Opinion | This is how South Africa became a criminal state

The power struggles in the ANC are so fierce precisely because they mean control of the machinery of cadre deployment to loot on behalf of those connected to the winning faction.

The impact of the social media hashtag #VoetsekANC, and the comments that accompanied it, show that people finally understand we live under a criminal state.

The abuse of Covid-19 relief funds by ANC-linked cadres, raking in huge profit for adding no value (except their political connections), has been the last straw for many South Africans. 

The tenderpreneur feeding frenzy was symbolised by Ace Magashule’s son buying a BMW worth R2-million, a week after it was revealed that his “company” (of which he is sole director) had scored big on a project to provide soap and masks to the Free State provincial government.

Although this is small scale corruption in comparison to, say, the Arms Deal or the Medupi power plant, or the billions raked off from state-owned enterprises, the callousness of looting donor funds provided to protect people from a potentially deadly illness reflects the extent of the ANC’s moral depravity.

The key question no one seems to be addressing is this: How did we manage, in 26 short years of democracy, to fall from the pedestal of international respectability; to become a byword for corruption and criminality?

Why didn’t our magnificent Constitution (often described as one of the best in the world), with all its checks and balances, prevent this? And what about our vigorous opposition, vigilant media, independent judiciary, active civil society, and a raft of Chapter 9 institutions? Why did they all fail to stop the onward march of the state from international poster child for democracy, to corruption and blatant criminality?

The answer is: because the ANC legalised corruption. It did so openly, under our noses, often with the fulsome support of almost all the institutions that should have prevented it, including the international community.

What’s more, these institutions not only failed to protect us – they actually facilitated this downward trajectory.

To get to the root of the problem, we must face the fact that Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), as conceptualised and implemented by the ANC, made corruption legal and morally acceptable.  Anyone who saw through it, and called it for what it is, was automatically dismissed as “racist”.

In over 100 laws mandating B-BBEE and racial “representivity” throughout the public and private sector, the ANC created a useful camouflage to cover its deployment committee’s work in setting up this looting machine. Cadres were deployed to all institutions of state, controlling multi-billion budgets, dispensing funds and managing procurement systems, with the primary aim of enriching the ANC cadres in business and securing significant “kickbacks” for the party and its network.

Inevitably, before long, competing networks arose. The factions in the ANC are not driven primarily by political or ideological differences, but by intense contestation for control over these funding sources. After 26 years, the South African state has become a web of competing criminal syndicates posing as a government.

And they made fools of the electorate by successfully selling the lie that their form of B-BBEE was synonymous with black empowerment. It was the very opposite. It left SA destitute, with unemployment levels at 30% (and that was before the Covid-19 pandemic).

Some people still believe the ANC’s race laws were motivated by a real commitment to redress. I do not believe that, and never have.

And to be fair, the ANC has been pretty honest about its intentions from the start. 

Right at the start of our democracy, the ANC told us that their National Democratic Revolution (NDR) required “State Capture”. It took 23 years before journalists and most analysts actually took this seriously.

As Joel Netshitenzhe, a leading ANC intellectual, wrote in the ANC mouthpiece Umrabulo in 1996: The aim of the NDR “is extending the power of the ‘National Liberation Movement’ over all levers of power: the army, the police, the bureaucracy, intelligence structures, the judiciary, parastatals, and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public broadcaster, the central bank and so on”.

The unparalleled revulsion to the extent of looting in the rest of the country is based in the disbelief that the ANC would actually use a national crisis to milk the state – especially the billions borrowed to deal with Covid-19.

The ANC’s deployment policy was aimed at achieving party control of the state. And then, through the state, controlling every other sector of society by introducing stricter and stricter B-BBEE and EEA laws that enabled cadre deployment (and the associated corruption and criminalisation) to reach into every money flow – every stream of funding – in the country.

In the earlier years, the notorious Chancellor House provided a clearing house, allocating tenders and contracts through the state in return for generous donations to the ANC.

But even that filter finally fell away. Now it is straight, personalised corruption to politically linked individuals.

We were warned. As Kgalema Motlanthe said in 2007:

“This rot is across the board. It is not confined to any level or any area of the country. Almost every project is conceived because it offers opportunities for certain people to make money.”

The power struggles in the ANC are so fierce precisely because they mean control of the machinery of cadre deployment to loot on behalf of those connected to the winning faction.

