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The Democratic Alliance (DA) announced on Wednesday that it will be tabling a constitutional amendment for the establishment of the “Scorpions 2.0” - a Chapter 9 anti-corruption body to work independently of the executive and without the threat of disbandment by Parliament - to tackle State capture in the country.

DA deputy shadow minister of justice and correctional services Werner Horn addressed the media in Johannesburg, where he noted that the DA strongly believed that this institution must be set up to fortify against political manipulation by the African National Congress (ANC) government or even a future government.

“This will prevent politicians from disbanding it when it does its work, like we have seen with the Scorpions, which was abolished by a simple majority vote in Parliament. If this entity is positioned in Chapter 9 of the Constitution and identified as being critical to the rule of law in our country, it will require the support of at least 75% of Members of Parliament to be disbanded should it be deemed central to the rule of law,” explained Horn.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said it was almost a year since President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Anti-Corruption Council was established, however, there’s no legislation that has come to Parliament to establish a new South African corruption-fighting body.

Steenhuisen explained that in the year since Chief Justice Raymond Zondo released the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector - an exercise that cost the South African taxpayer in excess of R1-billion - the process to implement a raft of recommendations and structural changes to South Africa’s State institutions and oversight bodies had come to a grinding halt.

He added that of the 98 ANC members mentioned in the Zondo Report, not one has been reprimanded by the party nor handed over to law enforcement for investigation.

“In the National Assembly, of the 16 recommendations made by the Zondo Report to bolster and fix Parliament’s model of accountability over the executive, the majority of the substantive and immediately implementable recommendations have already been voted down by the ANC,” he said.

He highlighted that the DA had taken several steps to ensure that accountability was strengthened, that institutions were rebuilt and bolstered independently and impartially, and that organs of State tasked with the investigation and prosecution of those implicated in corruption were strengthened.

The party announced that it had written to the chairperson of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (NACAC) Professor Firoz Cachalia, to highlight a number of concerns the party had with the council’s work, which the DA believed had taken place predominantly in a vacuum of transparency where only the executive had had sight of the council’s proposals, and not the necessary independent institutions such as Parliament.

“This should be of particular concern to all South Africans given that we cannot trust the NACAC’s impartiality and credibility if it is proposing solutions to a problem of corruption to the very source of the corruption problem itself. This despite an initial assurance from President Cyril Ramaphosa in his 2021 State of the Nation Address that the NACAC would report to Parliament and not the executive,” said Steenhuisen.

WHISTLEBLOWERS’ SAFETY

The DA believes government is moving at a “snail’s pace” to strengthen and expand whistleblower protection, as well as the substance of the amendments government is considering. The DA said government had failed to show the type of urgency and seriousness demanded by the critical role whistleblowers needed to play in an effective fight against corruption.

During the 2022 State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa announced that the relevant law enforcement agencies were to take the “necessary steps to address the immediate concern about the safety of whistleblowers”.

Horn noted that unfortunatel...

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) confirmed cases containing three charges were opened on Tuesday against the members of the police's VIP unit who assaulted motorists in Gauteng at the weekend.

IPID spokesperson Robbie Raburabu said three charges to be investigated were assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, malicious damage to property, and pointing of a firearm.

The case was opened on Tuesday night, Raburabu said.

Former president Jacob Zuma’s "private prosecution" of his successor Cyril Ramaphosa has been declared unlawful and unconstitutional and has been set aside.

The Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg also ordered that Zuma pays Ramaphosa's costs.

Zuma launched his private prosecution in December last year, on the eve of the African National Congress's national elective conference, in which Ramaphosa was competing for the party's leadership, eventually successfully.

Zuma accused Ramaphosa of "being [an] accessory after the fact to crimes committed by, among others, Adv Downer" - alleged breaches of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Act.

Advocate Billy Downer is prosecuting Zuma on behalf of the State for arms deal-related corruption.

Zuma is seeking to privately prosecute Downer and News24 specialist legal writer Karyn Maughan for allegedly violating the Act by sharing court documents - filed by Zuma's lawyers and the State - that contained a sick note from the former president's military doctor.

Zuma argued that Ramaphosa's failure to investigate made him an accessory after the fact.

Ramaphosa subsequently filed an urgent two-part application.

In the first part, he asked for an interdict against Zuma continuing with his purported private prosecution, pending the finalisation of the second part. This interdict was granted in January.

The second part asked the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to declare the purported private prosecution unlawful, invalid and unconstitutional and to set it aside.

