DA calls on Treasury to make public announcement on relaxing banks’ stringent R200 billion Covid-19 loan scheme criteria

The government’s R200 billion guaranteed loan scheme for businesses is not working. This loan scheme is a central pillar of government’s R500 billion economic support package. If the loan scheme does not work, thousands of businesses will go under unnecessarily. This problem requires urgent attention, but there is little evidence of urgency from the National Treasury.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni to make public what steps he has taken, in co-operation with the Reserve Bank, to relax the stringent vetting criteria banks apply on the R200 billion Covid-19 loan scheme applications.

The Banking Association of South Africa (Basa) has revealed that banks have only disbursed just over 5% (R10,6 billion) of the loan scheme funds since the scheme was launched. Banks have received 33 965 applications, of which 37% (12 660) were rejected either for not meeting the bank eligibility criteria or the eligibility criteria set out by government.

Last month, the DA called on Treasury and major banks to give urgent attention to the slow roll out of the loan scheme, and to make design changes that would allow funds to flow faster.

We were encouraged that Minister Mboweni addresses these concerns in his Emergency Budget speech, saying “We are also finalising amendments to the repayment holiday and turnover limit, and relaxing terms and conditions to support lending.”

But since his speech two weeks ago, nothing has been announced. And lending under the scheme is not speeding up.

The dismal approval rate is an indication that Treasury and the SARB are not paying adequate attention to finding solutions to address the poor uptake rate.

The DA has proposed that normal vetting requirements should not apply at this time. Small businesses face a unique crisis which requires flexibility from banks in their loan risk assessments. This is especially so given that the state is guaranteeing 96% of potential loan losses.

Treasury should be at the forefront of helping small businesses to access much-needed finance. And should not be complicit in sending tens of thousands of South Africans into unemployment.

If the eligibility criteria are not fixed urgently, the programme will fail and tens of thousands of businesses will not survive post-lockdown.

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

DA calls for the reopening of yoga, Pilates, and other specialised studios under strict Covid-19 health conditions

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls for the reopening of Pilates, yoga and other studios under strict and measured Covid-19 guidelines under the risk-adjusted level 3 lockdown. These studios have been shut down for more than 3 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic lockdown – they can no longer afford to watch helplessly as their revenue dry up.

While some industries, such as restaurants have slowly been attuned to reopen under measured lockdown regulations, Pilates, yoga and other studios, have not yet been given a thumbs up.

The owners of these businesses, majority of which are females who desperately need the income, have not had access to a sustainable income for the entire lockdown period and they run the risk of permanently closing down their businesses putting many more people out of jobs.

Not only are the business owners at risk, but this will have a major ripple effect on service providers whose businesses are reliant on these studios to survive. These include small businesses such as costume seamstresses, yoga and Pilates equipment and clothing manufacturers, cleaning staff and many instructors – people’s livelihoods are at stake.

Furthermore, this industry falls under non-contact sport operated in a controlled safe environment and have the ability to adjust to the current realities more readily than other industries. The DA is of the view that if non-contact sport codes are allowed in a controlled safe environment then the same privilege should be extended to yoga, Pilates and other studios.

Another grouping in the fitness sector has approached the courts to compel the government to open gyms. In an effort to persuade the government to reopen their sector, a group of small business and health industry specialists in the disciplines of Pilates, Yoga and other specialised discipline have banded together to form The Specialized Studio Practitioners Foundation. The group has proactively adjusted their studios and have ensured that they are thoroughly cleaned to meet with the required health and safety standards.

This industry shows readiness and has all the needed protocols in place, they understand the restrictions on indoor wellness activities and have all their ducks in a row to ensure health and safety for their clients during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The DA calls on the government to do the right thing and reopen these studios to save livelihoods and to prevent even more South Africans from being condemned to joblessness.

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

Defense Minister must engage SADC counterparts to strategise on terror threat in Mozambique

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to urgently engage her counterparts in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regarding the increasing Islamic State (ISIS) threat in the north of Mozambique.

In its newsletter, ISIS, in the form of Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamaah or Al Shabaab, warns South Africa to not get involved in the current conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province.

South Africa cannot afford to ignore this threat from ISIS or take its warning lightly. As a member of both SADC and the African Union (AU) we have an obligation to safeguard the stability of our country and our neighbours’.