Former Business Day editor, Tim Cohen, described it aptly in 2008 when he wrote: “At issue is the creation of the state in which politicians enter politics not with the intention of public service, but with the intention of getting rich. The result is that political battles are a kind of proxy for deciding not how social issues are to be addressed, but which faction will gain the ability to insert itself into the circulation of money streams.” (Cohen is editor of Business Maverick – Ed)

The only places where this has not occurred, is where the DA governs.

The unparalleled revulsion to the extent of looting in the rest of the country is based in the disbelief that the ANC would actually use a national crisis to milk the state – especially the billions borrowed to deal with Covid-19.

In order to try to prevent this feeding frenzy, the DA went to court seeking a declaratory that B-BBEE criteria could not be used to disburse disaster relief to small businesses that had suffered severe losses under the lockdown. The court dismissed our case. It found that not only was the minister empowered to use B-BBEE criteria, but that she was mandated to do so.

Our application for leave to appeal this judgment was also dismissed, this time with costs. The court found that while the minister was constitutionally and legally compelled to use B-BBEE criteria, she might choose not to give this criterion any weight in allocating the resources.

This single judgment demonstrates the extent to which all the checks and balances against the institutionalisation of corruption and the resulting criminalisation of the state, have failed.

The only way out of this mess is to understand that no democracy can make sustained economic progress without actively striving to become a meritocracy, where people are appointed to positions, or win tenders, on clear, value-adding criteria, not on their colour or their political contacts.

In this context, it is hardly surprising that two sons of ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, as well as various close allies, benefited so handsomely from contracts for PPE equipment at significantly inflated prices. As Ace himself said: “There is no law against it.”

He is right.

As Jacob Zuma famously said in his response to allegations of corruption: “I was only applying B-BBEE.”

Indeed, he was. On this basis, his lawyers will be able to put up a good defence, if the ex-president ever gets his day in court.

The system creates every possible incentive for this cynical abuse of black economic empowerment. It isn’t an accident. It was designed this way.

The new appointments to the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) show exactly how it is done: there is the façade, a pretence, of due process. People are invited to apply for board positions that carry key responsibilities. Scores of people put in applications in good faith, often highly competent, experienced and well-skilled for the role. But Luthuli House hands its list to the selection panel, dominated by ANC cadres, and with a little additional input from the ANC Women’s League and the Young Communist League, the predetermined board emerges, almost totally devoid of the skills required to do the job.

A new looting vehicle into the funding stream of R500-million annually that is the NYDA’s budget.

The only way out of this mess is to understand that no democracy can make sustained economic progress without actively striving to become a meritocracy, where people are appointed to positions, or win tenders, on clear, value-adding criteria, not on their colour or their political contacts.

And the only way we can get there is if the voters begin to understand why this is so important, and begin to vote for it.

Otherwise we must stop feigning shock when the looting continues.

Would the ANC have persisted with brutal lockdown if cadres like Senzo Mchunu also felt the pain?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is disgusted by the latest utterances made by the Minister for Public Service and Administration, Senzo Mchunu.

After the DA last week exposed the fact that the government spent about R11 billion on salaries for 84 000 state officials who were not working during lockdown – at the same time that at least three million people lost their jobs in the private sector due to the ANC lockdown crisis – Mchunu yesterday responded with a classless and rambling statement defending government wastage.

Under relentless pressure from the DA, Mchunu’s latest statement sought to deflect legitimate questions about the government’s fiscal irresponsibility by using obfuscation and personal invective.

In seeking to deny the facts exposed by the DA, Mchunu conveniently ignores that it was his very own reply to a parliamentary question which stated that “during the national lockdown all public servants will continue to receive their full salaries.”

It was also Mchunu himself who provided figures showing that over 84 000 officials continued to be paid from taxpayer funds even though they – in Mchunu’s own words – “had their workloads reduced significantly.”

Unable to dispute the facts that he personally put on the table, Mchunu desperately turned to childish insults wholly unbecoming of a member of Cabinet.

First he bizarrely accused the DA of “making all these claims with a mouth full of salaries.” Then he attacked a Member of Parliament for supposedly “not [understanding] anything outside of the DA.” This also follows after Mchunu was recently forced in Parliament to withdraw his disrespectful statement that a fellow MP “is a liar.”

Sadly, Mchunu’s rapidly degenerating behaviour seems to be in keeping with recent reports of his fellow ANC cadres, including Lebogang Maile and Boy Mamabolo, verbally assaulting citizens, who are more fed up than ever with his party’s looting orgy.

The DA calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to instruct Mchunu to issue a public apology for language so utterly unbecoming of a Cabinet minister.

