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South Africa's leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) filed court papers in a bid to halt a proposed increase in fuel levies, the latest twist in a months-long tussle over the annual budget.

The higher levies was proposed last week by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in his third attempt to present a taxation and spending plan that can win support from lawmakers.

South Africa's fourth-largest political party also opposed a planned value-added tax hike incorporated in previous versions of the budget, which was scrapped in the latest iteration. It sought an urgent court intervention on Thursday to halt the fuel price hikes.

The legal challenge is a potential setback in a messy process that has unsettled investors. The budget was initially scheduled for February, but the planned VAT hike led to a split among members of the country's 10-party governing coalition and it had to be reworked.

The EFF isn't a member of the so-called government of national unity, which was forged after the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority in elections last year for the first time since apartheid ended in 1994.

Godongwana's latest budget plan got a warm reception from investors and was quickly endorsed by the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, the second-largest member of the GNU, helping the rand outperform on foreign-exchange markets.

The planned levy increase of 16 cents per litre for petrol and 15 cents per litre for diesel, effective from June 4, is among measures the minister put forward to plug the revenue gap left by abandoning the VAT hike.

The EFF wrote to Godongwana, arguing that raising the fuel levy would hurt the poorest South Africans and undermine economic growth. It also said he acted unlawfully by failing to introduce a new tax through a money bill.

South Africa's central bank cut its main interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.25% on Thursday, after inflation came in below its target range for a second consecutive month.

The decision by the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was split, with five members preferring 25 basis point reduction and one favouring a 50 basis point cut.

Economists polled by Reuters had predicted a close call, as the bank's MPC is known for its cautious approach.

Price pressures are well under control in Africa's biggest economy, with headline consumer inflation at 2.8% year on year in April, undershooting the central bank's target range of 3% to 6%.

The South African Reserve Bank maintained its policy rate at 7.50% at its last meeting in March, citing risks from US President Donald Trump's global trade war and uncertainty surrounding the country's budget.

Those concerns have since partially eased, with Trump suspending his so-called reciprocal tariffs against South Africa and other countries and the local ruling coalition finding common ground on the budget.

RISE Mzansi is calling for urgency in a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation into Road Accident Fund (RAF) CEO Collins Letsoalo, who has been placed on special leave, with immediate effect, by the RAF board.

Letsoalo is implicated in an investigation relating to a R79-million lease for RAF offices in Johannesburg, as well as alleged financial mismanagement and corruption.

He will be on special leave until the conclusion of the SIU's investigations, or an earlier date determined by the board.

The Department of Transport announced that Phathutshedzo Lukhwareni will serve as the acting CEO, to ensure continuity of operations.

As the delegated shareholder representative Transport Deputy Minister Mkhuleko Hlengwa was informed by the board of this "precautionary measure", which it stressed is not disciplinary action or an indication of Letsoalo's guilt.

"The decision was taken solely in the interest of good governance and as a precautionary step to facilitate ongoing investigative processes. It does not imply any prejudgment or adverse finding against the CEO," the department said.

Hlengwa has indicated that the issue is on the agenda for the board meeting scheduled for June 9.

RISE Mzansi National Assembly Caucus Whip and member of the Transport Portfolio Committee Makashule Gana said without influencing the work of the SIU, the party would like to see this matter concluded before Letsoalo's contract expires in August, to ensure that he is held accountable, if he is found guilty.

"At every turn, RISE Mansi will use its unique position in the Government of National Unity to advocate for good governance that serves the people of South Africa and protects the public purse," he explained.

Gana commended RISE Mansi national leader Songezo Zibi for the work his team is doing to ensure that governance and financial matters at RAF are brought under control and in line with laws of the country.

DELAYS IN ACTION

Meanwhile, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said while it commended the RAF board for "finally" taking decisive action, it believes the decision was "long overdue" and said the board had a lot to answer for, regarding the delays in acting against Letsoalo.

Outa said it had consistently raised red flags about the "troubling direction" the RAF had taken under Letsoalo's leadership.

Outa executive director of accountability Stefanie Fick said she trusted that the board's decision would be a turning point for the RAF and that the Minister and the board would ensure that good governance and stringent oversight by a "competent board" would get the RAF back on track.

Fick pointed out that in 2023, a High Court ruling ordered Letsoalo and the RAF board to personally pay legal costs owing to their mismanagement in legal proceedings, which she said was a "rare and damning" indictment of executive failure.

"We wonder whether Letsoalo has complied with this ruling," she said.