After arguments were heard in May, the court handed down its judgment on Wednesday.

The judgment reads, "Mr Zuma's private prosecution of Mr Ramaphosa in respect of the charges set out in the summons and grounded on the allegations set out in the summary of facts attached to the summons is interdicted.

"Mr Zuma is bound by s1(c) of the Constitution to respect the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. While he enjoys the right of access to the court and to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of law decided in a fair public hearing before a court, the content of this right does not extend to an unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid private prosecution process.

"If allowed, such a private prosecution would breach Mr Ramaphosa's right to human dignity, privacy and security of the person. The Applicant has established a clear right on the basis on which he has been found to enjoy standing in this application, to ensure that both Mr Ramaphosa and the office he occupies as President are protected from such constitutional breaches."

Downer and Maughan also brought applications to have the summons Zuma served them with reviewed and set aside.

The KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg last month ruled in Maughan and Downer's favour, setting aside the private prosecution.

Zuma will appeal that ruling.

South Africa’s energy crisis may have reduced the nation’s economic growth rate by as much as 3.2 percentage points last year and is likely to dampen output until at least early 2024, according to the central bank.

Eskom frequently implements loadshedding to protect the grid from collapse as the State-owned utility’s aging and poorly maintained plants can’t meet demand. Regular outages since January have lasted as long as 12 hours a day.

In May they started easing after South Africa managed to boost its generating capacity. That’s in part because of winter storms and the company’s decisions to scrap the post of chief operating officer and give individual plant managers more direct access to senior executives, a change Eskom chairperson Mpho Makwana said has boosted morale.

Governor Lesetja Kganyago has estimated the supply disruptions will cut 2 percentage points off output growth in 2023.

Last year, the country had 3 776 hours — about 157 days — of loadshedding, more than triple the amount in 2021, authors including Theo Janse van Rensburg and Kgotso Morema said in a South African Reserve Bank economic note published on June 29.

By mid-February this year, the outages surpassed the cumulative totals for 2019 and 2020, the authors said. By May, interruptions to supply had exceeded those for all of 2022.

The central bank’s models estimate power cuts trimmed between 0.7 percentage points and 3.2 percentage points off the GDP growth rate in 2022, according to the authors. The outages also have repercussions for potential growth as, for example, machinery that would have operated for 24 hours a day has to shut down when loadshedding is in effect, Van Rensburg and Morema said.

Potential growth was estimated at about 0.7% last year and “given that loadshedding is expected to be worse in 2023, potential growth is forecasted at 0.0% in 2023,” they said. “This is well below the steady state of 2.5%,” Van Rensburg and Morema said, referring to the rate at which the economy would grow without any new shocks.

“Loadshedding has severe negative implications for production and overall confidence in the economy,” the pair said.

The authors expect the risk of rolling blackouts to remain high this year and into early 2024 because of unreliable power supply, alleged sabotage at plants, corruption and other factors, they said in the note.

Major repairs, new capital investment and maintenance projects that could alleviate the pressure are only expected to be completed over the next 12 to 18 months, the authors said.

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen on Tuesday maintained that forming a united opposition Pact ahead of the 2024 election offers political parties the very best chance to unseat the African National Congress (ANC), keep the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) out of power, and form a stable new government to rescue South Africa.

Steenhuisen was speaking during a live broadcast to the nation, where he urged citizens not to vote for any political party that is not part of the Moonshot Pact.

“The most important thing we should not do, is to vote for parties that pretend to be in opposition but are actually fronts for the ANC. Any political leader who refuses to put the needs of South Africa ahead of the narrow interests of their party, does not deserve your vote,” he said.

He accused the Patriotic Alliance, Al Jamah and GOOD party of being mired in corruption and selling out to the ANC.

The DA, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Freedom Front Plus, ActionSA, United Independent Movement and the Spectrum National Party have established sufficient common ground to hold a National Convention for the Moonshot Pact on August 16 and 17.

Steenhuisen hopes the Moonshot Pact will form a strong, united opposition, and provide a way for political parties to “break free from the abuse the country suffers at the hands of the ANC”.

Steenhuisen explained that this Moonshot Pact would bring together different parties – excluding the ANC, EFF and “their proxies” – to ensure that the opposition focuses its collective energies on defeating the ANC, rather than on attacking each other.

He said his party was deeply committed to this process, and believed the Convention in August would be the most important political conversation to take place in the country since the transition to democracy.

