Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane suspended provincial education department head Naledi Mbude and has instructed her to leave behind all government equipment, and documents in her possession.

He has also barred her from entering any departmental buildings.

This comes amid heavy criticism over the scandal-plagued department's return of an unspent R205-million infrastructure grant to the National Treasury, even though public schools are under-resourced. Several schools opened without textbooks this year.

In a suspension letter dated 5 April, Mabuyane did not give reasons for the decision.

However, the Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape said the move raised serious questions.

Eastern Cape legislature member and deputy chairperson of the party in the province, Yusuf Cassim, said the suspension of Mbude comes after she revealed several concerns about the department at a portfolio committee meeting on Monday.

According to Cassim, Mbude said she discovered that the department had been deliberately submitting manual orders for textbooks and stationery for years, delaying payment until the next financial year due to insufficient funds in the budget.

Doing so is a violation of the Public Finance Management Act.

Mbude also informed the committee that the reason the infrastructure budget was underspent, was due to significant allegedly irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure that she had discovered in the infrastructure programme.

The department is conducting a full audit of infrastructure projects, Cassim said.

Cassim said that in her response, Mbude revealed that audits for two districts had been completed and showed discrepancies between what was paid for and what was actually delivered.

Mbude told the committee that the audit was being conducted because the Auditor-General had found that the department did not have an asset register, according to Cassim.

"The DA has submitted follow up questions to the department in relation to these revelations and, if we do not receive the promised written responses, we will pursue Public Access to Information Act (PAIA) applications to bring the truth to light," Cassim added.

He said Mbude's responses provided a glimpse into the extent of the rot inside the department.

"The DA will continue to pursue these issues, regardless of the steps taken to prevent the seething rotten underbelly of a corrupt department from being exposed," said Cassim.

Called for comment, Mabuyane said his office would send out a statement at a later stage about the matter.

In a letter dated 30 March, Mabuyane asked Mbude to make representations, and she responded on 4 April.

In the suspension letter on Tuesday, Mabuyane said he noted the content of her representations and added that he would not respond to every averment made.

He said he was suspending her so he could verify the allegations made, and added that it was important that an investigator be given unrestrained access to all documents and staff.

He said personnel must be free to co-operate with the investigator, without actual or perceived fear of reprisal.

"As the premier and executing authority, it is my prerogative, and acting within the ambit of the law, to place any head of department on suspension. Suspension is not a punitive measure and I do not seek to punish you in any way," Mabuyane added.

However, he said that having considered Mbude's representations, he was not convinced that her continued presence in the department would not hinder the investigation.

"You are therefore hereby suspended on full pay as a precautionary measure, pending investigations at the Department of Education, with effect from the date of this letter."

Setting out the conditions of the suspension, Mabuyane added: "You are required to immediately vacate your office and hand all keys to your office, equipment and documentation of the Department of Education to the Office of the MEC for Education by 10am on Wednesday, 6 April 2022.”

He told Mbude not to enter the premis...

Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has denied that a "deployment committee" deliberated candidates for the city manager position.

"There is no deployment committee that sat and decided on the candidates for the city manager position. The ANC is clear on how it deals with its business. We have told the DA to bring evidence of what you are talking about," he said on Wednesday.

Kaunda was speaking to the media at a press briefing he called to explain the controversial processes that surrounded the position.

He added that the selection committee processes that were followed to recommend a municipal manager candidate that was shot down in full council, were completely above board.

"You cannot talk about rumours. We cannot entertain that. We have conducted the process clinically, even candidates who participated in these interviews, as chairperson, they commended the panel for conducting its ethical work," he said.

A new city manager was meant to be elected by the end of March, but delays had led to the position being put on hold after a full City council voted, with an ANC majority, to terminate former city manager Sipho Nzuza's employment and pay him the remainder of his contract.

The decision to terminate his contract came after Nzuza and former mayor Zandile Gumede were charged with corruption and money laundering in a Durban Solid Waste contract worth over R320-million.

News24 reported that the ANC was outvoted, meaning that the DA, IFP and Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), voted against Ray Nkonyeni's municipal manager, Maxwell Mbili, who had been in contention for the position.

The City said a panel comprising Kaunda, an independent expert, and chairperson of the human capital portfolio committee, Nkosenhle Madlala, made recommendations "after a thorough selection process which was in line with the protocols governing the employment of senior managers in local government".

Kaunda and Madlala are both ANC affiliated officials. No other political parties were part of the process.

How did the process unfold to elect a city manager candidate?

