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The City of Joburg has taken a no-nonsense approach and is claiming back more than R38-billion which businesses, residents and government departments in Sandton owe for municipal services.

As part of the #BuyaMthetho campaign, Joburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse and City officials embarked on a revenue-collection operation on Wednesday, targeting ratepayers that have outstanding municipal accounts. The officials were Public Safety MMC David Tembe, Finance and IT MMC Julie Suddaby and Environment Infrastructure Service Department (EISD) MMC Michael Sun.

Their first stop was at the SA Local Authorities (SALA) Pension Fund offices in Sandown, which owes R7.4-million for rates, water and refuse, according to the City.

"It is painful for us to come out and cut the water source in a building such as this one. It is not something we enjoy doing. The truth of the matter is that the City of Johannesburg purchases bulk services from Rand Water to supply residents and businesses.

"If we don't recover the money, we run at a loss and that affects service delivery. The very same residents and business owners expect the City to continue to render services to them, but if the system is not working and if somewhere along the line someone is not faithful with their payments, then the whole system will break down," Phalatse said.

She said the City had no other option but to cut off delinquent ratepayers.

The team then moved to the Sundown Village office park where the water was cut. The office park, which mainly houses advocates, owes R660 000, according to the City.

The City then shifted its focus to Bryanston where it cut supply to DJA Aviation (Pty) Ltd which owes, according to the City, R840 000 for water and around R11 800 in electricity.

M J S Family Trust owes the City an amount of R607 000 in water, the City claims.

The City of Joburg said Murinda Investments (Pty) Ltd owes R421 000 in power, and Persian Trade Centre (Pty) owes R142 000 for electricity.

Phalatse said the property owners were notified but they claimed that they paid management companies and that somewhere along the line "the money is not filtering through to the municipality".

"When we terminate services today (Wednesday), it should come as little to no surprise to the account holders, given that we have sent pre-termination notices in one form or another, warning them of their debt to the municipality and the promise to cut them off.

"Communication has been sent out furthermore on the urgency of this matter and pre-termination notices were issued. There has been sufficient time to address those issues and that has not happened," Phalatse said.

Phalatse added that a pre-termination notice had been issued to Sandton City earlier in February to settle their debt of around R168 million. Should Sandton City fail to pay by the end of February, the City will take action.

The City of Cape Town has launched new tenders to procure as much as 300 MW of renewable energy, mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said on Wednesday

The mayor was speaking at the Solar Power Africa conference hosted at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

Two weeks ago, when the country was gripped by Stage 2 load-shedding, Hill-Lewis issued a statement indicating the city planned to launch new tenders for Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The IPPs are part of the city's efforts to reduce load-shedding and its negative impacts. Hill-Lewis previously said that load-shedding comes at the cost of failing businesses, and even job losses.

Speaking at the conference, Hill-Lewis said that Cape Town is working to be the first "load-shedding-free city" in the country.

"We are particularly eager for proposals from IPPs that help us reduce reliance on Eskom during peak times of use and thereby eliminate load-shedding," he said.

The city is open to proposals for generation projects, generation plus storage projects and storage projects only.

Judge Piet Koen has dismissed the six applications launched by Jacob Zuma against the legitimacy of his corruption prosecution - in a decision that casts strong doubt on the former president's hopes of avoiding trial through court action.

In a 61-page ruling delivered in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday, Koen reiterated what the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had previously argued: that Zuma did not have the legal right to appeal the dismissal of his "special plea" challenge to prosecutor Billy Downer's title to prosecute him now.

After citing multiple court rulings, Koen said it was clear that such an appeal could happen only if and when Zuma was convicted of the Arms Deal corruption he stands accused of.

"On the peculiar facts relating to this matter", Koen said, "an appeal against the dismissal of the special plea, if successful, would not lead to a 'just and prompt resolution of the real issues between the parties' before this court, in this instance Mr Zuma's guilt or innocence".

"In the absence of a prompt resolution of that real issue between the parties, there is no scope for an appeal prior to conviction, based on s 17(1)(c) of the Superior Courts Act."

He added that, even if it was heard at this stage, Zuma's appeal had "no prospects of success".

The judge also explained in painstaking detail how Zuma's various applications, which the state contended were clearly aimed at delaying his trial, were either legally unfounded or "irrelevant" or based on "frivolous" or ill-founded irregularity claims.