“We believe that the outcome could provide opposition voters with something they have never had before: the credible prospect of victory. By working together, the Pact can be greater than the sum of our collective parts,” said Steenhuisen.

He added that the Pact could energise the 14-million unregistered voters to vote, and give the 13-million people who are registered but failed to vote in 2021 a new reason to vote.

CERTAINTY AND STABILITY

He noted that a successful Convention would also provide the certainty and stability that would be crucial to forming a Pact government in 2024.

He noted, however, that many were still sceptical about the effectiveness of coalitions given the attention that had been paid to “the few that have not worked”.

“That is precisely why the National Convention is designed to negotiate many key elements of a post-2024 government up front – so that we don’t have to rush to meet the two-week deadline after the election,” said Steenhuisen.

While the political leaders inside the Pact had the responsibility to lead by example by working together in the national interest, the success of the Pact would ultimately depend on the people of South Africa doing the same, he said.

The DA hopes that the Pact will set a worthy example of how South Africans from all backgrounds can unite and take action around a common set of values and policies to rescue the country.

Deputy President Paul Mashatile on Tuesday condemned acts of violence by his security detail and appealed to South Africans to allow law enforcement to complete its investigation.

This follows a viral video that showed unarmed civilians being assaulted by what looks like members of the South African Police Service (Saps) VIP Protection Unit, on a Johannesburg highway.

The video has angered many South Africans who are calling for the security detail involved to be brought to book.

In a statement, Mashatile said he has full confidence in the Saps under the leadership of Police Minister Bheki Cele and the command of National Police Commissioner General Fanie Masemola.

“Members of the Saps are meant to uphold and protect the fundamental rights of every person and exercise the powers conferred upon them in a responsible and controlled manner,” he said.

He added that he abhors unnecessary force, particularly against unarmed civilians and revealed that Masemola had promised there would be an investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, the Independent Investigative Directorate (Ipid) national spokesperson Robbie Raburabu has said that it is investigating the allegations of assault against members of Protection Security Services in the Saps.

Ipid has also contacted family members of the victims to lay a charge.

Raburabu says they have also contacted management of the Saps who are cooperating with the IPID investigation.

With the 2024 general elections approaching, seven opposition party leaders will, in August, hold a National Convention to negotiate a pre-election pact.

The National Convention will be held on August 16 and 17 and will see the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party, Freedom Front Plus, ActionSA, National Freedom Party, United Independent Movement and the Spectrum National Party come together, following a series of exploratory meetings over the past two months.

The party leaders said in a joint statement that while there was still much work to be done, parties were working in unison to provide hope and a new way forward for South Africa.

“As the leaders of seven different political organisations, this is a responsibility we take seriously. We know that many citizens are anxious about the future. We know that they want certainty that the new national government that replaces African National Congress (ANC) domination next year will be stable, viable and effective. Above all, they want opposition parties to provide a viable path to achieving the 50%+1 majority we need to form a government without the ANC, the Economic Freedom Fighters and their proxies that can deliver a prosperous future for all South Africans,” said the leaders.

Party leaders have agreed on an agenda that will guide negotiations at the Convention to ensure that they emerge with the strongest possible agreement.

Important items on the agenda include the values and principles that will guide a pact government and the formulation of a joint minimum programme of action.

The agenda also includes rules of engagement during the upcoming election campaign, and a formula to form a Cabinet after the 2024 election.

The leaders explained that these items were critical to forming a stable pact government that could deliver.

“We wish to emphasise that every party leader that has engaged in this process so far has done so voluntarily, and it is for each party to ultimately decide whether it wants to formally join the Pact once negotiations have been concluded at the upcoming National Convention,” leaders added.

The leaders assured that there were no predetermined outcomes, and negotiations at the Convention would be robust, honest and constructive.

The African Christian Democratic Party and Build One South Africa have attended various meetings as observers and are yet to decide if they will attend the National Convention.

President Cyril Ramaphosa noted on Monday that government will soon be finalising a strategy to support the transition to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing to keep up with global developments.

Worldwide, countries are incentivising the manufacture and uptake of EVs as the world moves towards decarbonisation.

Ramaphosa explained that the decarbonisation of the country’s society could drive growth, improve industrial competitiveness, create jobs and harness the potential of innovation.

“South Africa has some important advantages. We have the world’s largest reserves of platinum and are an attractive location for renewable energy, both of which are important elements in the production of green hydrogen. Such hydrogen can be used as an e-fuel in some models of vehicles, which are exempted from the European Union ban,” he stated.