More importantly, the DA is deeply alarmed that Mchunu continues to defend the estimated R11 billion in taxpayer money spent on salaries for 84 000 state officials to do next to nothing during the lockdown, while at least three million private sector workers lost all they had.

Under their destructive lockdown, the ANC government forced private sector workers to give up their salaries and instead rely on what Mchunu meekly calls “some measures that government could afford” – including the failing TERS system.

If the government was confident that TERS payments could sustain South Africans during the crisis, why did it not mandate its own officials who were not working to also depend on TERS to survive?

The DA reiterates our view that it is a national scandal that the ANC gladly sacrificed over three million private sector livelihoods while spending R11 billion to protect the salaries of cadres and officials who did next to no work during the lockdown.

Mchunu’s breathless claim that “there is no classification of non-essential public servants” also stands in stark contrast to his government’s zealous declaration of vast sections of our private economy as “non-essential.”

Mchunu’s flagrant hypocrisy confirms that the ANC has nothing but utter contempt for hard-working private sector workers. Regardless of the amount of personal insults hurled by an increasingly desperate government, the DA will never apologise for fighting on the side of our productive workers and job-creation heroes in the private sector.

When Minister Mchunu is done spitting invective at the DA, perhaps he could answer a simple question: would the ANC and its President have so gleefully implemented a brutal and devastating lockdown on our already struggling economy if its own politicians, officials and cadres also felt the financial pain currently being experienced by millions of citizens in the private sector?

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

High Court ruling on Cape Town Section 34 determination disappointing

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has taken note of the decision by the North Gauteng Division of the High Court on the matter between the City of Cape Town and the Minister of Energy and National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), relating to the City’s application for a Section 34 ministerial determination to allow the City to procure electricity from Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The judgement, referring the matter back to the Intergovernmental Dispute Resolution Framework, is disappointing in that it further delays the City’s ability to provide electricity and to alleviate the impact of rolling blackouts on its residents.

In addition, the judgment appears to ignore the lengthy period of time that this matter has been outstanding, without any attempt at resolution by the Energy Minister or NERSA.

During the 5 years since the initial application, the Minister could, at any time, have rendered this case moot by responding to or deciding on the City’s application.

The DA will continue to push for the adoption of our Private Members’ Bill, the Independent Electricity Management Operator Bill, which would allow metropolitan municipalities such as the City of Cape Town that have the financial capacity and technical capability, to procure electricity from whomsoever they please, without requiring a ministerial determination.

It is unacceptable that unnecessary bureaucracy and petty power politics are hindering service delivery by a capable local government.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Chaos at Cape Town deeds office must be dealt with urgently

The Democratic Alliance calls (DA) on the National Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) to fully capacitate its deeds office in Cape Town and deal with backlogs urgently in accordance with a Western Cape High Court order.

We will also write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to ensure Minister Thoko Didiza presents her plans to address the chaos at this office.

While it normally takes 5 to 7 days to register a deed at the Cape Town deeds office, the timeline has increased to between 27 to 29 workdays during the lockdown. At the moment, deeds offices in other provinces seem to operate at capacity and experience few to no delays and there seems little evidence of extensive backlogs to speak of.

Meanwhile, conveyancers in Cape Town have been forced to turn to the courts in order to get any amount of work done, and while affidavits from the Department indicate that they have complied with the court orders to continue with full operation of this deed office, subject to social distancing and health protocols – the experience on the ground has been fraught with ongoing delays and lack of communication.

Instead of working with conveyancers to address the issues and giving serious considerations to their suggestions to safely recapacitate the office, the Department is still operating its Cape Town deed office at a capacity of 50% and making excuses for why the backlog continues to increase.

The DA will also submit parliamentary questions to ascertain how well the other deeds offices are running at the moment and whether backlogs exist in these offices.

When the DA conducted an oversight inspection at the office last week, we were told that Nehawu insists on the offices operating at only 30% capacity and that personnel only return to premises anywhere between 12 and 48 hours after cleaning if there was a Covid-19 scare.

The Minister must take a strong stance. She cannot allow unions to dictate policy, especially if that policy seems to only be employed in one province and to its detriment.

It might be time for the Minister to do a sight inspection herself, and if the Department cannot find safe solutions to address the problems, maybe it should look to what it is doing in its other deeds offices around the country.

Surely the same playbook should apply. If the Department has already proven itself in running capacitated deeds offices in other parts of South Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Cape Town branch should be an easy puzzle to solve – one that needs a solution as soon as possible.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

DA to champion youth activists’ petition to stop ANC-sponsored NYDA board appointments

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has received a petition signed by more than 800 youth activists opposing the politically compromised National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) board recommendations.

