SAA BRP’s claims of success a complete fiction

The DA will make every effort to ensure that the South African Airways (SAA) BRP’s (Business Rescue Practitioners), SAA board, and Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan cease their collective obfuscation and give clear and unambiguous answers when they appear before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday 25 March 2021.

The facts are that the business rescue has cost the taxpayer, and poor South Africans in particular, a massive R7.8 billion in cash taxpayer bailouts since the business rescue process started on the 5th of December 2019. In addition, the business rescue will continue to drain at least another R8,0 billion in a futile attempt to begin miniscule flight operations and to keep our dead national bird operational.

The BRPs seem to think that the following are successes as a result of the business rescue process but the very same “successes” could have been achieved through liquidation and without the additional taxpayer bailouts of R15.8 billion plus.

There has, in fact, been no rescue of SAA. Unlike privately owned airlines that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, are up and running and in some cases expanding their operations, SAA remains firmly on the ground and only undertaking unsafe taxpayer-funded vanity flights to fetch small quantities of vaccines. Liquidation, however, would have necessitated limited bailouts for SAA liabilities foolishly guaranteed by the ANC and:

  • The entire R 38,0 billion in liabilities and not just the R35,7 billion could have been written off;
  • All of the SAA workforces could have been retrenched at a fraction of the cost of the Voluntary Severance Packages totalling R2,8 billion;
  • Overheads would have been eliminated and not just reduced; and
  • The preservation of critical memberships of the airline is of no consequence as SAA as a state owned or majority state owned entity will undoubtedly continue to run at taxpayer funded losses if it finally gets operational.

The latest revelations of the apparent gross malfeasance of the CAA in granting 13 exemptions for the SAA vanity flight to fetch vaccines from Belgium in February are the scariest of the failures in the fifteen-and-a-half months long business rescue process. If true, the CAA will have destroyed its reputation. There was, in all likelihood, massive political pressure on the CAA from Minister Gordhan to bend the rules, resulting in an allegedly unqualified flight crew to take the helm of a flight during which an extreme in-flight incident occurred that could have proven fatal.

Surely Siviwe Dongwana and Les Matuson, the SAA BRPs, must be held accountable for the SAA vanity flight, as the operations of SAA are currently their responsibility?

Considering the fact that the ANC and the Department of Public Enterprises have abandoned SA Express and allowed it to be liquidated, so should they have let SAA be liquidated and used the billions wasted on it to stimulate the economy and save at least some of the millions of jobs lost as a result of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s irrational lockdown regulations.

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

President Ramaphosa must explain his unethical decision to sell the only Covid-19 vaccines we have

Please find attached soundbite by John Steenhuisen MP.

South Africa has only administered 182 983 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, meaning we are hopelessly missing even our unambitious target of vaccinating 1 million healthcare workers by the end of March. By now we should have vaccinated 710 000, meaning we’re missing our unambitious target by 75%.

Incomprehensibly, not one single dose of Covid-19 vaccine was administered over the long weekend on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

The South African government will tell you this is because they have no vaccines. Yet they sold one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine over the weekend, that had been sitting in storage in Gauteng.

President Ramaphosa must explain this unethically irrational decision.

These vaccines could and should have been administered to high-risk individuals (older people and those with co-morbidities) to protect them from severe disease and death, and to protect hospitals from becoming overrun and our economy from being locked down, when the third wave inevitably arrives.

On 10 February, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize tweeted: “What will happen to the current doses already in South Africa will depend on the advice from leading scientists.”

Well, leading scientists in South Africa and in the World Health Organisation and in the European Medicines Agency all advised that these doses should be administered to high-risk individuals.

We should not entertain government’s explanation that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not suitable for the B. 1351 variant circulating in the South African population.

Professor Shabir Mahdi, who headed the trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa, said on 4 February: “there remains a strong biologically plausible reason to expect the AstraZeneca vaccine will protect against severe disease due to the B. 1351 variant, likely to a similar magnitude as the J&J vaccine.”

