ActionSA has terminated the membership of its Gauteng leader, Abel Tau, with immediate effect amid allegations of sexual assault.

This leaves a vacancy both in council and for the MMC for Human Settlements position that Tau held.

Speaking to News24 on Thursday morning, ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont confirmed that Tau had been made aware of the decision on Thursday morning, and that the party had also sent a communiqué to its coalition partners in the metro.

Beaumont said the party's senate had met on Wednesday night to deliberate over recommendations made by the disciplinary panel that was convened to consider the charges levelled against Tau.

ActionSA offered its apologies to the residents of Tshwane and its coalition partners for Tau's conduct, and assured them that the party would act decisively against any violations by its leaders.

The panel, chaired by advocate Gill Benson, is said to have heard evidence from several witnesses, but determined that it would be more appropriate for a court to deal with the charges relating to the alleged criminal conduct.

In addition, Tshwane Mayor Randall Williams has written to council speaker Murunwa Makwarela, asking him investigate whether Tau's alleged conduct was in breach of the code of conduct for councillors.

Tau, who is also ActionSA's Gauteng secretary, was last month placed on precautionary leave after it surfaced that he was facing allegations of attempted rape levelled against him by the wife of his friend.

William also indicated that Tau had to be investigated for the alleged inappropriate use of City resources for personal use while he was on leave.

Speaking to News24, Tau said he had been made aware by a friend about the decision taken to terminate his membership.

"I have not read the statement. I was told by a friend that apparently a finding has been made against me and that my membership should be terminated."

Tau said he was convinced that during the disciplinary hearing, he had demonstrated that he had not done what he was being accused of.

He said he welcomed the decision by the party, but still reserved his right to challenge it.

Tau joined ActionSA in 2020 after resigning as the DA's regional chairperson in Tshwane.

The Public Servants' Association (PSA) has given President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government seven days to respond to its demands, or face a national shutdown.

Scores of union members marched through the streets of Tshwane on Thursday, before handing a memorandum of demands to the Treasury department.

They are demanding a 6.5% wage increase, after the government implemented a 3% baseline increase in October.

PSA president Lufuno Mulaudzi accused the government of being "very arrogant".

"When they took power in 1994, they claimed to be a government that listens to its people. They said they are a government of the people.

"They are not the government of the people. We can't tolerate this nonsense. We have been warning them about their attitude. Their attitude is a threat to collective bargaining. In 2020, they reneged on the 2018 resolution," he said.

Muladuzi lashed out at Ramaphosa, claiming he promised to establish an independent body to assess wages for public servants.

“An independent body established by Ramaphosa can't look at the public service wages. We have the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Council looking at labour issues, including salaries of public servants.

"If he appoints that independent body led by a judge, we will fight with the government. We are not backing down. This [march] is not the end of it."

The union has given the government seven days to respond to its memorandum.

"We are going to shut this country down. We are going to shut down every office. Those sitting at home thinking the strike won't happen, they will join us when we meet next time," Mulaudzi warned.

"The PSA expects our demands to be favourably considered by Ramaphosa. We expect to receive a response in seven days to avoid any further or increased action and mobilisation by PSA.

"We have shamed our enemies. They thought this march was going to be a flop. Wherever they are, they are ashamed. Unfortunately, the Presidency is not here. It is very disrespectful to the PSA."

Mulaudzi warned the government to refrain from sending junior officials to receive their memorandum.

"We can’t have a situation, when we need the president, [he] is not here. He has sent junior officials to accept our memorandum. We expected to have the director-general receiving our memorandum.

"We have a single-term agreement for the years 2022 and 2023. We agreed after the employer had shown that they can't be trusted with the multi-term agreement. The government has reneged from implementing a negotiated three-year agreement in 2020."

Mulaudzi said the government's failure to implement decent salary increases for public servants was the result of years of unabated fraud and corruption.

The PSA claims its members are being crippled by rising inflation, escalating fuel prices, food, transport, and interest rate hikes.

"Public servants are expected to render services without receiving pensionable salary increases for the past three years. We demand protection of cash gratuity beyond 31 March 2023.

