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Four police officers have been suspended in the wake of the fire that gutted the historic National Assembly building.

On Friday, Lieutenant General Sam Shitlabane, head of the Protection and Security Services (PSS), briefed Parliament's Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament on the police's investigation into the fire.

Shitlabane said a departmental investigation had been instituted against officers who were on duty from 31 December 2021.

This included the PSS relief commander and three CCTV monitoring room operators.

Lieutenant General Sehlahle Masemola, deputy national commissioner for policing, told the committee the four officers had been issued with a notice of suspension.

"They are busy with their representations, and that will be considered," he told the committee.

Twelve days before the 2 January fire, a power outage resulted in the malfunctioning of the video wall from where cameras on the precinct are monitored.

Police officers on duty at Parliament could therefore only monitor movement from a small screen due to the video wall not working.

The cameras inside the building are digital and those outside the precinct are analogue.

Shitlabane listed these and several other issues as inhibiting factors.

"The power outage, caused by Eskom, on 21 December 2021, resulted in the malfunctioning of the video wall for the entire duration, prior to the Parliament fire incident. It is reported that apparently the generators ran out of diesel. Members could only monitor movement from a small screen due to the video wall not working. Currently, Parliament is operating two different types of cameras," he said.

On the cameras, Masemola said: "The police were using a small monitor to look at what is happening outside. With the video wall, you can see much bigger, and in the absence of that video wall working, you are left with either a 22 or 20-inch monitor where you monitor the same work. We are not responsible for the repair of the video wall. We have reported it to the relevant authorities."

Parliament has three monitoring rooms, which are not integrated.

Acting director-general of the public works department Imtiaz Fazel said the generators were refuelled after the power outage.

Shitlabane said Parliament's fire alarm didn't go off at the City of Cape Town's fire department.

"The water valves that supply water to the sprinklers within the building were found to be closed. The fire alarm only went off when the fire brigade was already on the scene and extinguishing the fire," he said.

He said after the declaration of the parliamentary complex as a national key point on 12 January 2018, a joint planning committee (JPC), which is a coordinating structure "in consultation with the protecting authority, still needs to be established by Parliament".

"Among the critical areas highlighted in the physical security assessments that are still pending, are the current height of the perimeter fence, which is 1.3 metres, as opposed to 3 metres as prescribed by minimum physical security standards, [and a] remote search park," he added.

Shitlabane said in 2016 Parliament's management and the divisional commissioner undertook a trip to Hungary in order to benchmark Parliament's security with international standards.

"Since 2004, the PSS SAS conducted five security assessments, with recommendations and audits, at Parliament, and the security assessments and/or audit reports were submitted to the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure for intervention," Shitlabane said.

Parliament's finance watchdog the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has formally requested President Cyril Ramaphosa to respond to allegations of the misuse of public funds for party political purposes.

Earlier this week, Scopa decided to send 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).

According to Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa, Ramaphosa has 10 working days to respond to the letter as per the committee's decision.

"After consideration of the President's written response, the committee will consider whether it is necessary to invite the President to provide additional records or to appear before the committee to answer any further questions on the matter."

In late December, suspended African National Congress (ANC) MP Mervyn Dirks wrote to 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.

The ANC then suspended Dirks over this. He was informed of his suspension in a letter, dated 20 January, from party chief whip Pemmy Majodina.

Earlier this week, 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.

Eskom, which is on a mission to crack down on municipalities that owe it money, met with Tshwane mayor Randall Williams this week in an effort to recover R635-million owed to it by the city.

Eskom said on Thursday that the debt, which was due on 18 January, had knock-on effects to its "liquidity, financial performance and sustainability", leading to the utility having to borrow more to meet its financial obligations.

"The City of Tshwane's payment patterns have been irregular over the past six months and have contributed negatively to Eskom’s increasing overdue debt which is in excess of R43.8-billion," the utility said.

"Over the past months, we have engaged the city on these irregular payments and the impact they have on Eskom to keep the lights on.

"We remain hopeful that the city will review its current position regarding the appeals made to them by Eskom and honour their payments."

The mayor’s spokesperson Sipho Stuurman told Fin24 that Williams would provide the City’s comments on the issue later on Thursday.

"We will draft a response soon. The mayor and MMCs are engaged in a council meeting. As soon as they are out of there, we will issue a statement and response," he said.

In August last year Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said municipal debt had risen to R39-billion as at the end of the company's financial year in March.

In September Eskom won a R1.3-billion judgment against the Emfuleni Local Municipality over unpaid bulk electricity services. The utility said the amount was part of a total debt of R1.9-billion which Emfuleni had accumulated in 2019. According to Eskom, at the time, Emfuleni topped the list of Gauteng municipalities with poor payment records, with arrears of more than R3-billion running over 30 days.

The Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee has hiked the repo rate by another 25 basis points to 4%. This brings the prime rate to 7.5%.

Four members of the committee voted for the increase, while one voted for an unchanged rate.

On a new home loan of R2-million at the prime rate, the monthly payment will increase by around R300 following the rate hike.