He went on to say: “these first-generation Covid-19 vaccines even in settings such as SA still provide the only sustainable option of preventing flooding of our hospitals with severe Covid-19 cases and mitigate Covid-19 deaths once the next resurgence is upon us. Hence, the decision by SA not to deploy the vaccine goes against the spirit of what was previously espoused by the department of health — that it would take its lead from WHO recommendations. Furthermore, this decision inadvertently leads itself to choosing between leaving high-risk individuals largely unprotected against being hospitalised and dying of Covid-19, as opposed to rolling out the available AstraZeneca vaccine. It is largely premised on this, that the World Health Organization in mid-February 2021 recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine still be rolled out even in countries where the B. 1.351 variant or other similar variants of concern are circulating.”

We should also not entertain their excuse that the AstraZeneca vaccine was set to expire on 30 April. If they had had a rollout plan, there would have been plenty of time to administer these vaccines, especially as the vaccines are still effective up to two months after the expiry date.

Nor should we accept the excuse that the AstraZeneca vaccine requires a second dose. Another two million doses of AstraZeneca are available to South Africa.

Nor should we accept the excuse that the AstraZeneca vaccine posed a risk of blood-clotting. That theory was conclusively disproved before our government sold our one million vaccines.

And recent evidence supports this still further. The recently concluded US trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine confirm that the shot is both safe and highly effective. More than 32,000 volunteers took part, mostly in America, but also in Chile and Peru. The vaccine was shown to be 79% effective at stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing people from falling seriously ill. And there were no safety issues regarding blood clots.

Most likely, the true explanation is that we don’t have a rollout plan that is detailed enough to implement. We haven’t prepared enough vaccination sites to be able to roll out at scale. And there is no sense of urgency to develop one.

It is a terrible irony that on Human Rights Day, government trampled heavily on those rights by denying lifesaving vaccines to vulnerable people and selling them instead.

It is as if the South African government has been specifically tasked to sabotage our Covid response rather than manage it.

Our government never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to help South Africans build their lives.

The Ramaphosa administration has a case to answer for why it left a million life-saving doses of vaccine leave our shores when they could have saved the lives of South Africans.

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

Are Cele and Lamola protecting the EFF?

Parliamentary questions by the DA about criminal complaints and civil cases against the EFF remain unanswered, strongly suggesting that ANC Ministers are protecting EFF members.

On 5 March DA Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone submitted the following parliamentary questions for written reply to Minister of Police Bheki Cele and Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola, respectively, in relation to Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Members of Parliament in the National Assembly:

“What (a) total number of criminal complaints have been lodged with the SA Police Service against current Members of Parliament in the National Assembly of the Economic Freedom Fighters (names furnished), (b) are the relevant details of every specified complaint and (c) is the current progress status of every such complaint?”

And

“What (a) total number of civil cases have been placed on any court roll where the respondent is a current Member of Parliament in the National Assembly (details furnished), (b) are the relevant details of every single civil case and (c) is the current progress status of every such case?”

In terms of the Rules of the National Assembly, the Ministers had 10 working days to respond to the DA’s question, but have failed to do so, in the process undermining the constitutionally enshrined principle of transparent public administration.

The DA will not allow the Ministers’ apparent cushy and biased relationship with Julius Malema and co to stand in the way of necessary transparency and oversight.

In accordance with the Rules of the National Assembly, the DA will now submit the questions for oral reply in the House itself in order to force both Ministers Cele and Lamola to expose the EFF in public.

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

DA launches petition to protect mother tongue education at the University of Stellenbosch

In the spirit of Human Rights Day, the Democratic Alliance (DA) today launched a petition to protect the right to mother tongue education at Stellenbosch University (SU) against persistent attacks by university management.

Support the petition here.

Each signature on this petition also indicates a person who supports the DA’s comments on the March 2021 draft policy. The DA will submit the petition, the comments, together with the list of all persons who support it, directly to SU.

The university management’s war against mother tongue education has become even more intense over the past few weeks, after first-year students at several residences were banned from speaking Afrikaans in their residence rooms and even on park benches on campus.

The current management, led by Rector Wim de Villiers,’s anti-Afrikaans stance was even further amplified by the university’s refusal to act in defense of the students’ constitutional right to mother tongue education and to speak their own language. To date, De Villiers has not uttered a single word about the violation of these students’ human rights.