In the result, he stated that: "The interests of justice require that the matter now proceeds to trial in respect of the not guilty pleas of the two accused [Zuma and French arms company Thales]."

"The criminal trial shall proceed during the second and third terms of the 2022 court calendar of this court, where it has been set down, as previously agreed by all the parties, commencing at 10h00 on 11 April 2022, being the date to which the trial was adjourned on 26 October 2021," he said.

Moments after the judgment was delivered and without actually having read it, Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi slammed the decision as a "travesty of justice" and strongly suggested that the former president would seek to appeal it.

Despite Koen finding that none of the 14 grounds raised by Zuma as a basis for Downer being removed as his prosecutor were valid - a decision that the former president had tried and failed to appeal - Manyi maintained that the only way the case against Zuma would proceed was if the NPA replaced Downer.

The NPA's refusal to do so, he insisted, would result in Zuma's trial being delayed.

Manyi's comments appear to disregard the fact that Zuma had contended that both Downer and the entire NPA all lacked the title to prosecute him and he should therefore be acquitted.

In any event, Koen's ruling made it apparent that Zuma had little to no prospect of getting Downer removed as his prosecutor through a special plea application.

He explained why Zuma's efforts to challenge Downer's "title" to prosecute him was legally unfounded.

This, he said, was because previous cases had made it clear that accusations of bias made against a state advocate, as Zuma had made against Downer, were not a basis to remove the prosecutor.

Koen also hit back at Zuma's claim that he had committed an irregularity by fixing dates for the NPA to file a response to his application to appeal the judge's dismissal of his "special plea" application - something which the judge made clear he had not done.

Instead, Koen said, he had set dates for the NPA to file a reply to Zuma's application to lead further evidence about the various abuses he claimed to have suffered at the hands of the state.

Zuma's complaint of an "irregularity" was therefore "factually flawed, unfounded, and possibly opportunistic", he said.

Koen also dismissed Zuma's application to lead further evidence, on the basis that he had failed to demonstrate a...

The City of Tshwane on Tuesday cut the power supply to the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the SA Police Service (SAPS) headquarters, and the Gautrain station in Hatfield.

The City said Gautrain owed R10-million and had last paid its account in 2020.

The City said Mendo Properties, which is the landlord at the SAPS headquarters, owed R5.1-million.

It was, however, still unclear how much SARS owed the City.

"SARS is the tenant, we are owed by the landlord," the City clarified.

The City of Tshwane also disconnected the National Emergent Red Meat Producers' Organisation for a meter that was tampered with. A penalty fee of R621 000 was added to the amount owed.

It said the Independent Development Trust owed R8-million, and had paid R4.3-million before being disconnected on Tuesday morning.

Bloed Street Mall was also disconnected; it allegedly owed R1.2-million.

The MMC for Finance, Peter Sutton, said that in the last month, 420 disconnections of businesses had taken place. It was part of the City's #TshwaneYaTima campaign to get their "credit control actions in line".

"Less than 2% of those cases have been challenged in court and less than 1% of those cases have been successful against the City.

"It is not true that all those cases are being challenged in court. We do take a lot of care in the evenings to go through those accounts to deal with them, but I think it is very important to know that, when you have a dispute on a service item on the account, it is for that item only and not the entire account.

"What we often find is people will declare dispute on, for instance, their electricity or water consumption or usage on the bill, and then they will stop paying the bill in [entirety].

"The law does state clearly that the item that is in dispute, all other services must still be paid for. So, in fact, a lot of those credit control actions is not relating to the actual dispute of that account, but for other services of that account not in dispute and not being paid for that we take the credit control action."

The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) is currently checking whether anything is left of the R1.7-billion it invested in Bounty Brands, a group that distributes global apparel brands Vans and Diesel in South Africa.

A new report has also linked former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize to the embattled company, alleging that he received millions from a suspect transaction via a trust.

The UIF, which provides short-term financial assistance to workers who have lost their jobs, bought significant stakes in two companies that invested almost exclusively in Bounty Brands in 2016 and 2018.

Two years ago, the fund's R1.7-billion investment was almost fully impaired after the consumer group's auditors were unable to say whether it was a going concern.

A R1.7-billion loss?