To ensure that the threat ISIS poses to South Africa, Mozambique and the rest of SADC, is dealt with in a decisive manner, it is time that all SADC nations come together to strategise and collectively find solutions to the problem.

The South African National Defense Force (SANDF) is part of an established SADC Force in collaboration with the AU, that can be deployed against the ISIS terrorists in Mozambique with the consent of the AU and the United Nations (UN).

It’s time the Minister reprioritises the SANDF troops currently deployed in South African streets to rather act on its normal mandate and safeguard South African borders and regain regional stability.

The Minister needs to also play open cards with South Africans and be honest about the threat facing our neighbouring nation. Mozambique is a popular holiday destination, and many South Africans have friends or family living and working in Mozambique. With the duel threat of ISIS and Covid-19 plaquing the country, transparency from the Minister will go a long way in alleviating the extra worry the situation might cause South Africans.

South Africa is not an island. We are part of the great African family and must support Mozambique.

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

DA welcomes Minister Mchunu’s commitment to take action against government officials doing business with the State

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes Public Service and Administration Minister Senzo Mchunu’s commitment to take action against the 1 544 public service employees who are conducting business with the State. The DA has for years put pressure on the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) to investigate these incidents.

Not only is it morally bankrupt for public service employees to conduct business with the State, it is also a serious criminal offence, and those implicated should be held accountable according prescripts of the law.

In a reply to a DA parliamentary question, Minister Mchunu confirmed that of these 1 544 public service employees doing business with the State, 1 111 were from provincial departments and 433 from national departments.

The parliamentary reply also revealed that 309 senior governmental management officials at both provincial and national government departments have not adhered to Regulations 18 (1) and (2) of the Public Service Regulations 2016 by failing to disclose their financial interests annually by 30 April 2020.

Minister Mchunu disclosed that of the 309 senior managers who were guilty of not adhering to the requirements of the Public Service Regulations, 243 worked in national departments, 14 in national government components and 52 within the provincial departments.

It is worrisome that senior managers that should be setting an example within the departments simply treat these requirements with contempt. We call on the relevant departments to ensure that those individuals are held accountable, as they are not above the Public Service Regulations.

The duty of a public servant is to care for the welfare of our communities and to ensure that services are delivered to the public – it is not to defraud the state and self-enrichment. The DA will continue to push for the public service be beyond approach so that we can build a capable state that protects the public purse and guarantees services to citizens.

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

DA to refer hate speech social media posts glorifying farm murders to SAHRC for investigation

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will refer a number of social media posts, which seemingly glorify farm murders and attacks, to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to investigate them for hate speech.

A fortnight ago, the DA undertook, as part of our 16 action steps in terms of our Rural Security Strategy, to report what we believe to be hate speech, or hate crimes, to relevant authorities for investigation. This includes the reporting and charging of those on social media, or any other platform, who glorify the torture and murder that has become the hallmark of rural attacks.

The DA has identified the following recent heinous posts on social media which glorify and encourage the attacks on farmers:

   

Screenshots can be accessed here, here, here, here, here and here

The DA views these posts as abhorrent and those who post them must be held to account for their vitriolic and hateful utterances.

Hate crimes are defined based on two factors: 1) the act is considered a crime under existing South African criminal law, and 2) the act is motivated in whole or in part by prejudice or hatred regarding an aspect of the victims’ identity. Hate crimes are not simply crimes committed against vulnerable groups, they are in fact crimes committed against individuals because of prejudice that the perpetrator holds against an entire group of people, but directed at an available victim.

Research indicates that there is a direct correlation between hate speech – frequently spoken or sung by political leaders – and an immediate increase in rural attacks, which are frequently accompanied by the most terrible torture. Indeed, there is a marked increase in these instances during which the men, women or children of all races are attacked, immediately after such utterances are publicised.

In 2001 the ANC ordered a committee of inquiry into farm attacks, and the conclusion was that the attacks were overwhelmingly robberies, with virtually no political motive or racial hatred shown. It seems either that the outcome of the inquiry was itself a political statement, or that a new inquiry is needed as a matter of urgency. This is because today there are frequent reports that after the most terrible torture, the perpetrators simply leave and take nothing.