On Friday, the university also approved a further departure from the 2016 language policy, which completely eliminates the last bit of Afrikaans decorations in lecture halls. Any person who believes that this English-only policy will be temporary in nature are blind to the persistent attacks by the De Villiers regime on Afrikaans. This was followed yesterday by the publication of the university’s new draft language policy, which further dilutes the Afrikaans offer.

Because we regard the right to mother tongue education as just as important as any other human right, the DA has already lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC). In the complaint, we also request that the HRC investigate the role of the university’s 2016 language policy, as this policy has officially given Afrikaans a lesser status which apparently has contributed to the current atmosphere of discrimination against Afrikaans students.

Given the human rights violations committed against Afrikaans students under the 2016 language policy, the DA’s petition insists that the language policy be reviewed with the aim of guaranteeing Afrikaans equal status besides English in all aspects of university life. We encourage every South African committed to our Constitutional order to sign this petition.

The petition will be handed over to management, and will also be accompanied by comprehensive proposed amendments to the new draft language policy. Each person signing the petition will therefore also express their support for the proposed amendments. The more people support the DA’s comments, the more difficult it will be for the SU management to continue with their plans to make Afrikaans a kitchen language again.

Out of our deep commitment to the language rights and other human rights contained in our country’s Constitution, and due to our concern over the exclusion of millions of impoverished Afrikaans-speaking young people from higher education, we demand that:

1. The first draft of the new March 2021 language policy is rejected because it will result in the further exclusion of Afrikaans students. The SU must restart the review process by immediately arranging a public conference where all stakeholders and members of the public will have an opportunity to discuss the shortcomings of the 2016 language policy with the aim of creating a new policy that guarantees an equal place to Afrikaans;

2. The new language policy must create a fair language dispensation that grants absolutely equal status to Afrikaans and English as primary languages of teaching and student life in all the spaces – including online spaces – of the university;

3. If the university is concerned about the costs involved in this, the SU must commission a comprehensive and independent audit to ascertain how much it would cost to guarantee equal status to Afrikaans and English. It must make the findings of such an audit public and provide donors, the private sector and the community that opportunity to help fundraise to cover the costs;

4. SU must fully exploit the opportunities offered by modern digital communications technologies, including online “speech-to-text” technology, to facilitate accurate translation between languages;

5. Given the way in which the Afrikaans offer was dramatically reduced by the 2016 language policy, the new language policy must explicitly commit to increasing the Afrikaans offer to ensure full access for all deserving students who wish to study in Afrikaans while maintaining access for students who wish to study in English;

6. The new language policy must explicitly and concretely commit the university to providing financial and other support to learners in Afrikaans schools in disadvantaged communities, with the aim of building a pipeline of Afrikaans students from these schools and to dramatically increase the participation and pass rates of disadvantaged Afrikaans students at SU.

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

DA loods petisie om moedertaalonderrig aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch te beskerm

In die gees van Menseregtedag, het die Demokratiese Alliansie (DA) vandag ‘n petisie geloods om die reg tot moedertaalonderrig aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch (US) te beskerm teen aanhoudende aanvalle deur die universiteitsbestuur.

Ondersteun die petisie hier.

Elke handtekening op hierdie petisie dui ook op ‘n persoon wat die DA se kommentaar op die Maart 2021 konsepbeleid ondersteun. Die DA sal die petisie, die kommentaar, tesame met die lys van alle persone wat dit ondersteun, direk aan die US indien.

Die US-bestuur se oorlog teen moedertaalonderrig het oor die afgelope paar weke selfs meer fel geword, nadat eerstejaarstudente aan verskeie koshuise verbied is om Afrikaans te praat in hul koshuiskamers en selfs op parkiebanke op kampus.

Die huidige US-bestuur, onder leiding van rektor Wim de Villiers, se anti-Afrikaanse onderrok het selfs verder uitgehang weens die universiteit se weiering om op te tree ter verdediging van die betrokke studente se grondwetlike reg tot moedertaalonderrig en om hul eie taal te praat. De Villiers het tot op hede nog nie ‘n enkele woord gerep oor die skending van hierdie studente se menseregte nie.