Kaunda said the interview process to find an eligible candidate was twofold.

"In their first session, candidates explained their own responses in terms of action plans in terms of culture in the municipality as leadership style and all those details were furnished.

"In the second session they took questions to answer, we want to applaud all participants who were in this process, they performed very well. The selection process will rate people."

When asked why the panel had just three members and not more members of the council, Kaunda said he followed protocol.

"The mayor must be in the panel, not that that mayor is put there because of the ANC; whoever is mayor is chair of the panel. If he is not available, he can delegate a member of the council, a councillor who will represent the mayor.

"Regulations also call for a second councillor in the panel, that person, the council took a decision that should be councillor Nkosenhle Madlala."

The South African Communist Party (SACP), just like its alliance partner, the African National Congress (ANC), has also struggled to pay staff salaries.

According to SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo, the last salary run was at the end of March. In the months prior, there were significant salary problems.

"During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we could not pay salaries in full. Amidst the situation, we had sessions with staff where we decided to pay medical aid and provident fund contributions. There were four months that we were affected, and it was not consecutive months. During those four months, the SACP only paid the provident fund and medical aid contributions," he said.

The SACP's other alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), said it was troubled by reports that indicated the SACP owes its staff members.

"This is discreditable and disconcerting not only for the SACP but the entire tripartite alliance. The SACP must pay its employees what is due to them immediately. The SACP is the vanguard of the working class that is meant to champion working-class struggles, and this is undermining its credibility in the eyes of the workers. The party, like all other employers needs to abide by South Africa's labour laws, in particular the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which requires the employer to pay their workers for services rendered," Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said.

Pamla said it is unacceptable that the leaders of the SACP sit in Parliament, collect exorbitant salaries, pass labour laws, and then disregard them.

"The fact that the deputy chairperson of the SACP is the Minister for Employment and Labour and the custodian of our labour laws is scandalous. This tells employers across the economy that they don't need to bother with respecting workers' rights and abiding by our labour laws," he said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance MP Michael Cardo said it was "most unfortunate" that the SACP seemed to be following in the ANC's footsteps.

"What makes this injustice even more egregious is that the Minister of Employment and Labour is the deputy chairperson of the SACP. He never fails to bash and bully businesses suspected of the slightest deviation from our labour laws, but now that his own party is accused of wrongdoing, the minister has become the nowhere man.

"I have asked the minister to get to the bottom of the SACP's reported exploitation of its workers, and to verify whether his party has been paying over its contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and the Compensation Fund, as required by law," Cardo said.

For months, the ANC has been facing a backlash from employees over the delayed payment of salaries.

It has on several occasions placed the blame for its financial woes on the Political Funding Act, which came into effect in April. Responses by funders who deemed the declaration requirements of the Act to be harmful, may have had an impact on the ANC's pockets, the party's leaders said.

Newly appointed Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has assured the public that the five candidates gunning for two spots in the Constitutional Court will be treated with dignity and respect during the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews.

On Tuesday, the JSC kicked off its interviews of the five candidates hoping to fill the two vacant spots. Once the interviews are done, the JSC is required to present President Cyril Ramaphosa with three names more than the number of vacancies at the apex court for his consideration. This means all five candidates' names will be sent to the president.

Before commencing with advocate and former Judge Alan Dodson's interview, Zondo said it would be to the benefit of the public for him to make a few remarks following the commission's meeting on Monday, which he characterised as fruitful and constructive.

"There was complete acceptance from the commissioners without exception that we intend on treating all candidates with respect and courtesy and with due regard to their human dignity, and we'll simply try to establish what we need to establish in order to perform our factions to advise the president on who to appoint.

"There was an acceptance that we will treat all the candidates with respect and dignity, but that doesn't mean that there won't be robust discussions and questioning. It doesn't mean that candidates won't be asked difficult questions. They will be, but everybody must understand that all that is being done is to try and make sure that we do our job properly," Zondo said.

Zondo's preamble came after the JSC interviews for the Chief Justice position came under heavy criticism because of the line of questioning some of the commissioners put to the candidates.

The JSC recently saw a change in commissioners, with advocates Dali Mpofu and Griffiths Madonsela being replaced by senior counsel Kameshni Pillay and Sesi Baloyi.

The other candidates who will be interviewed are acting Justice David Unterhalter, Judge Owen Rogers, who recently acted at the Constitutional Court, Judge Mahube Molemela and Judge Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane.

The interviews are expected to run until Friday.

Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson Cilliers Brink has welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that Cabinet has decided to end the National State of Disaster but cautions against allowing the Health Act amendments to replace it.

Brink said South Africa had suffered under the State of Disaster for 750 days, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic had led to enormous hardships and devastation to the country's economy and to people's lives and livelihoods.

The DA has been calling for an end to the State of Disaster for several months, since experts in the health field have advised that these restrictions were no longer necessary and scientifically not valid.

He said it was extremely worrying that despite the formal lifting of this State of Disaster, the government now seemed to be hell-bent on normalising the restrictions that the country had faced.

“. introducing regulations to the Health Act that will effectively normalise this very abnormal state of affairs and shift the power of unnatural regulations to the Minister of Health,” he said.

The DA has written to Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla calling on him to retract certain proposed health regulations.

The party believes that it is a transparent and opportunistic attempt to extend the unilateral power that it claims government afforded themselves during the State of Disaster.

The party has also called on all South Africans to scrutinise the proposed amendments to the Health Act and to lodge their objection before or on April 16.

Meanwhile, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) said the lifting of the State of Disaster and the passing of the 30-day transition period gave South Africa the opportunity to accelerate its efforts to grow the economy in a sustainable and inclusive manner to create much-needed jobs.

Busa urged government to “demonstrate courageous leadership” in taking the tough decisions to attract investment and to work with business and other social partners to grow the economy.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said while it supported the lifting of the State of Disaster, it stressed that it was critical that all South Africans appreciate that Covid-19 remained a real threat to the lives and livelihoods of millions and that a fifth wave was expected as winter approached.

Cosatu said everyone had a responsibility to play their part in managing the new normal, this included wearing masks indoors, sanitising, social distancing and vaccination.

The union said it welcomed the extension of the R350 Social Relief of Distress as it would provide welcome relief for more than 10-million unemployed persons receiving it.

Cosatu called on the grant to be made permanent.

Ministers, on Tuesday, came out in support of government’s move to end the National State of Disaster amid predictions of a fifth wave of Covid-19 infections, which is expected to hit the country just before May.

On Monday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the National State of Disaster would end at midnight on Monday.

The country was kept under lockdown for 750 days, with the National State of Disaster beginning on March 15, 2020.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma explained that the Disaster Management Act only kicked in when there was a disaster and was not implemented in anticipation of a disaster.

She said if the fifth wave was such that the pandemic became a disaster then the Disaster Management Act would kick in, bringing the return of the National State of Disaster to meet the terms of the Act.

Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla said currently there was stability as infections rates were low and health facilities were managing.

However, he said government was monitoring developments in other countries and it was receiving briefings from the Health Department which was conducting surveillance and genomic studies.

“. many scientists tell us we must not ignore what we see in other countries and in terms of the pattern of the last two years you have a three months kind of lull and then after that you get a rise again of the variant and that’s why they say towards the end of April and beginning of May the likelihood is that we’ll have a variant or it might even come earlier,” he warned.

He said government was doing its best with what it knew.

Phaahla added that government was not dismantling any of its capacities.

“The sequencing scientists are there, the national laboratory services and the various advisory committees remain in place so that when something changes government will be able to move,” he said.

While the National State of Disaster falls away, some regulations remain in place, including the wearing of masks in indoor spaces and venues running at 50% capacity.

There will be a 30-day transition period to allow for draft health regulations to be promulgated under the National Health Act.

Travellers entering South Africa will need to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test not older than 72 hours.

The country’s Covid-19 Vaccine Injury No-Fault Compensation Scheme will continue to operate now that the State of Disaster has lapsed.

Ratings agency Moody's on Friday revised South Africa's outlook to "stable" from "negative", saying the country's improved fiscal outlook would help the government stabilise its debt burden over the medium term.

South Africa's public finances were in bad shape even before the Covid-19 pandemic and took a further dive in 2020, when an economic contraction hurt government revenues.

The fiscal picture has improved since then, thanks to bumper prices for South Africa's commodity exports.

"South Africa's fiscal position has markedly recovered from the pandemic thanks to government's fiscal consolidation measures and positive external developments," the ratings agency said in a statement.

"As a result, it now looks likely that the government's debt-to-GDP ratio will stabilise around 80% over the medium term."

The agency said it is maintaining South Africa's rating at 'Ba2', citing the country's sound financial sector, which would pose limited risk and provide a deep pool of domestic investors for borrowing to the government.

"We are not RET."

