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The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) will probe the police's part in the alleged cover-up and off-the-books investigation of the theft at President Cyril Ramaphosa's Phala Phala farm, following a request from the African Transformation Movement (ATM).

Former spy boss Arthur Fraser, a close associate of former president Jacob Zuma, opened a criminal case into the saga last month, claiming that there was an attempt to cover up the theft of millions of US dollars from the Limpopo farm.

The ATM wrote to the police watchdog to ask it to investigate claims that top cops covered up the incident.

It asked the directorate to investigate newly appointed national police commissioner Fannie Masemola and his predecessor, Khehla Sitole, because they were "in the know" about the "burglary, theft and related matters", but seemingly covered them up.

ATM president Vuyolwethu Zungula cited leaked reports that Namibian police were in contact with South African officers, including Masemola and Sitole, following the burglary and theft, and that they were involved in "some secretive and off-the-books investigation".

The party also requested the suspension of the police officials who were implicated, pending the outcome of the investigation, saying that high-ranking officials could not oversee the current investigation because they were possibly conflicted.

In his response to the ATM, IPID director Thuso Keefelakae said: "This email serves to inform the honourable Zungula that IPID has looked into the letter forwarded regarding the Phala Phala farm theft. The directorate has decided to investigate the matter to partially look into the conduct of the police."

In order for the directorate to register and investigate the matter, Keefelakae said, the IPID should obtain a sworn statement from Zungula "as the complainant and will, in the process, ask clarity-seeking questions".

He said this would enable it to deal with the case effectively.

IPID asked Zungula to indicate his availability between 11 and 22 July 2022 for the unit to obtain a sworn statement.

The African National Congress (ANC) got another bloody nose this week when it failed to overturn a previous court ruling that it must pay R120-million it owes to a KwaZulu-Natal-based marketing company for the supply and erection of PVC banners in the run-up to the 2019 elections.

The attorney acting for the company, Ezulweni Investments, has now said that unless the party pays up by close of business on Thursday, it will consider initiating liquidation proceedings.

A full bench of three judges sitting in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg dismissed the ANC’s appeal, with costs, and confirmed a previous order that the money was owed and must be paid.

Judge Leicester Adams, writing on behalf of Judges Motsamai Makume and Mpostoli Twala, said on all the available evidence, the ANC was liable to pay the debt on the basis of an verbal agreement.

The ANC’s defence to this was "far-fetched", he said.

The ANC had sought to distance itself from the verbal agreement, claiming the two officials who had negotiated with Ezulweni boss Renash Ramdas, had no authority to do so.

It said there was therefore no legal contract, because its supply chain policy had not been adhered to.

However, Judge Adams said the material facts were supported by uncontested and unchallenged WhatsApp messages sent between 29 April and 6 May 2019, which reported on progress of the project.

Ramdas, in his affidavit, said that he had met a Mr Mabaso, the ANC’s financial manager, who had introduced him to a Mr Nkholise, the person responsible for procurement on behalf of the party for the duration of the election campaign.

In February, Mabaso and Nkholise placed an order with Ezulweni for the supply and installation of 30 000 PVC banners.

In March, because of the substantial financial outlay, Ezulweni sought assurance from the ANC that the contract was valid.

In response, the party provided it with a letter on an ANC letterhead signed by the head of elections Fikile Mbabula and addressed to the treasurer-general, Paul Mashatile in which Mbalula confirmed that "Comrade Lebohang Nkholise has been assigned as the signatory for bookings and money for the duration of the Elections Campaign".

Judge Adams said the letter, "and more importantly" that it was provided to Ezulweni, was not disputed by the ANC. It was also not disputed that in April Ezulweni forwarded two invoices to Nkholise.

In accordance with the oral agreement, on April 9, Nkholise forwarded to Mr Mababso the ANC’s final design of the banner and Mabaso in turn forwarded the email to Ezulweni.

On the same day, Mbalula wrote to Mashatile, asking for assistance to pay Ezulweni’s invoices for the PVC banners.

Mabaso, in the ANC’s answering affidavit, said the letter was prepared by Nkholise who had attached Mbalula signature to it "electronically". Judge Adams said: "The idea was, so Mabaso alleges, that the letter would at some point be placed before Mbalula for confirmation. This apparently never happened ... this then meant, so the version of the ANC continues, that the order and the contents of the sale letter was never confirmed, or approved."