Vrydag het die universiteit ook ‘n verdere afwyking van die 2016 taalbeleid goedgekeur wat geheel en al wegdoen met die laaste bietjie Afrikaanse versierings in lesinglokale. Enige persoon wat glo dat hierdie slegs-Engels beleid tydelik van aard gaan wees, hou hulle blind vir die aanhoudende aanvalle deur die De Villiers regime op Afrikaans. Dit is gister gevolg deur die publisering van die US se nuwe konseptaalbeleid, wat die Afrikaanse aanbod selfs verder afwater.

Omdat ons die reg tot moedertaalonderrig as net so belangrik beskou as enige ander mensereg, het die DA reeds ‘n klag by die Menseregtekommissie (MRK) aanhangig gemaak. In die klag versoek ons ook dat die MRK die rol van die universiteit se 2016 taalbeleid ondersoek, aangesien hierdie beleid amptelik aan Afrikaans ‘n mindere status gegee het wat skynbaar bygedra het tot die huidige atmosfeer van diskriminasie teen Afrikaanse studente.

Gegewe die menseregtevergrype wat onder die 2016 taalbeleid teen Afrikaanse studente gepleeg is, dring die DA se petisie daarop aan dat die taalbeleid hersien word met die doel om aan Afrikaans gelyke status naas Engels in alle aspekte van die universiteitslewe te waarborg. Ons moedig elke Suid-Afrikaner wat verbind is tot ons Grondwetlike bestel aan om hierdie petisie te onderteken.

Die petisie gaan aan die bestuur oorhandig word, en word ook vergesel van omvattende voorgestelde wysigings aan die nuwe konseptaalbeleid. Elke persoon wat die petisie teken sal dus ook hul steun toesê aan die voorgestelde wysigings. Hoe meer mense die DA se kommentaar ondersteun, hoe moeiliker gaan dit wees vir die US-bestuur om voort te gaan met hul planne om weer van Afrikaans ‘n kombuistaal te maak.

Weens die DA se toewyding aan die taalregte en ander menseregte soos vervat in ons land se Grondwet, en weens ons diepe kommer oor die uitsluiting van miljoene behoeftige Afrikaanssprekendes van hoër onderwys, eis ons dat:

1. Die eerste konsep van die nuwe taalbeleid van Maart 2021 onomwonde verwerp word omdat dit Afrikaanse studente selfs verder gaan uitsluit. Die US behoort die proses om die taalbeleid te hersien van voor af te begin deur onmiddellik ‘n openbare konferensie te reël waar alle belanghebbendes ‘n geleentheid gebied word om die tekortkominge van die 2016 taalbeleid te bespreek met die oog op ‘n nuwe taalbeleid wat ‘n gelyke plek aan Afrikaans sal waarborg;

2. Enige nuwe taalbeleid ‘n regverdige taalbedeling tot stand te bring wat aan Afrikaans en Engels gelyke status waarborg as primêre tale van onderrig, leer en leef in alle ruimtes – insluitend aanlyn ruimtes – van die universiteit;

3. Indien die universiteit bekommerd is oor die kostes hieraan verbonde, die universiteit ‘n omvattende en onafhanklike oudit laat doen oor die kostes verbonde daaraan om gelyke status te waarborg aan Afrikaans, die uitslae van die oudit openbaar maak, en aan skenkers, die privaatsektor en die breër gemeenskap die geleentheid bied om ‘n gedeelte van die kostes te finansier;

4. Die US die moontlikhede wat gebied word deur moderne digitale tegnologieë, waaronder aanlyn hulpmiddels en “spraak-na-teks” tegnologie, ten volle benut om akkurate vertaling tussen verskillende tale te verseker;

5. Gegewe die wyse waarop die Afrikaanse aanbod in die leer en leefruimtes van die universiteit afgeskaal is oor die afgelope jare, die universiteit se nuwe taalbeleid uitdruklik onderneem om die Afrikaanse aanbod opwaarts aan te pas om volle toegang te verseker aan alle verdienstelike voornemende studente wat verkies om in Afrikaans te studeer terwyl volle toegang vir Engelssprekende studente gehandhaaf word;

6. Die nuwe taalbeleid die universiteit daadwerklik daartoe verbind om finansiële sowel as praktiese ondersteuning te verskaf aan leerders in Afrikaanse skole in laer inkomste gebiede, met die doel om ‘n pyplyn te bou wat Afrikaanssprekende studente uit hierdie skole na die US bring en sodoende die deelname en slaagsyfer van behoeftige Afrikaanssprekende studente aan die US dramaties verhoog.