He argued that while there were fears that the move towards decarbonisation would result in job losses, BMW’s plans for job retention, reskilling and training on electro-mobility would provide certainty to more than 20 000 employees at the company’s facilities across the country.

Last week, the BMW Group announced that it would be spending R4.2-billion over five years to prepare its local manufacturing plant for the production of the next-generation BMW X3.

The plug-in hybrid X3 will be exclusively manufactured in South Africa at BMW’s Rosslyn plant in Pretoria from the second half of 2024.

Ramaphosa said while other vehicle manufacturers were producing hybrid vehicles, the X3 will be BMW’s first locally-produced electric vehicle.

Ramaphosa noted that the investment announcement affirmed the confidence investors continued to have in the country’s economy and said it also gave effect to the principle of the country’s transition to low carbon energy.

“Working in partnership as government, business, labour and civil society, we have to ensure that the transition to new forms of production is managed in a just, equitable manner. Among other things, this means that auto manufacturers need to be supported to expand their investment in the production of new energy vehicles in South Africa,” he said.

Ramaphosa highlighted that the country currently had a range of measures to support automotive manufacturers, such as the special economic zone incentives, the Automotive Investment Scheme and others.

Trade union federation Cosatu and its affiliates will strike on Thursday in protest against the state of the economy, poor governance, and the falling living standards of workers, it said in a statement on Monday.

The strike will occur under section 77 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), for which the federation has received a strike certificate from Nedlac. The strike is therefore protected under the LRA, and no one can be dismissed for participating. However, the no work, no pay rule will apply.

"It is a demonstration by workers that government needs to do more to end the levels of load shedding, cable theft, crime and corruption, wasteful expenditure, and austerity crippling the state, suffocating the economy, and further plunging workers into high levels of indebtedness and misery. This is also a signal to the government, the Reserve Bank, and the commercial banks that the working class can no longer afford to bear the burden of rising levels of inflation, electricity tariff hikes, and relentless and reckless increases in the repo rate," Cosatu said.

Cosatu claims its affiliates have a membership of 1.8 million, but a substantial section of these is in the public service, which includes essential services workers which may not strike.

Cosatu's last day of action just under a year ago did not cause significant disruption to the economy as it was poorly attended by workers. Last year's protest was also backed by rival federation SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu).

Cosatu says, among other things, it wants the government to:

Raise the R350 social relief of distress grant to the food poverty line (which is R624);

Increase the number of participants in the presidential employment stimulus programme, which employs mainly unemployed youth, to 2-million participants by February;

To intervene and rebuild Transnet and Metro Rail; and

To provide more resources to the SA Post Office to prevent its liquidation.

The provisional liquidators overseeing the SA Post Office (Sapo) have come out against a plan put forward by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) to place the struggling entity in business rescue.

Just days before a court is set to hear the department's application, provisional liquidators Anton Shaban and Gerry Musi have said they fear business rescue is "not an option" and will not work.

The post office was placed into provisional liquidation in March as it could not pay its debts.

In a statement on Friday, Shaban and Musi said that for business rescue to work, Sapo would need billions of rands in extra funding and a complete overhaul of its business operations. Parliament still needs to pass the Post Office Amendment Bill, they stated.

Instead of business rescue, the Shaban and Musi have put forward a compromise agreement under section 155 of the Companies Act.

This is the same section of the act used by retailer Steinhoff in its R25-billion settlement agreement with creditors and shareholders.

This section of the act allows a company to put forward a compromise agreement to creditors to bypass being liquidated or placed into business rescue.

Let's compromise

Shaban said a compromise agreement was the best route to restore the Post Office to solvency. He said it could be done more quickly and at a lower cost than business rescue, without revealing any figures.

The DCDT, meanwhile, is hoping to convince the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that the Sapo is a candidate for business rescue when the matter is heard on Tuesday.

The department has nominated Anoosh Rooplal, the chartered accountant who has overseen the liquidation of VBS Bank for the past four-and-a-half years, as the Post Office's business rescue practitioner.

"We are crossing our fingers that the court responds to our prayer favourably," DCDT Minister Mondli Gungubele told a Parliamentary briefing earlier this month.

If the court declines to place the debt-laden State-owned entity into business rescue and the section 155 settlement proposal does not pan out, the Sapo will face a final liquidation hearing later this year.