The judge said this version was implausible, far-fetched and should be rejected.

The judge also referred to several WhatsApp messages exchanged by Ramdas on a WhatsApp chat group named "ANC 2019" in which he kept Mkholise and Mabaso updated on progress with the order of the banners and even sent pictures of them before and after they were erected on street posters.

Ramdas advised on the group that the project was huge and his company had employed 100 teams of people to install the banners.

After the elections, and in accordance with the contract, the company had removed all the banners and put them in storage. It then sent the invoices to the ANC again.

Judge Adams said the ANC, prior to filing its answering affidavit in the matter, had never disputed that it owed the money or the authority of Mabaso or Nkholise to enter into the agreement.

He said it cou...

Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula says that a solution to e-tolls will be announced in October, this time "for sure".

Mbalula has been promising an announcement on e-tolls since he took office in May 2019 with several deadlines come and gone. Speaking at a press briefing in Pretoria on Thursday, Mbalula said the decision would be made by the medium-term budget policy statement in October.

"Between myself and the minister of finance we have been directed by the President that this matter [should] come to Cabinet. It will feature as a matter resolved by Cabinet at the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. This one is for sure, for certain," he said.

Mbalula said that a decision had been taken by Cabinet a while ago which would have impacted on the fuel levy. Among the suggestions tabled to pay for e-tolls in the past has been an increase to the fuel levy in Gauteng.

"But the fuel levy story has become very messy over time. It is no longer a direction we can use," he said.

After a week of protests at Eskom operations that no one has claimed responsibility for plunged the country into Stage 6 load-shedding, two unions are now dealing with members who are pushing for an outright rejection of a new wage offer.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Solidarity are expected to return to wage talks at the Central Bargaining Forum (CBF) on Friday. Several reports have said Eskom has upped its offer to 7%, though there has been no official confirmation on that.

However, an internal document which Fin24 has seen, signed by NUM and Numsa members, has outright rejected the 7% offer.

"[We demand a] two digits salary increase. It has been over emphasised that so long as Eskom management is unwilling to engage on the other more than 15 demands, therefore no agreement is to be reached between Eskom management and both NUM and Numsa," the document said.

The internal document says union members requested that NUM and Numsa provide members with two buses so that they can travel to Eskom's Megawatt Park in Johannesburg on Friday.

The document is signed by Tumediso Tisane from NUM and Koketso Ramalepe from Numsa. Fin24 has established that Tisane and Ramalepe are both Eskom employees from Lephalale, where Eskom's mega coal-fired power station Medupi is situated.

A source confirmed to Fin24 that the documents came from union members in the region, and that it highlighted divisions in the unions.

Tisane told Fin24 that he was not at liberty to discuss the document and that queries should be directed to national NUM.

However, NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu called the document "lies", while Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said the union had no plans to picket at Megawatt Park on Friday and that the document was "not an official Numsa document".

Both unions issued a statement after an initial story by Fin24 on the document, saying they rejected it as 'fake news'.

"Numsa and NUM will be engaging Eskom in the Central Bargaining Forum on Friday July 2022 regarding the proposal which Eskom has tabled. Any reports or claims in the media suggesting that we have either accepted or rejected an offer at Eskom are false. We call on media houses to be responsible in their reporting. When they publish fake news it can have a very detrimental impact on the negotiations process."

The document throws a spanner into the works of Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan's intervention, wherein he announced that workers would return to work after disruptions to Eskom operations, as bargaining was expected to resume on Friday.

This follows a week of protest over the wage deadlock with Eskom at the CBF, which hindered vital maintenance work at stations, left ten units down, and plunged the country into stage 6 load shedding for only the second time in history.

Numsa initially demanded 15% across the board at the start of the wage tale but revised their demand downward to 12%. NUM's wage demands currently stands at 10%. Solidarity, which condemned the protests and was not involved in the joint statement, made a demand of 5.9%.

Eskom initially made a zero percent offer, which went up to 5% during talks. Following Gordhan's intervention, this offer was revised upward again to 7%.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has acknowledged that creating employment and being a jobs-focused and entrepreneur-friendly administration are important measures needed to resuscitate the country’s ailing economy.