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

Government’s vaccine failure is a shameful violation of human rights

Please find attached a soundbite by DA Leader John Steenhuisen MP.

Today is meant to be a celebration of our hard-won human rights, but the reality is that many of these human rights were eroded more in the past year than in any other time in the history of our democracy. If we’re honest with ourselves, South Africa has very little to celebrate on this Human Rights Day.

It is now almost exactly one year since South Africa was first placed under lockdown following the arrival of the coronavirus in March last year. And during this time, under cover of the ever-extended Disaster Management Act, South Africans have been forced to forfeit right after right as government’s failure to respond to the pandemic in a meaningful, scientific way opened the door for petty authoritarianism and even brutality.

A recent report published by the Institute for Security Studies and titled “How to reduce police brutality in South Africa” reveals some shocking statistics recorded by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). In the first 40 days of lockdown, 32 South Africans were killed and 25 allegedly tortured at the hands of the police. This 40 day period saw 589 complaints of assault filed against the police, 141 complaints relating to the discharge of an official firearm, and eight alleged rapes by police officers.

With no parliamentary oversight and no other mechanisms to question its rationality, the Disaster Management Act also enabled government to curtail citizens’ rights to earn a living, their right to free movement, and the rights of children to receive an education. Month after month, for an entire year, this Act has been extended to allow a small group of the Executive to circumvent our country’s checks and balances and crush the rights of its citizens.

But undoubtedly the biggest violation of the human rights of South Africans has been government’s failure to procure Covid-19 vaccines, and its failure to put in place a rollout plan for when it might one day purchase meaningful amounts of the vaccine. This has been the ANC government’s single worst failure in the 27 years of our democracy.

Its inexplicable failure to procure vaccines timeously, when these vaccines were available to it, is a violation of people’s rights, in terms of Section 27(1) of the Constitution, to have access to healthcare services, as well as a violation of government’s obligation in terms of Section 27(2) to take reasonable measures to achieve the progressive realisation of the right to access healthcare. Furthermore it is a violation of every citizen’s right to life, as enshrined in Section 11 of the Bill of Rights.

As part of the DA’s effort to hold government to account on its vaccine programme, we have just launched a vaccination tracker to monitor South Africa’s vaccine procurement and nationwide rollout. The tracker can be found at www.vaccinenow.co.za. This data will be used to keep tabs on our progress and will help protect the rights of each and every South African.

The fact that South Africa has only managed to get hold of a couple of tiny test batches of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and are now vaccinating at a paltry 7,000 people a day, while our comparable peers like Chile or Rwanda are doing ten to twenty times more than this, should be a source of great shame for our government. We are already seeing the devastating effect of this as South Africa is now the most travel-restricted country in the world, as other economies are opening up to business and tourism. Elsewhere in the world one could expect cabinet resignations for such a shambolic performance.

This failure is not, as President Ramaphosa tried to tell us, a result of “vaccine nationalism” where other countries hoarded all the stocks so we could not order them. His government had exactly the same opportunities to enter into negotiations and place orders back in June and July of last year, when these other countries were doing so. But they didn’t. Instead they waited until January this year before the Health Department even applied to National Treasury for deviation from the regular procurement process so that vaccines could be bought. This has left us in the position we are today, where we have to scrape and beg for leftovers, and where our vaccination programme will only begin when other countries are already concluding theirs. This is an unforgivable dereliction of government’s sworn duties and obligations.

Nothing the government has offered in the way of explanation has provided any satisfactory answers on this issue. Their assurances of having “secured” tens of millions of vaccines by different suppliers for delivery at undisclosed dates “in the second quarter” or “in the second half of the year” are clearly dishonest, as the Health Minister himself has admitted their vaccination target would likely be missed as these stocks might not be available. In this context, the word “secured” is entirely meaningless.