The Daily Maverick reported on Monday that a company owned by businessman Lawrence Mulaudzi received a R47.5-million advisory fee for helping to clinch the 2018 investment. The report stated that the day after the fee was paid over, Mulaudzi's company paid R5.9-million into a transfer attorney’s account for a townhouse bought by Mkhize's ZLM Trust.

Daily Maverick quoted Mulaudzi as saying the payment was for a "legitimate business transaction". He said there was no evidence that the former health minister was part of the ZLM trust."

Bounty Brands is a South African consumer goods company whose portfolio includes pasta-maker Serena and canning company Liberty Select. It also owns the licence to distribute shoes and clothes by Vans and Diesel in South Africa.

While the UIF invested a combined R1.77-billion in companies to buy stakes in Bounty Brands, the fair value of the investments had fallen to just R2.7-million by March 2020. Fair value describes what the fund would get if it sold its investments today.

According to the UIF's most recent annual report, Bounty Brands auditors had been unable to say whether the company was a going concern, as the group had not finalised its 2019 financial statements.

But Bounty Brands CEO Stefan Rabe said this week that the group had finalised its financial statements after the UIF's most recent annual report had been published. While Rabe declined to say what the UIF's investments would be worth today, he said Bounty Brands' financial statements for 2019 and 2020 had been signed off on the going concern basis in the second half of 2021.

The UIF, meanwhile, said it was unable to say what the investments are worth today, as its financials are currently being audited.

Two investments

Bounty Brands' founder and former owner, private equity group Coast2Coast, planned to list it on the JSE in 2017 or 2018.

But while the promised listing never materialised, the UIF twice bought stakes in special purpose vehicles set up to invest in the consumer goods group. The fund bought its first stake in Bounty Brands in December 2016, via the Public Investment Corporation, which paid R406-million for 50% stake in Kefolile Consumer Brands Holdings. Kefolile owns 8.64% of Bounty Brands.

In May 2018, the UIF spent another R1.37-billion for a 40% stake in Bright Glacier Trading, which owns 36.2% of Bounty Brands' shares via its holding company.

Both investments were made via state-run asset manager the Public Investment Corporation, which invests on behalf of the UIF and the Government Employees' Pension Fund.

But just two years after the UIF spent R1.37-billion on its Bright Glacier stake, the investment had been fully impaired and was worth zero, according to the UIF's annual report. The report found that the fund's earlier R406-million investment in Kefolile was worth just R2.7-million.

Advisory fee

The Bright Glacier and Kefolile deals were linked to Mulaudzi. Mulaudzi is a director and shareholder of Kefolile, which received the R406-million investment in 2016.

According to the Daily Maverick, Mulaudzi acted as a "dealmaker" for the R1.37-billion investment in 2018. His company Blackgold Oil and Gas received a R47.5-million advisory fee from Bounty Bran...

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde wants a time and date set for the end to the Covid-19 state of disaster so that recovery can get into full swing.

"To be clear: we want the date and the time, and not generalised commitments," he said during his State of the Province Address delivered in Velddrif on Tuesday.

Winde said unemployment in the Western Cape had increased by 132 000 from the first quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2021, and the percentage of households with adults present who go hungry had increased from 11.3% in 2019 to 17% in 2020.

"This year, things have to change."

He warned that there would be no going "back to normal" after the damage caused by the pandemic and the increased demands on the government.

"I often hear people say: 'I wish we could go back to normal. You know, the way things were before'.

"I completely understand the sentiment - in comparison to lockdowns, loss of life, and economic hardship, the past can look appealing.

"But I must respectfully disagree."

South Africa has been in various alert levels since they were first instituted under the Disaster Management Act from midnight 26 March 2020.

At Level 5, non-essential businesses had to close, schools went into a long recess, and alcohol and cigarettes were banned.

The point of this was to reduce virus transmission to cope with the anticipated high demand on hospitals, based on admissions patterns observed in the US and Europe.

At one point, exercise and the sale of hot food were not permitted. Schools this year stopped rotational schooling, but many institutions are still limiting numbers based on the social distancing rules for public venues.

Winde said that data provided by the province's Department of Health showed that 90% of people surveyed in a seroprevalence study in November 2021 had developed protection against Covid-19, either through vaccination or prior infection.

The Omicron variant caused less severe outcomes. Despite having the highest number of cases at the peak of the fourth wave, hospitalisations, oxygen usage, and deaths in the province remained relatively low.