In an exclusive interview with Polity, the Mayor said he was doing all he could to make sure that his administration was clean, following the recent State capture revelations.

“We take an absolute zero-tolerance approach to corruption of any sort, whether it is R5 or R5-million. The public needs to trust and know that when they pay their taxes in a Democratic Alliance government that their money will be respected, spent well and [spent] on improving the lives of the poor,” said Hill-Lewis.

Following the release of the final Zondo report, the City of Cape Town has written to all implicated companies asking them to provide reasons why the City should not cancel all its contracts.

The Mayor said the city does not practice cadre deployment, which he said was the root cause of State capture and why, he says, the State has collapsed.

When asked about the City’s energy plan, he said the City is working hard to finalise independent power producer contracts.

His vision is to have a City without load-shedding, which he said was “not too much to ask in a modern country”.

As the country’s ailing power utility Eskom instituted Stage 6 load-shedding on Tuesday, the City’s Steenbras Hydro-Electric Pumped Storage Scheme will save residents from high stages of load-shedding.

The City will also introduce its demand-side management initiative, which will see the roll-out of devices to Capetonian homes that will allow the city to remotely shut off appliances that use large amounts of electricity. The Mayor said this would be a voluntary programme.

WATER

As eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay municipalities struggle with water shortages, Hill-Lewis advised that getting buy-in from the public to cut water consumption by more than 55% was drastically vital.

He said the lesson learned by the City of Cape Town in averting a water crisis was not to rely on national government to provide basic infrastructure such as bulk water supplies.

Hill-Lewis said it was unfortunate that South Africans had become far too accepting of failure and mediocrity, particularly in government.

HOMELESSNESS

Despite the City of Cape Town being one of the world’s most beautiful cities, the Mayor expressed concern for the growing number of people living on the streets.

He said the city had invested in “safe spaces” facilities which provide the homeless with basic necessities and assistance with access to social grants and alcohol and drug addiction facilities.

The City is looking into building more facilities to address homelessness.

CAPE INDEPENDENCE

Many Capetonians had suggested that the City work towards Cape independence but the Mayor told Polity that he was opposed to the idea.

He expressed his love for South Africa, stating that he wanted the country to work.

“What we are trying to do in Cape Town is to show that with a sensible, hard-working, clean government, you can have a country that works, a country that moves forward and not backwards,” he said.

Stage 6 load-shedding will kick in again from 16:00 until 22:00 on Wednesday evening, Eskom said in a statement. This is despite the fact that striking employees have started returning to work.

Stage 4 load-shedding will be implemented from 22:00 until midnight, and then reduced to Stage 2 until 05:00 on Thursday morning. From 05:00 until 00:00 on Thursday load-shedding will be at Stage 4.

Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented from midnight until 05:00 on Friday morning.

"While some workers have started reporting for duty at the power stations, there is still a high level of absenteeism. As a result of the unlawful strike, routine maintenance work has had to be postponed. This backlog will take days to weeks to clear," Eskom said.

"It is therefore important to note that the system will remain constrained and vulnerable to additional breakdowns while recovery activities are in progress. Due to the unlawful and unprotected labour action, which has caused widespread disruption to Eskom’s power plants, Eskom is unable to return some generators to service. This has compelled Eskom to continue taking precautionary measures to conserve emergency generation capacity and safeguard plant from damage."

The utility currently has 3 161MW on planned maintenance, while another 17 395MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.

A Cabinet committee was meeting urgently on Wednesday to deliberate on the crises at Eskom after the power utility plunged the country into stage 6 load-shedding on Tuesday. No Cabinet meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told News24 it was disingenuous to blame the government for the crisis. Mantashe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan have come under harsh criticism, particularly from the Democratic Alliance, for having failed to prevent the deterioration at Eskom.

"It's unfair to place blame on myself or the government. What should I do with Eskom as mineral resources and energy minister? The power utility is a matter [which falls] under public enterprises. But despite it being under public enterprises, government as a whole has gone the extra mile [by] instituting a supplementary programme to make up for the shortcomings at Eskom. We [as government] are actually implementing the supplementary programme aggressively, but the more we implement it, the worse Eskom becomes. What do I do with that?" said Mantashe.

The minister was referring to bid windows one, two, three, and four of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme that have been approved and connected to the grid.