It is unbelievable that those who glory in the idea of the rape and murder of the wives and children of farmers and farmworkers are seldom taken to court. This foulness has at times been romanticised and encouraged by politicians, and those who follow have faced no consequences. The DA will ensure that they do. For the police to record ‘theft of a wallet’ after a farmer has been tortured for hours, must stop. This is not a robbery – it is a hate crime.

Scapegoating farmers for the ANC’s failures in job creation, education, housing and in addressing hunger, is a convenient political tool which is costing lives. Farmers, farmworkers and their loved ones are responsible for feeding our nation and ensuring food security. The senseless murder and torture of these communities need to stop and those who glorify these acts must be held to account.

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

Are ‘District Champions’ part of ‘top secret’ ANC power grab plot?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) can confirm that the national government is now “deploying” ministers and deputy ministers to local and provincial governments as part of the Command Council system.

Letters have been sent to premiers and mayors informing them of who their “District Champions” are – the selfsame proposal of “district political champions” is used in the government document revealed by the DA yesterday, and marked “top secret”.

The document describes the Covid-19 pandemic as an ideal opportunity for the centralisation of government power. It touts the government’s District Development Plan as the mechanism to achieve this aim.

As the DA said yesterday: we are worried that the document might signal the ANC’s intention to roll back the powers of elected local and provincial governments, and so we are putting a formal parliamentary question to President Cyril Ramaphosa to find out whether the document reflects the government’s thinking.

In the meantime, the deployment letters sent to mayors and premiers do not specify what powers and responsibilities the deployed District Champions will have.

The DA believes that some municipalities have declined the invitation to accept their appointed District Champions, at least until the President has clarified their terms of reference.

While it is essential for all spheres of government to cooperate to improve services and defeat the Covid-19 pandemic, this starts with ministers doing their day jobs with diligence and care.

Some of these ministers, including Bheki Cele at Police, Lindiwe Zulu at Social Services, and Ebrahim Patel at Trade and Industry have been at the centre of undermining government efforts to fight the pandemic.

Even the Department of Cooperative Governance have been singularly uncooperative. Months after President Cyril Ramaphosa promised billions in aid to lockdown-ravaged municipalities, it is still not clear if and when municipalities will receive this assistance.

In places like the Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, where the Bethal/Emzinoni community have been suffering load-shedding of up to 12 hours a day since the start of the lockdown, national government is yet to use its existing powers to broker a deal to help the delinquent municipality service its Eskom debt.

In addition to clarity on the so-called top secret document, the DA will now also ask the President to take the country into his confidence about what he is sending his ministers and deputy ministers to do in their role as District Champions.

For one, we want to know whether the country and the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic will not be better served if the President in fact better supervises his own ministers instead of sending them to supervise mayors and premiers.

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

FS MEC backtracks on alleged abuse of art relief funding for food parcels

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has submitted a series of parliamentary questions to the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, related to the situation in the Free State where the MEC of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Limakatso Mahasa, has appointed a new provincial Sports, Arts and Culture Council, seemingly without following due process, a day after the previous council’s term lapsed.

The MEC put out a media statement on Saturday, 4 July 2020, after she faced strong backlash from the sports and art sectors in the province to her purported intentions to use Sports, Arts and Culture Covid-19 relief funding for food parcels.

MEC Mahasa backtracked on her intentions of redirecting relief funding away from athletes and artists. Her appointment of the new council, which is responsible for overseeing and administering the relief funds, so quickly after the previous council lapsed, has however raised suspicions.

Questions have been raised on whether the new council members have been put in place in order to facilitate the MEC’s alleged plans to redirect sports and artists relief funds elsewhere.

It is unclear to many what role the MEC for Arts and Sports play in food relief, and why she would want to redirect monies specifically earmarked for the relief of desperate athletes and artists.

The DA has submitted parliamentary questions to Minister Mthethwa to ascertain answers to these questions as well as to get clarity on the following concerns:

  • How was the council that lapsed on Friday replaced by Saturday;
  • If the nomination process for the new council was gazetted as per legislation;
  • Whether candidates were shortlisted; and
  • If the new members were adequately vetted.

We need to have these questions answered in order to ensure that this is not an attempt by corrupt officials to get their greedy hands on relief funding. During these times of crisis we have already witnessed several incidents of politicians and officials abusing money meant to assist and support communities and it is critical that we are extra vigilant to ensure that the looting is stopped in its tracks.