We are proud to champion this cause and sponsor this petition in Parliament as we too believe that the majority of those candidates on the shortlist show how unfair, biased, discriminatory and unconstitutional the process to appoint them was and that they are not representative of South Africa’s youth.

The petition has already been submitted to the President, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). The DA will sponsor the petition for urgent discussion in Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.

On Monday, the DA revealed a letter by the ANC National Youth Task Team (NYTT) convener, Tandi Mahambehlala, to the ANC deputy secretary-general, Jessie Duarte, that proves that the final recommendations for the NYDA board were pre-determined by Luthuli House.

Clearly, the nomination and appointment process of this board was just a box-ticking exercise for the ANC in Parliament.

NYDA, like countless other legitimate state institutions, has been eroded by the ANC’s cadre deployment scam in order to legally loot public funds.

The entity has wasted billions of rands since its inception with nothing to show but the enrichment of a few handpicked cadres who will continue to pursue their own stomachs above the well-being of the country with their new-found looting skills.

If South Africa is ever to rise above its myriad of socio-economic problems, cadre deployment must be wiped from the public institutions meant to service all South Africans. Expertise and merit should not be allowed to be overshadowed by political affiliation any longer.

The DA stands with the brave young activists that signed the petition to ask that the NYDA board appointment process be dismissed and dissolved. This is an excellent opportunity for the ANC that was so “shocked” by the Covid-19 corruption to put their money where their mouths are: ensure a fair board appointment process at NYDA.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Zimbabwean ‘Tea Summit’ a total failure, Ramaphosa himself must go

The decision by the Zimbabwean government to deny President Cyril Ramphosa’s envoys an opportunity to meet with opposition leaders was not only disrespectful to the office of the African Union Chairperson, which Ramaphosa currently holds, but seems to confirm that the voices of the opposition and civil society are being muzzled in Zimbabwe.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) now calls on President Ramaphosa, in his capacity as AU Chairperson, to show leadership and go to Harare and meet with all the relevant stakeholders and get a balanced picture of the political crisis unfolding in the country.

Media reports indicate that Sydney Mufamadi, Baleka Mbethe, and Ngoako Ramathlodi were hosted to a ‘tea briefing’ by Zimbabwe’s President, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa then told the envoys that ‘there was no crisis in Zimbabwe’ and hence no need to meet with the opposition or civil society.

The envoys had made plans to meet with the opposition and had to cancel them at the last minute because of Mnangagwa’s strong-arming tactics. This is unacceptable.

Mr Mnangagwa’s government has unleashed a reign of terror on defenceless citizens, arresting journalists and activists on trumped-up charges. For him to claim that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe and ask that the envoys sent by the AU Chairperson turn around and go back without meeting the opposition, is a poor attempt at covering up the actions of his murderous regime.

For far too long, successive ANC governments have stood by as ZANU-PF has trampled civil liberties with impunity and disregard for the rule of law. The ANC has played an enabling role in the Zimbabwe crisis by glossing over state brutality in the country and its mismanagement of the economy.

President Cyril Ramaphosa faces the first real test in his Chairmanship of the AU. He will have to make a choice on whether to stand with the people of Zimbabwe against the tyranny of ZANU-PF or continue with the failed policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Ramaphosa must choose South Africa over ANC ideological battles on alcohol and tobacco sales

The Democratic Alliance (DA) strongly urges President Cyril Ramaphosa to end the continued ban on alcohol and tobacco sales which according to media reports will be discussed during a cabinet meeting this week.

Since the ban on tobacco sales was instituted 139 days ago and an alcohol ban which was brought back without any warning or consultation, it is believed South Africa has lost up to R8 billion in taxes from these industries.

This is roughly 11.5% of the R70 billion loan that we had to go and beg the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for.

There has also been a tsunami of job losses in both industries which run past 100 000 jobs lost and more than R10 billion worth of investments that have been pulled from South Africa.

While the idea of these bans had started off well-intentioned to build up healthcare capacity, it is clear that they quickly morphed into an ideological battleground within the ANC and national cabinet, with President Ramaphosa being reduced to a mere spectator while his ministers repeatedly contradicted him on these issues.

We have also been told repeatedly that the government is being “led by the science” on both of these bans and yet the “science” is just not with them to continue this prohibition going forward.

In fact, the President and his Ministers are now in stark opposition to what our leading scientists are telling us, and that is to drop the bans on alcohol and tobacco immediately.