"Some of our government workers are scared that if they don't come out and join our march, they will have their salaries deducted. They don't know that come 32 March 2023, they won’t have that R1 000 they are budgeting for," Mulaudzi said.

'Government is playing with us'

Meanwhile, more than 500 PSA members and affiliates protested in the Durban city centre on Thursday.

They were joined by a small group of Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (Hospersa) members.

The PSA's national director, Nondumiso Mvubu, said they were frustrated with the government's failure to provide adequate salary increases over the past two years.

"We have not had a decent wage increase. We want to make an impact and show government they are playing with us by not giving us any increase," she said.

Mvubu said a 3% increase was disrespectful and well below inflation. Statistics South Africa recorded headline Consumer Price Inflation at 7.5% in September.

Hospersa natio...

The Constitutional Court has unanimously dismissed suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane's attempts to appeal the invalidation of her so-called SARS "rogue unit" report, ending years of litigation.

The apex court has also found Mkhwebane and her office jointly and severally liable for the legal costs of Minister Pravin Gordhan and former SARS official Ivan Pillay, who she unlawfully implicated in wrongdoing linked to the establishment and operations of SARS' high-risk investigations unit.

Gordhan and Pillay successfully challenged the "rogue unit" report in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria – a ruling Mkhwebane then spent years, and millions of rand in taxpayers' money, trying and failing to overturn.

Mkhwebane's conduct in her "rogue unit" investigation and the litigation that followed are among the bases upon which Parliament is investigating her fitness to hold office in a Section 194 inquiry process, which will continue on Thursday morning.

The African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League said it wants to see qualitative and equitable representation of women in critical positions of leadership and decision-making at the party’s fifty-fifth national elective conference.

The conference will be held between December 16 and 20.

The Women’s League’s top five nomination comprise 70% of women.

It has nominated Cyril Ramaphosa as party president, Thandi Modise as deputy president, Gwede Mantashe as national chairperson, Fikile Mbalula as secretary general, Febe Potgieter as deputy secretary general and Gwen Ramokgopa as treasurer general.

The Women’s League stressed that the ANC and society at large were still lagging in terms representation of women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, pansexual, two-spirit, asexual, and ally community in leadership positions.

The Women’s League announced that it is currently in the process of drafting a position paper on how the ANC should be reconfigured to effectively deliver on its mandate of building a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, and prosperous society.

“.an organisation that will be responsive to the present-day challenges our society faces. The position [paper] will be made available in due course after undergoing all appropriate organisational channels,” said the ANC Women’s League.

Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has warned government that it is “playing a very dangerous game” by tampering with South African’s right to vote, with the adoption of the controversial Electoral Amendment Bill.

He said the Anglican church has been monitoring the electoral reform journey closely with the hope that government would use the Constitution Court judgment to usher a new electoral system and new leaders.

In June, the Constitutional Court ordered the Electoral Act be changed to allow independent candidates to participate in the provincial and national elections.

Parliament was given until December 2022 to finalise the Bill and last month the National Assembly adopted the controversial Bill.

Civil society organisations have been urging MPs to reject the Bill, saying if it is passed, Parliament will jeopardise citizens’ right to vote and cause injustice to the country’s democracy.

Makgoba said the Anglican Church does not endorse the current Electoral Amendment Bill as it believes that the Bill does not fulfil the principle of the one man, one vote of equal value.

“Our country and people deserve better and we are heading for disaster if the voices and concerns of civil society are not taken seriously. These are the voices that will give the system credibility. Our plea is for the National Council of Provinces to do all in its mandated authority to remedy the constitutional flaws in the Bill so that we can have an electoral act that can truly enhance the much needed accountability we desire for our public servants and to give back the power to the people where it belongs,” said Makgoba.

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) also lent it voice against the Bill.

“Political parties are being advantaged by the Bill as it stands presently and we have to reject that. We support the principle of political accountability, which is fundamental to the shift that we want to see that politicians have to be held accountable because we now suffer from the consequences of the lack of accountability that has been prevalent by virtue of political party bosses wilding the power,” it said.

It highlighted that politicians must be reminded that they are expected to exercise servant leadership or else be removed from those positions.