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

DA welcomes court ruling allowing reopening ECD sector, and calls for Minister Zulu’s dismissal

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the ruling by the North Gauteng High Court that Early Childhood Development Centres (ECD) may reopen, and we implore the centres to open as soon as possible while adhering to Covid-19 Health and Safety guidelines issued by the Department of Social Development (DSD).

The sector has been in turmoil since the easing of the Covid-19 lockdown due to the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu’s ineptitude and unwillingness to engage with the sector.

Due to the Minister’s ever-changing goalposts in order to delay the opening of the sector, many ECDs had to close their doors permanently and the children they serviced are now left in the cold.

The Minister has so little regard for the sector and the children it benefits, that she failed to even file an answering affidavit.

The judge in the matter, Judge Hans Fabricius, pulled no punches regarding the Minister’s conduct in the matter: “The conduct of the first respondent in these proceeding falls far short of the standard that can and must be expected in these crucially important proceedings concerning young and vulnerable children, and my strong disapproval thereof must be expressed. Were it not for the interests of young children, I would have made short-thrift of all the inadmissible evidence”. He also said, “It is submitted that the conduct of the first and third respondent are not only irrational but illustrative of a flagrant disregard of their Constitutional duties and obligations envisaged in section 195 of the Constitution.”

Minister Zulu’s conduct is a classic example of Cabinet Ministers who deem themselves above the law, and underscores the need for an ad hoc oversight committee on the National Corona Command Council (NCCC) in order to avoid the implementation of more irrational regulations by Ministers that cause unnecessary pain, suffering and hardship to South Africans.

It is high time that President Cyril Ramaphosa takes his Ministers to task. Minister Zulu is only the latest Minister to utterly fail her mandate in having the best interest of those in her care at heart and ensuring that she serves the vulnerable in our society.

Minister Zulu has shown continuous disdain to the poor of South Africa. From her deplorable failings regarding SASSA grants to her abysmal handling of the reopening of the ECD sector, she has shown that she is incapable of managing such a crucial ministry. It’s high time she is put somewhere where she can do no more harm, for the good of all South Africans suffering at her incompetent hands.

Instead of Government, business and civil society fighting each other court case after court case, we should be united and focused on our joint fight against Covid-19.

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

NDZ must account to Parliament over Covid-19 relief spending by municipalities

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will request that the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs ensure the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, gives account on how the R20 billion Covid-19 relief funding has been administered and spent by municipalities.

Since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown and the announcement of the Covid-19 relief stimulus to help municipalities weather the storm, there has been concerns that the money would not reach the intended targets and be used to line the pockets of corrupt politicians. These fears are increasingly becoming a reality.

Last week a report by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AG), Kimi Makwetu, revealed that only 8% of municipalities received a clean audit. In most of the municipalities that did not receive a clean audit, there were gross mismanagement of funds and indications of looting and corruption. It does not take much of an imagination to see the R2 billion in relief funding for municipalities disappearing down the same drain.

In just the past few weeks the following allegations of gross and brazen financial mismanagement have come to light:

  • The Chris Hani District Municipality has been accused of paying an inflated amount of money for personal protective equipment (PPE). The owner of the company, IC Bane Trading, is said to be politically connected and charged the municipality R175 per 500ml bottle of sanitizer and R50 a piece for surgical face masks.
  • R4.8 million was paid by the OR Tambo District Municipality to Phathilizwi Training Institution for a door-to-door Covid-19 awareness campaign. It has emerged that many of the names which appeared on the community workers’ forms, did not receive any Covid-related information.
  • The Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality has come under fire for allegedly forking out R90 million in Covid-19 expenditure. Questions have been raised over whether the municipality paid inflated prices.
  • The Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipality which was awarded R30 million in drought relief funding during the 2018/2019 financial year, however, can only account for R5 million of the grant. The remaining R25 million has disappeared from the municipality’s coffers without any explanation.

On 23 March President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) would establish special Covid-19 anti-corruption units to expedite the prosecution and sentencing of those who are involved in corrupt activities related to the Covid-19 crisis. To date not another word has been said about these units. It is becoming more and more evident that these units are desperately needed if any of the Covid-19 relief measures are to make a dent in the crisis we are facing.