In truth, the biggest winners during this national debacle have been cigarette smugglers and liquor bootleggers who have made billions of Rands while the state has criminalised ordinary South Africans for buying cigarettes and alcohol. Whose side is the government really on?

In the end, President Ramaphosa will have a chance to choose South Africans first this week, save livelihoods in these industries and to divert police resources to catching real crooks like ANC politicians who have stolen Covid-19 funds which should have been used to buy PPE, instead of unleashing the police to lock up people for buying cigarettes.

It remains to be seen, will President Ramaphosa choose South Africa over the wishes of the ANC and his ministers playing ideological roulette? Only time will tell.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

When will July Ters applications open?

The Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, must indicate when July applications for the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s (UIF) Covid-19 Ters benefit will open.

He owes it to the anxious and desperate workers of South Africa, who aren’t sure when their next pay cheque will arrive.

The Ters scheme is due to come to an end on 15 August, and July applications still aren’t open.

Applications for May opened late, at midnight on 26 May. Applications for June opened late, on 24 June, and then closed almost immediately because of security and data breech issues, with functionality only restored on the weekend of 11 and 12 July. Now we are almost halfway through August and nobody is any the wiser about when July applications will open. We don’t know whether July applications will be considered separately from August applications, or whether the six-week bloc between 1 July and 15 August will be treated as a single pay period with a single application process.

Of even greater concern is that payments for April and May seem to have dried up, and payments for June are coming through at a trickle. According to a survey by the National Employers’ Association of South Africa (Neasa), nearly 60% of employers across the country still haven’t received their June Ters money. Of the 40% of employers who received payment for June, only 64% were paid in full. Neasa claims that 28% of employers still haven’t received their May benefits and 12% of employers still haven’t received their April benefits. And here again, for April and May payments, only 60-65% of employers were paid in full.

This is deeply concerning and both the UIF and Minister Nxesi need to provide direction and communicate accordingly as a matter of urgency.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

DA mourns the passing of Bob Mabena

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is deeply saddened by the the passing of legendary South African radio personality, Bob Mabena.

Mabena was not only a legend of our airwaves – he was also a pioneer and role model to many of South Africa’s current biggest and brightest broadcasters.

For more than three decades, Mabena entertained our nation and was a constant feature of our daily lives through his music and radio shows. 

He was a giant in the media industry who has left an indelible mark in music, arts and broadcasting.

The DA sends its heartfelt condolences to the Mabena family, friends and his PowerFM colleagues.

May your soul Rest in Eternal Peace, Bob Mabena. 

Justice Committee must convene urgently on matters of national importance

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the chairperson of the Justice Portfolio Committee to request that the committee urgently convenes during the recess period to discuss two matters of national importance – the findings of the NPA’s De Kock Panel, and the removal of the Public Protector.

The first of these are the findings contained in a 96-page report dated June 2019, based on which the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Adv. Shamila Batohi, decided to withdraw charges against Johan Booysen and his co-accused. This report has been kept confidential but was recently leaked, exposing serious and possibly criminal prosecutorial misconduct in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

It is of the utmost importance that the committee urgently determines if any disciplinary and more serious  action is being planned or underway against the prosecutors and officials exposed – and if this is not the case, really tough questions need to be asked as to the reasons why.

The second matter that the committee should urgently discuss relates to the Public Protector, Adv. Busisiwe Mkhwebane. Argument by her own counsel before the South Gauteng High Court last week raised the question of whether she had perjured herself; and revealed that she does not feel bound by court orders. This must give rise to questions as to why the Public Prorector should not be suspended with immediate effect, pending removal proceedings.

After relentless pressure by the DA, Parliament late last year adopted a set of rules to govern the removal process of a Chapter 9-head such as the Public Protector. The DA then requested the institution of such proceedings against Mkhwebane, which request was accompanied by thousands of pages of evidence.

It is our belief that the committee must seek an urgent update from the Speaker of the National Assembly, Thandi Modise, on the progress made to appoint – in terms of the new rules governing the process – an independent panel to assess whether or not there is prima facie evidence that points to to misconduct, incapacity or incompetence on the part of Mkhwebane.

The DA firmly believes that the evidence will confirm that Mkhwebane is not fit to occupy the office of Public Protector and that she must be removed.

Institutions such as the NPA and the Public Protector are crucial defences to ordinary South Africans against a corrupt ANC government, and as such the integrity of public office bearers with these institutions must be above any reproach.

The DA will continue to fight to keep these institutions independent and free to speak truth to power.