Meanwhile, SACC said civil societies must approach the Constitutional Court to remedy the Electoral Amendment Bill, saying if the Court does not intervene, the change to accord the right to people to exercise their right to be candidates will not be honoured.

“So we support the notion that we go back to the Constitutional Court, irrespective of what happens because we now clearly understand that even the NCOP is not going to be able to do what it has to be done because the political will lack,” said SACC.

The South African Human Rights Commission has found that Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema's speech and some of the posters/banners displayed at the party’s Provincial People’s Assembly in the Western Cape last month “collectively, constitute incitement of violence, hate speech and possibly other transgressions of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 4 of 2000.

”Malema reportedly told EFF members that they must "not be afraid to kill" and "killing is a revolutionary act".

Accordingly, the Commission has given Malema and the EFF until 18 November to retract and apologise for his statements.

The EFF has since rejected the findings and argued that the party and Malema were never invited to make representations for themselves.

The Auditor-General will scrutinise the Office of the Public Protector's legal fees in future audits, the office said in a statement on Tuesday.

While Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and her supporters have made much about the office achieving three clean audits in a row, recent evidence before Parliament's Section 194 inquiry into Mkhwebane's fitness for office, has raised questions about its expenditure on legal fees.

Evidence before the inquiry calls into question the R147-million spent on legal fees in relation to the quality of services provided given Mkhwebane's dismal litigation track record. It also appeared from email evidence that counsels' political affiliation played a role in their appointment.

Since 2018, Seanego Attorneys received the most briefs, and evidence shows the firm has to date been paid more than R55-million in legal fees and, out of this amount, advocate Dali Mpofu SC, was the highest-paid counsel, having received about R12-million.

Furthermore, evidence before the inquiry also shows Paul Ngobeni, a fugitive from US justice who is not allowed to practice law in South Africa, was paid thousands of rand for "legal opinions" and communications services, including attack articles against judges who ruled against Mkhwebane, from the legal services budget through Seanego Attorneys.

Ngobeni subcontracted RET commentators Kim Heller and Professor Sipho Seepe for "communication services" - for which he invoiced Seanego Attorneys.

This while PP had a department for communication services. After this evidence was revealed, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said it would write to Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka to "request that a full audit is conducted on all funds spent by the Public Protector to defend Mkhwebane both in court and in the media space".

"Regarding the calls for an investigation/audit into the expenditures incurred by the institution in respect of legal fees over the last number of years, there is a process currently underway in Parliament, which, amongst other issues, is tasked with ventilating this matter," read a statement from acting PP spokesperson Ndili Msoki.

He said while the office is still awaiting the outcomes of this process, it had reported the matter to the Auditor-General "and confirmation was received that the matter will be an area on which they will focus on, within the scope of the next audit".

Meanwhile, the PP says it is reviewing its systems, including those relating to procurement of legal services.

"This is to identify gaps and put in place appropriate corrective measures, which will include reporting to the relevant authorities where necessary, in order to ensure that its message of promoting good governance in state affairs is lived up to from within.

"We wish to assure the people of South Africa that we are acting within the parameters of the law in every action being taken. As an institution that is entrusted with ensuring accountability in state affairs, we too remain accountable. The institution will not be making any further comment on this matter."

The office also said Mkhwebane was not being evicted from the ministerial home she was occupying.

On Sunday, City Press reported the beleaguered Mkhwebane - who is facing a parliamentary inquiry into her fitness for office - was "on the verge of being evicted from the prestigious Bryntirion ministerial estate in Pretoria".

In July, News24 reported taxpayers forked out R3.7-million for Mkhwebane to live alongside ministers in the government's Bryntirion Estate, while she owned her own house in the capital city.

Mkhwebane was afforded this perk in 2017, after former police chief General Khehla Sitole, who at the time was divisional commissioner for protection and security services, performed a threats assessment.

Erstwhile public works minister Nathi Nhleko - a key player in the sham to absolve former president Jacob Zuma from culpability for Nkandla - approved Sitole's recommendation to move Mkhwebane into Brynti...

Owing to South Africa’s investment plan requiring much more money to be properly and fully implemented, President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday called for reforms of multilateral development banks, international financing institutions and the mobilisation of commercial banks to meet the needs of developing economies for sustainable development and climate resilience.

