DA demands immediate retraction of racist statement by the Department of Public Enterprises

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is demanding the immediate retraction of the racist statement issued by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) on its twitter handle @DPE_ZA. We also call for the immediate suspension of the DPE Director General, Mr Kgathatso Tlhakudi, in whose name the statement was issued.

The statement appears to target white pilots belonging to the South African Airways Pilots Association (SAAPA) by accusing them of wanting to enrich themselves from a “racially biased” labour agreement.

SAAPA is a collective labour association whose membership is composed of the airline’s racially diverse pilot cohort. After having failed to properly manage SAA, Pravin Gordhan’s Department has now resorted to applying racial divide and conquer tactics to mask its failures.

DPE must now retract this divisive statement, which has no place in democratic South Africa, and issue an apology to all SAA employees who may have felt racially targeted.

Mr Tlhakudi has no business being the head of a government Department if he stokes racial tensions in entities falling under his Department. Pravin Gordhan will be complicit in this violation of the constitutional principle of non-racism if he fails to act on his DG.

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

Hlophe: JSC must act urgently so that Parliament can get rid of him

The DA calls on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) to urgently deal with the findings of the Judicial Conduct Tribunal’s report on Judge President John Hlophe, so that the matter can be referred to Parliament to consider his removal from office.

The seriousness of the allegations and finding against Hlophe cannot be stressed enough and the process cannot be delayed.

The JSC now has to consider the Tribunal’s recommendation that Hlophe should be impeached, and if it is adopted the matter must be referred to Parliament. Under the circumstances, Parliament will be empowered to remove Hlophe from his position.

The DA believes that the Tribunal has put in place the necessary basis for Hlophe’s impeachment. The DA further believes that his removal will go a long way towards bolstering trust in our judiciary. The serious allegations levelled against Hlophe – including the attempted improper influencing that was the subject of the Tribunal investigation – contributed significantly to the erosion of this trust.

This matter has dragged on for far too long and casts a long shadow on the process, and public confidence in the regulatory processes of the JSC.

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

DA calls on Deputy President to addresses Minister’s efforts to duck accountability

The DA calls on the Leader of Governance, Deputy President David Mabuza, to urgently address the issue of ministers’ failure to answer written parliamentary questions. National Assembly and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) rules permit ministers 10 days to publish their responses from the date of receiving questions unless written permission is received for a 5-day extension.

According to Parliament’s latest summary of outstanding questions, since her appointment in January 2021, the Acting Minister in the Presidency, Khumudzo Ntshaveni, has only answered one out of the 20 written questions posed to her since 11 February 2021.

Written parliamentary questions are vital to Parliament’s oversight role over the Executive. It is an important means of holding government to account.

The DA has submitted numerous written questions regarding government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic that remains unanswered to this day:

  • Full details of all Covid-19 state-funded initiatives since March 2020 and the methodologies used;
  • Information to clarify often the confusing and contradictory Covid-19 regulations; and
  • Requesting the release of the minutes held by the Secretariat of the National Corona Command Council (NCCC).

Her refusal to respond to these questions shows Minister Ntshaveni’s utter contempt for Parliament and all South Africans. It is time the Deputy President earned his exorbitant salary and ensured that Minister Ntshaveni answers parliamentary questions.

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

35% of senior government officials not qualified for their jobs

The DA will write to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to request an investigation regarding the fact that nearly 35% of senior managers employed by national and provincial departments do not have the required qualifications and credentials for the positions they currently occupy.

The Minister of Public Service and Administration, Senzo Mchunu, revealed in a written response to a parliamentary question posed by the DA, that of the 9 477 senior managers listed on the Personal and Salary System (PERSAL), 3 301 do not have the required qualifications. Of these, 1 987 officials are employed in national departments.

Middle management positions in national government typically pays between R779 802 and R922 750, with senior management earning between R1 078 267 and R1 974 067, depending on their level of employment.

The main culprits are the Departments of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) with 227, Police with 228, Justice and Constitutional Development with 189, Trade, Industry and Competition with 128, and Environment, Forestry and Fisheries with 107 senior managers that do not have the necessary qualifications.

How much longer must South Africa suffer under this incompetence? Some of these are key to the country’s economic and food security, yet cadre deployment is more important to the ANC government than good governance and the well-being of its people.

The DA’s End Cadre Deployment Bill (formally called the Public Administration Laws General Amendment Bill) seeks to enforce the appointment of civil servants to be wholly based on merit and not political loyalty. Our Bill was recently published in the government gazette for public comment. We invite South Africans to read and comment on the Bill by going to the following link.

All comments on the Bill must be emailed to speaker@parliament.gov.za and copied to leon.schreiberei@gmail.com before the end of April.