"Bid window five has been approved, and while bid windows six and seven are on the way. If you add all these together, they will give you a total of 7 800 megawatts. The problem is that these bid windows won't give you instant energy. Instant energy will only come from the units of Eskom working efficiently," said Mantashe.

The minister confirmed that he was speaking to News24 from the sidelines of the Cabinet committee meeting.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told News24 that President Cyril Ramaphosa was attending the meeting.

On Tuesday, News24 reported that Ramaphosa had spent Tuesday dealing with the problems at Eskom.

The Presidency said Ramaphosa returned to the country from the G7 summit in Germany on Tuesday morning. He was immediately roped into a briefing about ongoing labour disputes at Eskom, which resulted in the country being plunged into darkness, Ramaphosa's office said.

This was after the power utility implemented stage 6 load-shedding on Tuesday.

Ramaphosa was said to have landed on Tuesday at 10:00 and was briefed on the situation. He immediately called for a virtual meeting with Gordhan and Eskom CEO André de Ruyter where the precarious energy situation was discussed at length.

Magwenya said the president expressed concern about the situation and called for law enforcement to deal with incidents of sabotage at power stations across the country.

"He was assured that the illegal strike would be resolved expeditiously," Magwenya said.

Cabinet spokesperson Phumla Williams said that an extended Cabinet meeting had not been scheduled for Wednesday but did not go into detail on whether a Cabinet committee was meeting.

Thousands of Eskom workers at nine power stations and other operating facilities downed tools more than a week ago following a deadlock in wage negotiations on 22 June.

This wildcat strike, combined with unplanned breakdowns, plunged the country into stage 6 load shedding for the second time in the history of rotational power cuts.

Eskom confirmed that a number of its striking workers returned to their posts on Wednesday while wage negotiations would continue, a move that could restore the utility's generation capacity.

"I can confirm that many employees are peacefully returning to work and that there are no incidents of protest reported so far today (Wednesday)," Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.

The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruled against the Public Protector in a case regarding the dismissal of former Free State provincial head, Sphelo Hamilton Samuel.

The CCMA ordered the Chapter 9 institution to reinstate Samuel and to back-pay the official an amount of R1.5-million.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane dismissed Samuel after he wrote to Parliament in 2020 requesting an investigation into the conduct of the Public Protector as well as the financial mismanagement at the institution.

In ruling in favour of Samuel, the commissioner, James Ngoako Matshekga, ordered the Public Protector to reinstate Samuel before 4 July 2022, in addition to the payment of 12 months' salary, or R1.5-million.

"The dismissal of the applicant [Samuel] by the respondent [the Public Protector] was substantively unfair, but procedurally fair," Matshekga said in his award.

Mkhwebane did not testify during the process.

Letter to Parliament

In 2020, Samuel was the Bloemfontein representative of the Public Protector's office. During that time, he requested the investigation into Mkhwebane.

The Public Protector "hauled [Samuel] before a disciplinary hearing", Matshekga said, and charged Samuel with several allegations of misconduct, including writing and distributing a disparaging letter on a branded letterhead addressed to the Public Protector.

According to the Public Protector, Samuel also conducted media interviews to slam Mkhwebane's conduct, and called for her to step down as Public Protector.

According to Matshekga: "There is a very important point to be made about the respondent's conduct and decision to discipline and subsequently dismiss the applicant for the views he expressed during the various media interviews. As an institution mandate to support and strengthen constitutional democracy, the respondent should be well aware of . the Constitution which guarantees everyone the right to freedom of expression.

"These remarks ring true in this matter. We should be very astute to condone any form of thought-control, however respectably dressed it may be in the name of discipline."

He added, however, that the Public Protector did not testify during the process, so no evidence was given to justify a finding that Samuel made disparaging remarks about the Public Protector.

Mkhwebane has been in the spotlight as Parliament forges ahead with its inquiry into her fitness to hold office, despite her attempts to prevent it.

Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended Mkhwebane.

The African National Congress (ANC) Gauteng elective conference, which was unable to conclude its work over the weekend, will reconvene from 9 to 10 July.

Newly elected chairperson Panyaza Lesufi made the announcement on Tuesday during a post-conference media briefing held at the party's headquarters at Luthuli House.

According to Lesufi, the outstanding business of the conference was the election of additional provincial executive committee (PEC) members and discussing policy documents.