Ramaphosa was delivering a National Statement, at COP27, held in Egypt.

He highlighted that African countries were losing between 3% and 5% of their gross domestic product owing to the effects of climate change.

South Africa recently endorsed the national Just Energy Transition Investment Plan as a basis for its pathway towards a low carbon, climate resilient society.

However, it will need about $98-billion over the next five years to enable a just transition and achieve the ambitious targets the country has set.

Ramaphosa explained that the plan includes a portfolio of investments across the electricity sector, green hydrogen sector and new energy vehicle sector, and also said financing mechanisms from public finance institutions and commercial institutions needed to provide good concessional loans and further stressed that more grants or non-debt instruments needed to be considered.

Ramaphosa said, at present, multilateral support is out of reach for the majority of the world’s population, owing to lending policies that are risk averse and that carry onerous costs and conditionalities.

“We have already communicated the structuring of the offer that they made to us at Glasgow, that we need to restructure and have more grants, as already we can see that our investment plan requires much more money to be properly and fully implemented,” he added.

He noted that at COP26 in Glasgow last year, France, Germany, the UK, the US and the European Union offered support in the form of a Just Energy Transition Partnership.

“It is our hope that this partnership will offer a ground-breaking approach to funding by developed countries for the ambitious but necessary mitigation and adaptation goals of developing countries,” Ramaphosa said.

He went on to say that a number of “beneficial” bilateral meetings were held, aimed at consolidating common views on climate action, on the just transition, as well as on funding processes.

“We believe that it is only with substantial support that Africa can build the resilience that is required to build, to protect itself and safeguard our economies. It is only with significant additional funding that we can ensure that future generations of South Africans and indeed Africa at large live in an environment that is clean, conducive to health and wellbeing and that has not been destroyed because of the inaction of today’s leaders,” concluded Ramaphosa.

Tania Campbell has been voted back into office as the mayor of Ekurhuleni.

Campbell received 124 votes in a special council sitting convened to elect a mayor. She was voted out during October in a motion of no confidence tabled by the African National Congress (ANC).

The ANC's Jongizizwe Dlabathi failed to garner enough votes to usher in the ANC's return to power in Ekurhuleni.

The ANC failed to reach an agreement with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which would have seen the two co-govern Ekurhuleni. The EFF helped re-elect Campbell on Wednesday just as the party did in 2021.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will this week attend the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, where South Africa will make a clear call for developed economy countries to support developing ones meet their climate change obligations.

Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly letter to the nation that seven years since the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP21, countries with developed economies have largely failed to honour their commitments to provide substantial financial support for climate actions in developing economies.

“Africa historically bears the least responsibility for climate change, but it is Africa that is feeling its effects most,” he pointed out.

Ramaphosa said South Africa will chair a high-level roundtable on the just transition at COP27, and will be going into the conference in a strong position with the recent adoption of the Just Transition Framework and the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan, which is out for public comment.

“Although South Africa is playing its part in the global climate change effort, we have been consistent in emphasising our right to development. We must ensure that the transition to a low-carbon, climate change resilient economy does not jeopardise our developmental goals. The move from fossil fuels to greener, cleaner energy sources cannot take place at the expense of economic growth and job creation,” said Ramaphosa.

At the conference, South Africa will highlight the need for multilateral financial institutions to lower the borrowing costs for developing economies to fund their climate adaptation and mitigation efforts.

“Many people may think that the discussions taking place in Egypt at COP27 are far-removed from their everyday lives. This is far from the case. We all have a clear stake and an abiding interest in the outcomes of COP27,” Ramaphosa stated.

He pointed to climate change activity that recently plagued South Africa, such as economically distressing floods, wildfires and a locust plague and stressed that these events had a strong likelihood of reoccurring.

He urged developed countries to meet their climate change obligations, which he said would help developing countries, such as South Africa, build the resilience needed to protect their respective economies.

“It is only with significant additional funding that we can ensure that future generations of South Africans live in an environment that is clean, conducive to health and well-being, and that has not been destroyed because of the inaction of today’s leaders,” said Ramaphosa.