South Africa won’t survive if this trend of cadre deployment continues much longer. Ordinary South Africans have suffered under this corruption en masse for years and unless urgent action is taken the country will devolve into the banana republic some already view us as.

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

Ivan Cloete still has not received his lease agreement 

25 days after the decision to withdraw the unlawful eviction order against Mr Ivan Cloete from his Colenso farm in Darling and the undertaking to provide him with a 30 year lease agreement, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) is yet to provide him with the lease documents to formalise the agreement.

Since the report on the Department’s decision to offer a lease agreement to Cloete was submitted to the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, the DA will ask the Committee Chairperson, Mandla Mandela, to hold Minister Thoko Didiza to account. Minister Didiza needs to provide specific reasons why the Department has failed to provide Cloete with lease documents timeously and provide a specific date by which these documents will be made available.

Cloete’s fight with the Department over his lease agreement is reminiscent of the struggle that Mr David Rakgase, a Limpopo farmer, went through as he tried to get the DALRRD to honor a High Court ruling to sell him the Nooitgedacht farm. The Department did all it could to drag its feet in issuing the purchase agreement in the vain hope that they could work around the transference of full ownership rights to Rakgase.

Then again, this two-faced approach in dealing with land reform issues and the plight of farmers is hardly surprising. Minister Didiza, and by extension Departmental officials, say one thing and do the exact opposite on the ground. In her report to the parliamentary committee, Didiza acknowledged that “It is clear that ever since 2012, Mr Cloete was not treated fairly”. Her Department’s delay in issuing a lease agreement to Cloete means that they have continued to perpetuate this unfairness without due regard to Cloete’s right to fair processes.

It is for this reason that the DA will remain sceptical of the announcement made by Didiza that all farm evictions will be halted in the Gert Sibande district, pending an investigation to be undertaken in the next two weeks. What farmers need is concrete action to protect them from corrupt officials, including the timeous issuance of lease agreements.

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

Undertaking to halt farm evictions means nothing unless it’s transparent

While the DA welcomes the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, that all farm evictions have been halted in the Gert Sibande district, pending an investigation to be undertaken in the next two weeks by a team from the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) in Pretoria, we insist on transparency.

In a meeting with farmers from the district yesterday, Minister Didiza admitted that there were clear signs of corruption regarding these farm evictions in Mpumalanga.

This acknowledgement of malfeasance in her Department is a step in the right direction but means nothing if the Minister promises farmers the sun and stars, while officials in her provincial departments continue their corrupt conduct.

Mr Vuyani Zigana’s struggles with DALRRD has been widely reported. He believed that his woes had finally come to an end after Minister Didiza wrote a letter instructing that section S38 of Melville Park near Underberg, be allocated to him.

When he arrived at his newly promised farm however, he found the land already occupied by six other emerging black farmers, each with cattle, and large parts of the farm overgrazed.

Despite the Minister’s seeming intervention, he has been struggling since his arrival on 19 February to reach a resolution with the KwaZulu-Natal DALRRD, whose officials informed him that they had given the farm to someone else and that his letter from the Minister meant little to them. He was instructed to move to a different farm with nine other farmers but has refused to do so.

From Mr Zigana’s example alone it is clear as day that Minister Didiza does not hold the regard of her officials. It is no wonder that farmers across the country are struggling as corruption seemingly weighs far heavier in DALRRD provincial departments than political will from the Minister.

Mr Zigana’s case is unfortunately not an isolated incident. The DA will write to the Minister regarding the many other farmers who has shared their troubles with us. We hope the Minister does not ignore our communication as she has those of the many farmers that have repeatedly tried to inform her of their suffering.

The DA also calls on the Minister to release a list of all state-owned land. DALRRD cannot possibly hope to address restitution and reparation without transparency. It will only lead to more corruption – something her Department is already drowning in.

Hlophe misconduct: DA welcomes Tribunal decision

  • Please find attached soundbite by Adv Glynnis Breytenbach MP.

The DA welcomes the Judicial Conduct Tribunal’s (JCT) finding that Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe is guilty of gross misconduct.

Hlophe’s behaviour through the years have decimated the reputation of the Western Cape Division of the High Court. He is a blight on the judiciary, and it is about time he suffered the most serious consequences of his actions.

Parliament must now deliberate on his removal in terms of Section 177(1) of the Constitution which states that “A judge may be removed from office only if the Judicial Service Commission finds that the judge suffers from an incapacity, is grossly incompetent or is guilty of gross misconduct.

The DA again calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint a retired judge to investigate all allegations of undue influence and possible bribery of members of the judiciary as part of the so-called “Project Justice”, said to have been part of the nefarious activities of the State Security Agency.

High Court orders artists out of NAC premises

The DA has been made aware that the National Arts Council (NAC) has obtained a court order from the South Gauteng High Court effectively ordering all artists staging a sit-in at the NAC offices to vacate the premises.