Equally unforgivable is government’s refusal to administer the one million AstraZeneca vaccines it bought at a five-times inflated price back in January, and which have since been lying in a Johannesburg warehouse as their expiry date creeps ever closer. This vaccine has been proven safe and effective against the dominant strain of the virus, and has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as our own leading vaccinology expert, Professor Shabir Madhi. With winter and the prospect of a third wave looming, government’s willingness to let R75 million of precious vaccines expire is criminal.

We cannot celebrate Human Rights Day today and not reflect on this terrible violation of the rights of South Africans to healthcare and the protection they should be afforded by a large-scale vaccine rollout. The DA will not let government off the hook, and we will not rest until every South African who wants the vaccine has received it.

Our only hope to realise the rights of all our citizens – whether this is the right to healthcare, the right to education, the right to work or any of the civil liberties that have gradually been eroded under the Disaster Management Act – lies in the immediate rollout of a large-scale vaccination programme. If this ANC government claims to care about human rights at all, that is where they should start.

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

DA calls for 70% capacity opening of creative sector

The DA calls on the Department of Sports, Arts, and Culture to consider opening the creative arts industry at 70% capacity, in accordance with strict health, safety, and Covid-19 protocols. Theatres, choral music competitions, and creative arts festivals, among others, should be opened at 70% capacity to ensure that the creative industry is once again financially stimulated.

Currently, the creative arts industry is not classified as a critical industry that contributes to the economy, whilst at the same time the government has failed to assist the sector with relief funds. To date, many artists are still waiting for access to the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP) meant as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating effect on the arts and culture sector in South Africa.

Our calls for a 70% capacity opening of this sector comes in light of Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s refusal to respond to artists that have been protesting and staging sit-ins across South Africa.

Recetly, the creative industry was rocked by the closure of the historic Fugard Theatre in Cape Town. Sadly, the Fugard is not the only nor the last creative arts establishment that will suffer as a result of the ongoing restrictions on the industry.

We urge the government to do the right thing and show reprieve for an industry continuing to suffer the consequences of the pandemic and the disastrous lockdown.

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

BREAKING NEWS: Ivan Cloete will no longer be evicted from his farm after Department relents to DA pressure

The DA welcomes the decision taken by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) to withdraw its unlawful eviction order against Mr Ivan Cloete and restore his full farming rights to the Colenso farm in Darling, Western Cape. Mr Cloete will now be allocated Colenso farm, which is the farm that he currently resides in, and provided with a 30 year lease agreement on the same terms that are applicable to commercial leases.

The DA will now be calling for disciplinary action to be taken against DALRRD officials who were at the forefront of harassing Mr Cloete with an unlawful eviction order.

In a report, on the investigation conducted by DALRRD into the Cloete matter, submitted to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Mandla Mandela, the Department admitted that ‘It is clear that ever since 2012, Mr Cloete was not treated fairly’. In fact, the report goes on to say that:

‘From the investigation, it is clear that the Colenso farm was to be allocated to Mr Cloete but senior officials of the Department decided to allocate it to yet another person’ 

This confirms what the DA has always argued, the DALRRD has been hijacked by corrupt officials who took it upon themselves to parcel out land to their preferred recipients while trampling on the rights of defenceless citizens who have no friends in high places.

According to the report, the case demonstrated irregularities and improper conduct which placed Mr Cloete in a difficult position as he was made to move from one place to another. The report recommends that:

‘Consequence management be taken against all senior management and officials who participated in the identified irregularities and mismanagement’ 

The DA will make sure that this recommendation is applied to the fullest extent possible and that no farmer will once again be targeted in such a brazen disregard for the law, as happened with Mr Ivan Cloete.

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

Electoral Laws Amendment Bill removes oversight over voter registration fraud

Please find attached a soundbite in English and Afrikaans by Adrian Roos MP

The DA will not allow free and fair elections to be compromised and is considering further action after the ANC passed the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill.

The bill effectively makes it impractical to track the practice of bussing in of voters, and other forms of voter registration fraud, through redacting ID numbers on the voters’ roll.

In a 2016 briefing to Parliament, the IEC specifically raised vigilance on the registration of voters ahead of close elections as a major challenge.

And indeed close elections are expected in the coming elections with 1,4 million voters turning away from the ruling party in 2019 and the ANC losing a further 8% of their vote in the last by-elections – 10 times more than any other party.