This was the firm statement by the newly elected regional secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) Lower South Coast in KwaZulu-Natal, Xolani Luthuli.

The ANC region held its conference over the weekend and elected Mondli Chiliza as chairperson, and Skhumbuzo Zero Mqadi as deputy chair.

Luthuli was elected regional secretary, while Zodwa Mzindle was elected as his deputy, and Bongani Nyuswa as regional treasurer.

The faction that won the conference was dubbed "the Talibans" and was said to be aligned with the radical economic transformation (RET) faction of the ANC.

"I can assure you I don't know any RET force that was elected," Luthuli said.

A source in the ANC in the region said the newly elected regional chairperson and secretary were loyal to former president Jacob Zuma, but Luthuli denied this.

"We are not loyal to anyone. We are loyal to the ANC," he said.

Luthuli insisted that delegates at the regional conference had not discussed its position in relation to the ANC provincial leadership race or the national elective conference expected to take place later this year.

But political insiders said this win was a boost for ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Sihle Zikalala's political prospects. The ANC Lower South Coast conference took place after a failed attempt to interdict it.

Chiliza, the newly elected chairperson, was not present at the conference as he had to deal with a family bereavement.

Luthuli said the conference focused its discussions on water shortages in the area and resolved to call a water summit to work on solutions. He said the ANC region also reflected on the decrease in electoral support for the ANC.

The ANC in the region is also considering renaming the region.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said that as the country forges ahead with efforts to strengthen the capacity of the State and rebuild institutions that were weakened by State capture, there is much to learn from what the South African Revenue Service (Sars) has achieved in a short space of time.

Like a number of other key institutions, Sars has suffered from State capture, with political meddling, mismanagement and other factors seriously affecting its efficiency.

Ramaphosa explained that this had the direct consequence of not only undermining taxpayer morality, but also loss of business confidence in the organisation.

Last week, Sars said it had collected over R1.5-trillion between April 2021 and March 2022 – a 25% improvement over the previous year and a 15% increase over the last year before the pandemic.

Over the same period, Sars also paid out its highest amount in tax refunds since it was established 25 years ago.

“When State institutions are well-run and efficient, when they demonstrate credibility and fairness in their operations, this contributes to increasing levels of trust in government. Business and investor confidence also improves, encouraging greater investment and economic growth,” noted Ramaphosa.

He said when tax revenue collection systems and their supporting legislation were efficient, uncomplicated and equitable, it incentivised greater compliance.

He explained that current high commodity prices, resulting in increased corporate income tax revenues, had contributed to the latest revenue collection windfall.

What has also played a role are the steps Sars has taken to improve its information technology and other infrastructure, modernise customs, recruit skilled staff, and combat tax avoidance and criminal activity.

BUILDING A CAPABLE STATE

In 2018, Ramaphosa appointed a commission of inquiry into tax administration and governance at SARS chaired by retired Justice Robert Nugent and the commission delivered its final report in the same year. Four years later, Sars has implemented nearly all of the 16 recommendations and 27 sub-recommendations to restore stability to the organisation, he revealed.

“Sars is taking the wind out of the sails of tax dodgers, beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime, and those involved in corrupt activities. It is well-established that ‘the taxman’ is one of the most efficient tools to combat corruption. In cases where an individual’s lifestyle does not match what they declare, Sars has been conducting lifestyle audits. In the last year, Sars has completed lifestyle audits that resulted in the collection of a further R474-million,” Ramaphosa said.

The Johannesburg Magistrate's Court has imposed a R200 000 fine or a four-year prison sentence, with half of either of the two suspended, for African National Congress Women's League president Bathabile Dlamini.

She was sentenced for perjury on Friday morning.

In imposing the sentence, Magistrate Betty Khumalo said the offence was a serious one that warrants retribution.

She said the sentence imposed should not only rehabilitate Dlamini, but should also reform her.

Dlamini opted to pay R20 000 on Friday and the rest of the money on or before 29 April.

Khumalo earlier found Dlamini guilty of perjury for lying under oath during a 2017 inquiry into the social grants debacle at the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) that left millions of grant beneficiaries unsure about whether they would receive their money.

The magistrate also found that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that the former minister had lied under oath.

Dlamini's defence team argued that she should not be found guilty of perjury because Section 38 proceedings, such as the Ngoepe Inquiry into the Sassa debacle, were not formal judicial ones.

But Khumalo said the inquiry qualified as a formal judicial process.

She said she was she was satisfied that Dlamini gave false evidence during the inquiry.