The artists have been exercising their right to protest peacefully for more than 40 days by staging a sit-in at the NAC offices in an attempt to get answers from the council regarding promised funding from the Presidential Economic Stimulus Programme (PESP) to the tune of R300 million. The artists have told the DA that there had been no “stoning the building” as initial reports indicated. They have also indicated that they have no intention of leaving the NAC premises.

The NAC`s unlawful decision to break legally binding contracts awarded to more than 600 artists caused much misery. Many of these artists had already commenced their projects and created employment for others in the arts and culture sector when they received the NAC’s announcement of contract breach. The majority had also not received a cent of promised payment from the Council.

While the DA understands the pressure the Council, that started their term in January 2021 must feel, many of its problems could have been solved had the NAC decided to be transparent with the artists and engaged with them. Instead of forcing the artists from their premises, the NAC should rather seek to solve this crisis of its own making and speed up payments to artists.

Multitudes of people who were employed in the arts and culture sectors have lost everything. They do not have homes to return to and have no food to eat. The NAC has now robbed them of hope as well. This, while there are ever more reports seeing the light of alleged maladministration and corruption regarding the PESP.

The DA implores the NAC to see reason and rather engage with the artists. Most of them are artists themselves after all. The whole of the sector has suffered from the irrational regulations of government decimating the economy and the arts and culture industry during the extended Covid-19 lockdown. This has stripped many South Africans of the dignity of gainful employment. It seems to have stripped the NAC of a little more – their humanity and compassion.

DA reports Lwazi Lushaba to Human Rights Commission over Hitler comments

The DA will lodge a complaint against UCT lecturer, Lwazi Lushaba, with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) following his racist comments regarding Adolf Hitler on a pre-recorded lecture. 

Reports confirm that Lushaba made the following comments: “Hitler committed no crime. All Hitler did was to do to white people what white people had normally reserved for black people.”

The Holocaust was unequivocally a crime against humanity orchestrated by Hitler. The DA therefore strongly condemns the comments made by Lushaba.

His comments were not only racist, offensive and vile, but also completely insensitive to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and the Jewish community as a whole. 

South Africa’s Jewish community will today observe Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. In remembering the victims of the Holocaust, we must place a renewed sense of responsibility on those in positions of power and influence to defend the truth and to defend our democracy against any racist or anti-Semitic sentiments. 

Lushaba has a long history of offensive and controversial actions. In 2019, he allegedly took exception to one of the contender’s in UCT’s election of its Dean of Humanities being Tanzanian and not South African. In an interview with Power FM, Lushaba stated that “reason and rationality are white”.  Lushaba was also suspended by Wits back in 2015 for “participating in activities which were not conducive to free and fair elections and were intolerant to a democratic society”.

The DA has taken note that UCT will probe Lushaba’s comments and we urge the institution’s Vice-Chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng to place him on suspension pending the investigation. 

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

DA rejects Athletics South Africa’s discriminatory actions on school sports

The DA will request that both Athletics South Africa (ASA) and South Africa Schools Athletics (SASA) account to the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture as a matter of urgency. This follows worrying reports from schools across the country that ASA is trying to bully them into only participating in ASA competitions.

Athletics participation at school level usually runs on two tracks: on provincial and national level by SASA and on club level by ASA. While SASA provides a platform for all learners in South Africa – primary, secondary, and special educational needs learners – no matter their socio-economic situation, the ASA competitions are a lot more exclusive with participating learners having to join clubs and pay club fees, as well as providing for all their own transportation to and from competitions.

The push to have learners only participate in ASA competitions is discriminatory as it will exclude a vast majority of athletes from poor backgrounds and those living in rural areas. ASA competitions have always been optional, and this is the first year that the entity seems to want to enforce participation.

This restriction on athletic competitions hosted by SASA contradicts the Department of Basic Educations’ direction gazetted on 27 March 2021 that school sports matches may resume without spectators as long as there is compliance with Covid-19 hygiene and safety measures.

It is astounding that ASA would be so completely unaware of the detriment their actions will bring to the development of athletics in South Africa, as well as its discrimination against learners unable to comply with financial and distance restrictions that club competitions bring.

The Recognition of Sport and Recreation Bodies Regulations states that “Participation in any sport or recreation body must be open to all sections of the community and not be restricted for reasons of cost, gender, disability or […] any form of direct or indirect discrimination”. ASA’s own constitution states that one of its basic cornerstones is “The continual striving to ensure that no form of discrimination […] be permitted in athletics and to take all practicable measures to prevent such discrimination.”

By trying to stifle all SASA competitions, the cornerstone in the grassroots development of athletics in South Africa, ASA is discriminating against all young athletes whose only option for talent development is their schools.

If ASA is allowed to continue with its discrimination, athletics in South Africa will be stopped in its tracks.

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