She noted that for years, Outa and others in civil society had raised alarms about the RAF's declining performance.

"…the Fund's liabilities have now ballooned beyond R300-billion, threatening its long-term viability and undermining its constitutional duty to compensate road accident victims. Furthermore, we know of several senior managers who have been unfairly pushed out or exited the RAF on account of pressure applied by Letsoalo," she said.

Fick highlighted that Letsoalo's suspension was not only "justified, but also embarrassingly overdue", noting that this was someone who was fired from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa yet was given another chance to lead - and failed again.

She pointed out that during his tenure at the RAF, Letsoalo oversaw "ballooning liabilities, a massive backlog of unpaid claims, and a growing legal bill from court battles that often targeted oversight institutions".

"…shockingly, while the RAF's finances deteriorated, Letsoalo's salary increased - a slap in the face to the thousands of victims still waiting for com...

A South African regulator started a probe into allegations that Elon Musk-led SpaceX's Starlink internet-satellite service was operating in the country illegally.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has formally engaged with SpaceX and is awaiting a response, it said in a statement Wednesday.

"Should the investigation yield any breach with regulatory and legislative frameworks, the authority will explore the applicable enforcement actions within its disposal," Icasa Chairperson Mothibi Ramusi said. That may include "lodging a formal complaint with the International Telecommunication Union," he said.

Starlink - which has more than 5-million users globally - delivers broadband internet beamed down from a network of roughly 7 500 satellites that SpaceX started deploying in 2019. South Africa is among several nations on the continent that haven't licensed the service.

Pretoria-born Musk has sought approval to operate Starlink in the country, but has objected to legislation that seeks to boost Black participation in the economy, accusing the government of having "openly racist ownership laws."

South Africa introduced the rules after the end of apartheid, an era in which the majority of people were excluded from the formal economy by the ruling White minority.

Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi of the Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the nation's governing coalition, last week proposed amending rules to allow companies like Starlink to enter South African without sharing ownership, a move that lawmakers challenged in parliament this week.

Meanwhile, South Africans have found ways around the current restrictions by registering the kit and services in other nearby nations that allow the service and then using the roaming option to access it in their home country.

Malatsi issued the directive two days after President Cyril Ramaphosa met US counterpart Donald Trump in Washington to mend strained relations. Flashpoints include Trump's false claims that White Afrikaner farmers face a genocide in South Africa, a statement also made by Musk, who attended last week's gathering in the White House's Oval Office.

Starlink's technology would be a potential game-changer for South African users who've historically faced expensive or unreliable internet options. Only 2.7% of rural households have access to the web, according to a 2024 survey compiled by the local statistics agency.

The regulator reiterated its "uncompromising position against any form of non-compliance within the South African regulatory environment."

The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) on Wednesday called for the proposed R100-billion Transformation Fund to be scrapped, saying it is "riddled with gaps, flawed assumptions, and implausible funding mechanisms".

Ahead of Wednesday's deadline on submissions to the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition on government's proposed R100-billion Transformation Fund, the CDE warns in its submissions that the fund is "a lose-lose proposition" that will fail to achieve its objectives.

Government believes the fund will help improve the effectiveness of broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) spending as it seeks to aggregate the funding that JSE-listed groups, State-owned enterprises and unlisted private companies spend collectively on enterprise and supplier development, as well as some of the funding multinationals direct towards equity equivalent schemes to secure their BBBEE compliance, without selling shares in their companies.

CDE executive director Ann Bernstein believes that the implementation of the fund will undermine existing efforts to promote economic inclusion and actually harm black-owned firms involved in current supplier development value chains.

She argues that the fund's proposition is based on an inaccurate assessment of what transformation requires, and "an equally misguided belief in the State's capacity to deliver it".

Bernstein highlights that the fund relies on "unsupported assumptions that access to finance is the key barrier for black-owned businesses, and that a centralised, State-managed mega-fund can somehow distribute vast sums effectively and offer mentorship, skills and other support to small enterprises".

She points instead to market access, poor infrastructure, a lack of demand for their goods and services, and lack of managerial capacity, saying these are the real obstacles that struggling black-owned businesses face.

CDE's submission against the fund also highlights governance risks associated with establishing a centralised fund to undertake a wide range of complex and high-risk activities.

Bernstein says it is "inconceivable" that a single organisation can deliver grants, loans, technical support, training, and market access across all industries, cities, townships and rural areas effectively and efficiently.