A case in point is registration fraud at a ward in Johannesburg that was uncovered by the DA in the last local government elections, where we were able to use the ID numbers to trace where the newly registered voters had come from by comparing to previous voters’ rolls. It was found to be a group from another settlement which had all registered in the ward and the registrations were overturned by the IEC. Without ID numbers on the voters’ roll this would not have been possible. This is just one example.

Section 32(1) of the Constitution provides that everyone has the right of access to records held by the state that is required for the protection of any rights. Section 1(1)(d) further entrenches “regular free and fair” elections as one of the foundational rights of our democracy.

The court judgment that led to the Political Party Funding Act held that the right to vote and the right to access information are interconnected. The court further held that Parliament will need to come up with a mechanism that allows disclosure but this mechanism doesn’t need to be complete and automatic.

Despite the guidance of the court and warnings that the legislation in its final form would lead to donors holding back for fear of victimisation in the award of government work the ANC decided that it is fine to share the personal details of donors to the general public for the “purposes of democracy”. The ANC is generally unaffected by this law. As we have seen at the Zondo Commission they don’t rely on donations but on state resources.

The DA agrees that the full voters roll shouldn’t be available to anyone for any purpose, and as the voters roll does not contain contact numbers it is not a canvassing database.

The Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act comes into force on 1 July 2021 and political parties have the same duty as any other person or institution in terms of the Act to deal with the personal information of voters in a manner consistent with the Act.

This Act states that the constitutional values of democracy and openness requires the removal of unnecessary impediments to the free flow of personal information. It further states that the right to privacy is subject to justifiable limitations aimed at protecting other rights and important interests.

Not a single cogent argument was put forward by the ANC on how voters roll information provided to organisations overseeing elections, that would not be shared with the public, is such a threat to privacy that protection of democracy must be sacrificed.

This bill does not balance the right to privacy with the right to free and fair elections and in fact, subverts the foundational right to free and fair elections and does not pass constitutional muster.

Today the ANC chose to go against the courts, go against the constitution and go against the very protection of personal information act they claim to be protecting.

In the same week that the ANC railroaded this legislation through Parliament, China was making some Electoral laws amendments of its own where only “Patriots” can now be elected to the Hong Kong legislature. “Patriots” is Chinese for “Cadres”.

It is impossible to believe that such legislation can be passed but do not think that this cannot happen in South Africa. It happens one step at a time.

The DA will demand adequate oversight over electoral fraud and will continue to fight for free and fair elections.

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Minister Mboweni promises to cut SSA budget if stolen money not retuned

In an extraordinary statement last night the Minister of Finance seemingly took the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) into his confidence and stated “that there is an allegation that $50 million was stolen from their safe (State Security Agency), and I’ve said to the Minister (Ayanda Dlodlo), even though you’re going to receive this allocation, if you don’t bring back that $50 million, I am going to cut your budget by $50 million. You have to return it, I want it back”.

That $50 million would come to roughly R736 565 343.08. If this amount was taken from the SSA budget, surely it would effectively shut that entity down? This begs the question, how will a State Security Agency with no income generating capacity, replace the stolen amount?

The sad reality South Africans need to live with, is that the looted money from the State Security Agency over the years could have paid for vaccines for every single one of us. Instead, it was swindled, and as far as anyone knows, millions of Rands are still streaming out of the SSA via the hands of those employed by that Agency and given to people who have no right to it.

Just over a month ago the DA Shadow Minister of State Security, Dianne Kohler Barnard, wrote to Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, asking that she drives the total shutdown of the Agency. This was in the light of the looting, abuse of funds- to fight ANC internal factional battles, and seemingly incapacity of the agency.

The proposal, to which the Minister has not bothered to respond, is that she then re-vet each and every staff member, in order to weed out those determined to commit what the DA regards as treason.

Sadly, the Minister has just fallen at a major hurdle – having hired a man who has been suspended for some three years, to now be the Deputy Director General of Domestic Intelligence.  Seriously?  Arthur Frazer’s right-hand man, brought back in and put into a position of power? Has the Minister given the green light for the looting to recommence?  A five-minute perusal of Google would have given her the full, dirty details of this man’s background.

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