely due to the fact that government only woke up six months after the rest of the world, and then proceeded to blame everyone except itself for this deadly vaccine procurement failure.

To cover up this failure, government is deliberately using vague messaging around its vaccine procurement process that gives no real answers and is simply meant to placate the public and the media. For this reason I have submitted a set of precise questions to the President for which we want precise answers. If we expect citizens to buy into this vaccination effort, they are going to have to trust government, and the only way this will happen is through full transparency and accountability. I have asked the President to respond to these questions by Friday 2 April.

The DA is also considering its legal options to place further pressure on government in this regard and compel them to play open cards. South Africans are heading into a potential third wave of transmissions with no hard information. Even if it is bad news, people need to know what is going on. Vague terms like vaccines “secured for arrival in the third quarter” are essentially meaningless. People need honest answers to these critical questions. I have urged President Ramaphosa to take personal control of this process and to inject a sense of urgency into it. He needs to ensure that there is a workable plan. And he needs to be open and clear with the public, to win back their trust in this most critical of all programmes.

This is the full list of questions we submitted to the President:

  1. Which vaccines have been ordered? How many doses of each vaccine? What are the actual confirmed dates for delivery? Please provide receipts and contracts.
  2. How many calls have you made personally to vaccine suppliers? Which suppliers? What was the outcome?
  3. Please provide proof and dates of all correspondence between your administration (or those acting on behalf of your administration) and each of the vaccine suppliers that have been approached in attempts to procure vaccines.
  4. Please explain why South African production facilities in Nelson Mandela Bay are being used to produce 300 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by Aspen Pharmacare and yet SA is not going to get a single one of these doses? Why are we not front of the queue since they are being produced here?
  5. When will your government publish a detailed, implementable rollout plan?
  6. Why was no detailed rollout plan prepared last year? And why is there no detailed rollout plan as yet?
  7. When will government’s official rollout begin? The current “rollout”, as you know, is merely an extension of an existing Johnson & Johnson trial around existing trial sites, and is being run by trial scientists, not by your government.
  8. Why has the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still not been approved for general rollout in South Africa? Why is it taking so long, given that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved it?
  9. Why was the AstraZeneca vaccine sold without being offered to high-risk people on a volunteer basis, given that high-risk individuals have no other options going into the third wave, and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine would still have given them protection from severe disease and death, even if it doesn’t stop transmission? Why did you go against the advice of Professor Shabir Mahdi, who ran the clinical trials for the AstraZeneca vaccine here in South Africa, and of the World Health Organisation?
  10. By which date will all 1.5 million healthcare workers be vaccinated? (Phase 1)
  11. By which date will all those in the high-risk group be vaccinated? (Phase 2)
  12. By which date will the vaccination be available to the general public?
  13. By which date will 67% of the South African population be vaccinated against Covid-19?
  14. In your State of the Nation Address last month, you acknowledged that the vaccine programme is South Africa’s top priority. Why then have you delegated this most important of all programmes to your Deputy President, who is widely known to be corrupt?
  15. What has the Deputy President done so far to expedite the process of vaccine procurement and rollout?

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Mpumalanga farmers’ future still uncertain after Minister ignores their eviction plight 

One month after I wrote to the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), Thoko Didiza, to urgently intervene in the case of Mpumalanga farmers, who are at various stages of being evicted from their farms, the Minister is yet to respond or take action despite making promises to reconsider all pending farm evictions across the country.

Yesterday I was in the Gert Sibande District of Mpumalanga where I met with some of the affected farmers to give them feedback on the DA’s efforts to get their cases resolved. This was a follow-up visit to the meeting that I had with them on the 29th of September 2020. The issues that they raised then, and which remain unresolved to this day, include:

  • The Department has started a selective issuing of 30-year lease agreements in the District;
  • Allegations started to emerge that some of the Department’s officials were demanding bribes before contracts could be signed;
  • There was no platform for mediation of disputes, after some farmers received “eviction notices”. This forced them to write to the Director General and Minister, sometimes with lawyers’ letters, but no response was forthcoming; and
  • Some farmers complained that officials kept records of contracts, but no records of these lease payments were kept.

The general consensus among the farmers that I met with yesterday was that the fact that these issues have remained unresolved has left them with the distinct impression that the DALRRD is dead set on evicting them from their farms at all costs.

Using the input that I obtained from the farmers, the issues that I will be taking up with the Department include seeking clarity on:

  • What criteria was used to agree to lease renewals for some farmers while denying others?
  • What, if any, investigations have been conducted into the allegations of bribery, especially now that the Department is trying to pin corruption on an official who has passed on?
  • Why did the Department renege on the 2015 promise made by Gugile Nkwinti to farmers in the Provinces that their lease agreements will be renewed, and they won’t be required to pay anything?

Just as we stood against the unjust eviction of Ivan Cloete, we will not allow DALRRD to intimidate farmers using flimsy excuses to evict them from their land. Successful agriculture operations take years to build and the Department should not be disruptive to the efforts of emerging black farmers.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status