She says she finds the proposal surprisingly "vague and lacking" in the most basic information needed to assess its viability, noting that it is unclear what kind of fund this is, what it is meant to do, or how it will be structured.

"There is no detail on whether this is a capital endowment or a spend-down fund, how success will be measured, how many businesses it aims to support and what kind of support is envisaged," she notes.

Bernstein warns that if the fund fails to attract sufficient voluntary contributions, government may resort to making these contributions compulsory, as suggested in the draft document.

"This would be equivalent to imposing a new tax on corporate profits. This would lead to lower levels of investment, fewer jobs, and ultimately less support for black-owned businesses - the very opposite of what transformation should achieve," Bernstein cautions.

She highlights that instead of pushing ahead with an "ill-conceived mega-fund", CDE is urging a major rethink of transformation policy, noting that South Africa needs accelerated growth that is far more inclusive.

CDE recommends that an independent panel of economists, legal experts, business leaders, and civil society representatives lead a comprehensive review of BBBEE policy and its outcomes.

"If we are serious about building a fast-growing, inclusive economy with a massive expansion of opportunities for all those millions of people who are excluded, we need effective approaches to transformation that build on the country's strengths and do not double down on failure," she says.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Council said it will continue with its case challenging the constitutionality of the Expropriation Act in the High Court, reaffirming its longstanding position against expropriation of property without compensation.

The party's Federal Council has unanimously approved the motion which confirms its support for Section 25 of the Constitution, but says just and equitable compensation adjudicated by a court of law must be paid for any expropriation.

The Act says property can be expropriated for a public purpose or in the public interest; and is subject to just and equitable compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which, have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.

The controversial amendment explains that expropriation with nil compensation applies to land that is expropriated in the public interest, such as land that is not being used and where the owner's main purpose is not to develop the land or use it to generate income, but to benefit from appreciation of its market value; State-held land not being used for its core functions and which the State is not reasonably likely to require for its future activities in that regard, and the State acquired the land for no consideration; land that an owner has abandoned by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so; and land where the market value is equivalent to, or less than, the present value of direct State investment or subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the land.

In February, the DA filed papers in the High Court to challenge the recently signed Expropriation Act, saying it is "unconstitutional, both substantively and procedurally".

"Acknowledging that secure private property rights under the rule of law are essential to fixed investment, economic growth, job creation, and better living standards for the people of South Africa, the Democratic Alliance asserts our support that compensation must be just and equitable, as adjudicated by a court of law, in cases of expropriation in terms of the Constitution," reads the motion.

DA Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille said that the motion further rejects the notion of 'nil compensation' as established by the Expropriation Act, 2024 as well as the limitations placed by the Act on rights of private property owners in contesting the terms of expropriation in court.

She also pointed to the DA's efforts to take the Expropriation Act on judicial review to explore opportunities to render it as "less of a risk" to private property rights.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) vowed to continue opposing, in Parliament and in court, any introduction of Elon Musk's satellite internet constellation Starlink in South Africa, which it said is "not compliant" with the laws of the country.

The party expressed satisfaction with Tuesday's Parliamentary Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies meeting, which saw many political parties reject Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi's proposed policy direction that would open the way for multinational broadband service providers to secure the empowerment credit required for licensing by way of equity-equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs) rather than through the sale of 30% equity to black investors.

Musk's Starlink, which is operated by SpaceX, has strongly opposed the 30% equity requirement.

Last week, Malatsi published a 30-day comment period on the proposed amendments to the Electronic Communication Act, which seeks to "harmonise" the Act's requirements and provisions.

He argued that the proposed change was not designed to benefit a single individual or company, such as Starlink, but to ensure alignment between various pieces of legislation, including the ECA and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act.

The EFF believes Starlink is a "threat" to national security, local jobs, and to South Africa's sovereignty and independence.

The party accused Musk of attempting to coerce access to the South African market by using disinformation of a non-existent white genocide as leverage.

The EFF further raised political concerns about the presence of Starlink in the country, which it said is owned by an "individual who has peddled disinformation about the country, expressed his disdain for transformation, and would operate without any guarantees to jobs in the local telecommunications industry."

The EFF accused Malatsi of attempting to subvert legislation by abusing executive powers by using a ministerial policy directive and characterising the amendments he wants to make to two Acts, as regulatory alignment.

"The EFF vows, that over and above legislative requirements, we will fight tooth and nail against corporate terror that uses access to diplomatic channels and Presidents to pursue business interests. We say no to Starlink in South Africa!" the party said.