"There were a number of things that never happened this weekend, and as such we have resolved to reconvene the conference from the 9th to the 10th of July to conclude the work of the conference," said the newly elected Gauteng ANC chairperson.

Despite being allocated four days more than all the other provincial and regional conferences already convened before it, the ANC in Gauteng failed to conclude all its work.

Lesufi said it would be disingenuous to blame the failure to meet deadlines on the previous PEC.

He said that "most of the delays were due to the 19 quarantined votes from Ekurhuleni and how to deal with those. The ANC's national executive committee (NEC) met for over seven hours, if you may remember, and this occurred when the provincial conference was supposed to have been sitting".

"Having met that long, the national leadership still felt that the PEC would be better placed to handle the matter and when the matter was passed to the PEC, it only took them one day to resolve that the branches affected be invited to the conference so it would be wrong to say the conference was chaotic or shambolic as it has already been categorised," said Lesufi.

News24 reported that the ANC's special NEC meeting had given the green light for the party's Gauteng elective conference to go ahead, but tasked the PEC to deal with the disputed Ekurhuleni.

The Ekurhuleni regional conference was marred by violence and at its contentious ending, which saw only preliminary results being announced, the steering committee overseeing the Ekurhuleni conference quarantined 19 votes pending a verification process.

The 19 votes from six branches were quarantined due to alleged irregularities in how the delegates were allowed to vote, which meant the party could only declare the results after the national dispute resolution committee verified the outstanding votes.

The PEC resolved to invite the disputed branches, however, their votes were again quarantined at the provincial conference.

Lesufi refused to discuss how the quarantined votes would be dealt with when the provincial conference reconvenes in two weeks.

He said the electoral commission dealing with the votes for the top five and the additional PEC members was an independent body and hence would make a determination when the conference reconvenes.

Power utility Eskom has confirmed that it will implement Stage 6 load-shedding from 16:00 to 22:00.

Stage 4 load-shedding will be implemented from 22:00 to midnight tonight and again from 05:00 until 16:00 on Wednesday. Stage 6 load-shedding will then resume until 22:00 on Wednesday night.

Eskom has only once before had to implement Stage 6 load-shedding.

On Tuesday morning, Eskom had warned that it may have to implement Stage 6 load-shedding from this evening, following a deterioration in its generation capacity overnight.

COO Jan Oberholzer noted in a media briefing on Tuesday morning that there was a significant risk that the utility may have to implement Stage 6 load-shedding, although Eskom would do what it could to avoid that.

He added that ten generating units were lost overnight on Monday. Two of these units had been returned to service by Tuesday morning.

Eskom had planned to return a further four units to service ahead of the evening peak, but was only able to return one more unit to service by Tuesday afternoon.

Oberholzer said a further four units would not be able to return to service on Tuesday as they require prolonged repairs.

But, Oberholzer said, Eskom may have no choice but to implement Stage 6 load-shedding.

Units that had previously broken down could also not be returned to service, as a result of a lack of operators needed at those units.

CEO André de Ruyter further pointed out that the utility was already using about two-million litres of diesel a day to keep its Ankerlig and Gourikwa open-cycle gas turbines running, with Eskom having used 85-million litres of diesel so far in June.

Oberholzer noted that diesel volumes were being depleted "at an alarming rate", especially at Ankerlig.

With diesel supplies dwindling, a vessel delivering additional fuel for Ankerlig is only expected to reach South Africa at the weekend.

Eskom's already constrained electricity supply is being exacerbated by industrial action at various power plants, with a number of Eskom's power stations being run by managerial staff at present.

Oberholzer and De Ruyter commended those employees who have continued to work long hours to keep the power stations operational under the circumstances.

They also urged striking employees to consider the impact of the unlawful and illegal strike action on the country's population, as well as the economy, and to return to work.

They also condemned acts of intimidation, arson and public violence committed by some of the striking employees.

Discussions with labour were continuing, but Oberholzer warned that, even if the situation was resolved, recovery of the operations would take some time.

De Ruyter added that, as staff have had to be diverted from doing maintenance to keeping power plants running, the backlog in maintenance was also growing. The maintenance backlog would, therefore, increase as long as the strike continued, resulting in a prolonged risk of load-shedding.