"This new stage provides us with a window of opportunity to make the bold changes that are now needed, so that we push back against going back to normal and so that we push forward, to do even better."

Winde said he had requested a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa to discuss timelines for lifting the state of disaster, after the president hinted at ending it in the coming months.

Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation Address that the state of disaster would be lifted, but that other health measures had to be put in place first.

The full realisation of South Africa’s democracy is being held hostage by the legal monopoly of political parties on the electoral system.

This is according to One South Africa Movement (OSA) leader Mmusi Maimane, who has taken aim at the Home Affairs Ministry's Electoral Amendment Bill currently before Parliament.

On Monday, Maimane said the phrase from the Freedom Charter that "the people shall govern" remained a lofty ideal.

He was speaking at a press briefing held outside Parliament.

"The current status quo does not function to fully and wholeheartedly give effect to the founding principles of this country enshrined in the Freedom Charter, which highlighted the supremacy of the South African people - not the South African political party.

"We can no longer view the phrase 'the people shall govern' as a fulfilled ideal when it is clear that is not the case. We can no longer view the phrase 'the people shall govern' as a lofty ideal when there are opportunities available to build a reality in which the people truly could govern," he said in a submission prepared for Parliament.

In June 2020, a Constitutional Court ruling declared the Electoral Act unconstitutional.

The New Nation Movement (NNM) launched a bid to allow an independent candidate to run for office in general elections and challenged the current Electoral Act 73 of 1998, arguing it infringed on the right to exercise individual political choices.

The NNM wanted the act to be amended to allow independent candidates to run in provincial and national elections.

The Constitutional Court found that channelling individuals to stand as candidates only through political parties was unconstitutional as it was a negation of political rights guaranteed under Section 19 of the Constitution.

Furthermore, the court held Section 1(d) in the founding provisions of the Constitution must be interpreted to denounce a one-party system of governance and not to sanction an exclusive party PR system.

The apex court also ordered that Parliament should correct the act. The judgment was suspended for 24 months for Parliament to amend the legislation.

Maimane said the bill sought to introduce qualifications for independent candidates to contest general (national and provincial) elections.

"Some of the qualifications sought to be imposed may create obstacles to the participation of independent candidates in elections. First, an independent candidate will be required to satisfy the Electoral Commission (IEC) that he/she has the support of a sufficient number of voters who are registered within the region or province in which she is standing for election. Much like in the local government elections, the candidate would be required to submit a minimum number of signatures," he said.

Another bone of contention is that an independent candidate would have to pay a monetary deposit that is refundable if they are allocated a seat.

If an independent candidate did not garner enough support for a seat, the deposit would be forfeited.

"Failure to comply with either requirement will result in disqualification from contesting the elections. No provision is made in the Electoral Amendment Bill for condonation or waiver of either the signature or deposit requirements. It is noted that a candidate running under the banner of a political party does not have to validate their candidacy through the collection of signatures before an election," Maimane said.

This unjustifiably limited the right to contest elections, he added.

"[It] constitutes indirect unfair discrimination against less affluent potential candidates and unjustifiably limits the right to dignity."

Following his 2022 State of the Nation Address last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa stressed the roles of business and the State in growing the country’s economy.

In his Monday letter to the nation, Ramaphosa stressed that alongside a capable and developmental State, South Africa needs a thriving private sector that invests in productive capacity.

“Some people have suggested that we must make a choice between, on the one hand, a developmental State that plays a vital role in economic and social transformation, and, on the other, a vibrant, expanding private sector that drives growth and employment. The reality is that we need both,” he said.

He said both sectors need to work together and complement each other.

He noted that this year the focus is on small, medium-sized and micro businesses; cooperatives; and the informal sector, adding that government is making ‘bounce back’ finance more accessible for small businesses through the redesign of the loan guarantee scheme that the government introduced in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Government is also expanding the employment tax incentive and looking at various other regulatory changes to make it easier for small businesses to employ more people.

“As I indicated in the State of the Nation Address, these are among the measures we are taking as government ‘to create the conditions that will enable the private sector – both big and small – to emerge, to grow, to access new markets, to create new products, and to hire more employees’,” he said.

He explained that as private sector employment expands, more livelihoods are supported and sustained and more goods and services are delivered at a greater scale, allowing government to collect more revenue for social development.