The Public Servants Association (PSA) has called on Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson to roll out across the country the initiative to repurpose vacant government buildings into shelters for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), saying there are many government-owned buildings that are unused.

Last week, Macpherson handed over ten properties in Mpumalanga and five in Gauteng to be used as shelters for victims of GBV.

This followed a previous handover of five properties in Gauteng.

The PSA recognised the transformative potential of this action, which it said not only provided immediate relief and protection to survivors but also underscored the government's commitment to combating GBV.

"By utilising existing infrastructure, this initiative demonstrates a pragmatic and compassionate approach to GBV. This initiative is a significant step towards addressing the urgent need for safe spaces for victims of GBV," it stated.

The PSA added that repurposing these buildings for the good of humanity was a sign that government was aware of the challenges facing citizens.

The PSA previously called on government to make use of such buildings for the benefit of the country, including renting these to worthy causes.

It noted that unoccupied government building were costly for government to provide security for and may become "havens for criminality or even be illegally occupied".

The PSA called for collaboration between government entities, civil society, and community organisations to ensure the successful implementation and sustainability of these shelters.

"By means of such collective efforts substantial progress can be made to combat GBV and provide support to those in need," it said.

The PSA said it was committed to advocating for policies and actions that protected and empowered survivors of GBV and would continue to support efforts that promoted safety, dignity, and justice.

It pointed to the statistics, which indicated that almost one in three women had been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has been authorised to investigate allegations of maladministration in the Department of Defence and recover any losses the State may have suffered.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed Proclamation 260 of 2025 authorising the SIU to investigate serious maladministration, focusing on irregularities linked to the supply and delivery of surgical mask elastic loops.

The Proclamation covers allegations of unlawful and improper conduct that occurred between March 1, 2021 and May 23, 2025, as well as any related activities before March 1, 2021 and after the date of the Proclamation that are important to the matters under investigation or involve the same persons, entities, or contracts.

The SIU probe will investigate whether procurement and contracting were made fairly, competitively, transparently, equitably, or cost-effectively or whether they violated legislation, guidelines, or instructions from the National or Provincial Treasury.

"…this includes the Department's or the State's unauthorised, irregular, or wasteful expenditure. Furthermore, the SIU will seek to establish if there was any misappropriation of unidentified payments received by the Department," the SIU said.

The SIU said the probe would also look at any "irregular, unlawful, or improper" conduct by officials or employees of the Department, its suppliers or service providers, or any other person or entity implicated.

It pointed out that beyond investigating maladministration, corruption, and fraud, the SIU was committed to identifying systemic failures and recommending measures to prevent future losses.

"In line with the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act 74 of 1996 (SIU Act), the SIU will refer any evidence of criminal conduct uncovered during its investigation to the National Prosecuting Authority for further action," it explained.

The SIU noted that under the SIU Act, it is also authorised to initiate a civil action in the High Court or a Special Tribunal to address any wrongdoing identified during its investigation resulting from acts of corruption, fraud, or maladministration.

Writing in his weekly newsletter, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that President Donald Trump agreed that the US should continue playing a key role in the G20, including attending the G20 Leaders' Summit in Johannesburg later this year.

Ramaphosa described his working visit to the US as a success, despite Trump having ambushed Ramaphosa in the Oval Office with discredited claims of a 'white genocide'.

"Our visit came at a time when US-SA relations have come under increasing strain, largely as a result of misinformation peddled by fringe groups in our two countries, including a false narrative about a so-called genocide and an orchestrated campaign of violence against white farmers.

"In this context, it was critical for us to engage directly with the US administration to correct misinformation and provide a true account of the progress we have made as a democracy and the many and complex challenges we still face."

Ramaphosa also confirmed that he had extended an invitation to Trump to send a government and business delegation to South Africa to explore opportunities for deepening investment and trade, but provided no specifics.

Describing the US as a key export market for South African motor vehicles, agricultural products and critical minerals, Ramaphosa argued that there was potential to increase and diversify trade, citing in particular areas such as gas, mining and critical minerals, agriculture and nuclear products.

"One of the key outcomes of the substantive discussions we had with President Trump was agreement on an economic cooperation channel between the US administration and South Africa to engage further on tariffs and a broad range of trade matters.

"President Trump agreed that the US should continue playing a key role in the G20, including attending the G20 Leaders' Summit in Johannesburg later this year, where South Africa will hand over the presidency of the G20 to the US."