It is time that the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Shamila Batohi, gives clarity on whether these units have indeed been established and are actively investigating the escalating looting of Covid-19 funds.

The DA has previously called on Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, to create a Special Inspector-General in the National Treasury to prevent and investigate corruption related to Covid-19 funding. Our very reasonable suggestion seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

There seems to be little appetite on the part of government to address the unabated Covid-19 looting spree currently taking place at municipalities across the country. It is for this reason that the DA believes that Minister Dlmini-Zuma must account to Parliament. If the Executive is reluctant to address the looting, the Parliament will force them to take action.

Unless Government urgently creates a stopgap, the Covid-19 stimulus package meant to save lives and livelihoods will be nothing but a free-for-all buffet where stomach politics will reign supreme once again, and vulnerable and desperate citizens will be left out in the cold.

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

DA exposes ‘top secret’ government document that suggests a massive ANC power grab

Find attached an English and Afrikaans soundbite by Cilliers Brink MP. 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is in possession of what appears to be a government document that describes the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity for the “macro re-organisation of the state”, and proposes to make the Command Council system a model for government beyond the lockdown.

The document discusses the financial ruin in municipalities that it says is due to South Africa’s credit downgrade and the lockdown, and uses this as a gap to extend and consolidate central state control.

The credit downgrade and the lockdown did not result in municipalities collapsing, the ANC did.

The fundamental reason for the collapse of many municipalities across South Africa has been the ANC’s cadre deployment policies and the wholescale mismanagement, corruption and criminalisation of the state that followed. Municipal officials were not appointed for competency, but rather political expediency.

Apart from relying on bad government to solve the problems caused by bad government, the DA is most concerned by the constitutional implications of what is being proposed. The document seems to reveal an ANC plan to slowly roll back the powers of democratically elected local and provincial government.

This is nothing short of a coup d’état. The document literally invokes the phrase “Never waste a good crisis” and describes the response of government to the Covid-19 pandemic as “exemplary”, and proposes using the District Development Model and the Command Council system as a means of centralised government policy-making.

This model, it argues, “should inform South Africa’s economic response and it will do so in a way that will disrupt current and old ways of how government has been working”. It will also “bind” all spheres of government.

One of the specific proposals in the document has already been adopted: government ministers will be appointed as “district political champions” to oversee the other spheres of government. This presumably includes ministers like Lindiwe Zulu who can hardly manage her own department.

If the DA’s suspicions are justified it means that the inane-sounding District Development Model was never about improving service delivery; instead it was a cover for the ANC grabbing more government power, and eventually doing away with provincial and local elections.

The ANC is not above using its own failures in order to attack the Constitution. Just like the failure of the government’s land reform programme was used to argue for an amendment of section 25 of the Constitution, so the ANC will have no shame to use the damage done by its own cadres in government to argue for scrapping the nine provinces, and turning municipalities into extensions of the national government.

The stated intention behind the District Development Model has also been at odds with the hands-off response of national government to the collapse of municipalities. If the national government really cared about the communities that suffer the collapse of municipal services, then why has it been so hesitant to use its existing powers of intervention?

Section 139(7) of the Constitution gives the national government considerable power to step into the shoes of useless provinces, and so to stop municipalities from self-destructing. But asked about municipalities defaulting on their Eskom debt, hiring reprobates implicated in the VBS scandal, or entering financially ruinous contracts, Minister Dlamini-Zuma has made a conspicuous display of wringing her hands.

If indeed the ANC’s plan is to govern South Africa by way of Command Councils, then maybe it suites the party simply to let the municipalities under its watch collapse entirely. It could then say  “look, the Constitution no longer works”, escape the wrath of voters in places where ANC majorities are thin, all the while securing permanent ANC control.

But this is allowed to happen communities across the country will be prevented from doing in future what the people of the Western Cape have already done: to escape life under corrupt and incompetent ANC leaders, and to buck the downward economic trend of the rest of the country.

The DA will put a formal question to the President asking whether the document has any formal status in government, and whether its contents reflect current or proposed government policy.

We will also be keeping a close look at what further proposals emerge under the guidance of the so-called district model, and we will be requesting a record of decisions and discussions of all the Command Councils that have been established across the country.

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