MORE WORK OPPORTUNITIES

Government is also directly involved in employment creation beyond those people employed in the public service, Ramaphosa said. He cited the Expanded Public Works Programme, which has been in existence since 2003, and which has provided work opportunities to millions of people.

More recently, in response to the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, government oversaw the most significant expansion of public employment in the country’s history, he said.

The Presidential Employment Stimulus has supported more than 850 000 opportunities in just 16 months.

Meanwhile, government is providing support to unemployed young people to prepare them for work.

Large-scale infrastructure investments, the establishment of special economic zones and support to labour-intensive growth industries are also contributing to job creation.

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen on Monday tabled a motion of no confidence in Cabinet.

Steenhuisen announced this as he participated in the debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address (SoNA), which he delivered on Thursday night.

This motion did not include a motion for Ramaphosa's removal.

Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa talked about building a capable State, but was unwilling to walk away from cadre deployment.

Steenhuisen said the goodwill towards Ramaphosa when he became president in 2018 evaporated in the face of his inaction.

He said Ramaphosa's executive of 64 - which includes Ramaphosa, 28 ministers, 34 deputy ministers, and Deputy President David Mabuza - was among the biggest in the world.

He described it as "a massive jobs-for-cadres scheme where no one is too corrupt, too lazy, or too useless to land one of these plush jobs".

"Every energy reform, every measure to unshackle our economy, every intention to support businesses and grow jobs sinks like a tonne of bricks the moment you walk into your next Cabinet meeting.

"Almost no one on your executive would be employable in the private sector, and frankly, some of them should be behind bars."

Steenhuisen said instead of cleaning up his Cabinet, he reshuffled the corrupt.

"You stand up in your SoNA, and you talk about building a capable State. But you're not prepared to walk away from the very essence of State capture and the incapable state: the ANC policy of cadre deployment.

"Clearly, you know your Cabinet cannot be trusted to get things done. You have effectively admitted that by setting up a parallel state in your own office.

"Your appointment of outsiders like Sipho Nkosi, Mavuso Msimang and Daniel Mminele to do the job of your Cabinet says it all.

"In a functional democracy, you would have fired most of your Cabinet ages ago, but we all know why you haven't."

Steenhuisen said that was because Ramaphosa would rather protect the unity of the ANC than put the country first.

"In other words, you see your job as holding together this rag-tag mob of crooks and free-loaders, even if that means the destruction of our country."

"Accountability is something you only talk about, because actually doing something about it would mean firing most of your Cabinet and upsetting your comrades. And we all know you'd rather be a weak president than do that."

Steenhuisen promised Ramaphosa the DA's support for a reform agenda.

The debate was expected to continue into Monday night and resume on Tuesday.

The motion of no confidence would first need to be processed by the Speaker before being scheduled for consideration.

Ramaphosa also faces a motion of no confidence from the ATM, which also still had to be scheduled after a lengthy delay due to a court battle about whether the vote should be by secret ballot.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has responded to written questions from Parliament's finance watchdog over his alleged knowledge of the abuse of state funds for African National Congress (ANC) activities.

Last month, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) sent Ramaphosa detailed questions about the allegations, which surfaced in a leaked audio recording.

In the audio clip, someone who sounds like Ramaphosa can be heard admitting that he was aware that the ANC had used public funds for party purposes. The person also suggests that the funds came from the State Security Agency (SSA).

In late December, suspended ANC MP Mervyn Dirks wrote to Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa asking that Ramaphosa be investigated.

In his letter, Dirks proposed that Ramaphosa be summoned to the committee to explain the utterances he had seemingly made in the recording.

On Friday, Hlengwa confirmed receipt, within the stipulated 10 working days, of a written response from Ramaphosa on the allegations.

A statement issued on Hlengwa's behalf read: "Having studied the contents of the letter from the president, Hlengwa has referred it to the parliamentary legal services to give guidance on certain aspects of the president's response. The committee programme has been adjusted accordingly and the president's response, along with the legal advice, will be tabled before the committee at a committee meeting on Wednesday."

The ANC suspended Dirks for his refusal to withdraw his letter. He was informed of his suspension in a letter, dated 20 January, from party chief whip Pemmy Majodina.

Also, in January, Dirks took the matter to court, and the application for urgency was dismissed. He was allowed to attend the Scopa meeting despite his suspension.

Dirks also approached Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to lodge a complaint against Ramaphosa.

Mkhwebane confirmed her office was probing an executive ethics complaint against the president.