After the prime rate went from 10% in 2019 to 7% last year, the bank started hiking rates again in November, with a 25 basis point increase to 7.25%.

While the economy is still struggling to recover following lockdown restrictions last year, the Reserve Bank must contend with hotter inflation. Consumer inflation for the year to December was 5.9% - the biggest increase in almost five years.

On Thursday, the Reserve Bank hiked its forecast of headline inflation for the year, from 4.3% to 4.9% - and Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago warned that risks to the inflation outlook are to the upside.

This is due in part to high oil prices. Last year, the price of 95 unleaded petrol rose from below R15 in inland regions to above R20/litre by December. Diesel rose from R13 to almost R18/litre.

Kganyago also highlighted the risk of higher electricity prices. Eskom has applied for a 20.5% tariff hike.

Other countries are also starting to hike interest rates. If South African interest rates stay too low for too long, this will hit the rand. Traders will move to currencies that earn higher interest.

"A particular risk arises from the possibility of a faster normalisation of global policy rates than is currently built into the forecast, which assumes some rate hikes to begin around June of 2022," Kganyago said. "Added to this is the risk that quantitative tightening will occur more quickly than previously expected, leading to stronger capital flow reversals from riskier assets such as emerging market debt."

Most economists expect 150 basis point hikes in the next two years, with the market pricing in an increase of around 250 basis points.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has confirmed her office is probing an executive ethics complaint against President Cyril Ramaphosa amid allegations of public fund misappropriation against the African National Congress (ANC), which surfaced in a leaked audio recording.

In a short statement on Thursday, Mkhwebane's spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe, said her office was the only accountability institution empowered under the Executive Members' Ethics Act to enforce executive ethics.

"The Public Protector South Africa (PPSA) wishes to confirm that a complaint, in which a Member of Parliament has alleged a breach of the Executive Code of Ethics against the President, reached the office late afternoon on Wednesday. The complaint was lodged in terms of the Executive Members Ethics Act 82 of 1998. The PPSA has been inundated with queries about the complaint since the sitting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) earlier in the week," Segalwe said.

ANC MP Mervyn Dirks' complaint arises from an audio clip in which someone who sounds like Ramaphosa can be heard admitting that he was aware that the ANC has used public funds for party purposes. The person suggested that the funds came from the State Security Agency (SSA).

Dirks wrote to Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa to ask that Ramaphosa be investigated. The ANC suspended Dirks for this. He took the matter to court, and it was dismissed. He was admitted to the Scopa meeting despite his suspension.

In accordance with a legal opinion it obtained, Scopa will, through a written response from Ramaphosa, also seek to establish whether and how the alleged unauthorised expenditure was captured in financial statements.

It also wanted to establish whether the alleged unauthorised transactions were detected by the Auditor-General when auditing the SSA's books.

If this is not established, it should be determined whether any officials misrepresented facts in the financials.

Scopa will also find out which individuals benefitted from the funds and whether the unauthorised expenditure was reported.

If it was not reported, the committee will also try to determine if there was any conduct that constituted a misrepresentation by any individual and where the gaps were that allowed the misconduct to go unpunished.

Segalwe said the Public Protector should investigate any alleged breach of the code on receipt of a complaint by the president or an MP if the complaint is against a Cabinet member or a deputy minister.

He said, "The EMEA (Executive Members' Ethics Act) further provides that such an investigation must be completed within 30 days."

An Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillor who is accused of spreading hateful comments via a fake Twitter account is now in higher office after his party bosses paved the way for him to become a member of Parliament.

Anthony Matumba, a former councillor who hails from the Makhado Local Municipality in Limpopo, is alleged to be the person behind the fake Twitter account "@Tracy Zille", which was used to spread disparaging, racist and hateful comments.

On Tuesday, Matumba told News24 about the development but at the time, he could not give further details.

On Wednesday, National Assembly Speaker presided over his swearing-in and that of a fellow EFF member.

The swearing-in was confirmed on the EFF's social media accounts.

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) took Matumba to the Equality Court in Louis Trichardt after it received a complaint from a member of the public about tweets from the Twitter account.

Complaint

The Twitter account reportedly emerged in June 2020 and had more than 30 000 followers when the SAHRC received the complaint.

But in court papers, Matumba denied that he was behind the account.

He said there were no witnesses to prove the connection between him and the account.

The SAHRC said it was reported that Matumba was generating an income from making disparaging and inflammatory comments online through companies he owned and registered to which social media users were directed.

The SAHRC wants Matumba to donate R20 000 to a charitable organisation, expressly with victims of gender-based violence.

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen filed court papers in the Gauteng High Court on Wednesday in an effort to compel government to immediately open schools fully.

The party has been trying to force Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to do away with the rotational system saying it deprives children of their constitutional right to education.

In July 2021, the government’s own Ministerial Advisory Committee recommended that all schools should be open fully and instructed that children should be at least one metre apart within classrooms.

Steenhuisen said the rule is plainly unconstitutional and is implemented to satisfy government’s social distancing rule in classrooms.

“The rotational system massively violates children’s constitutional rights to basic education, to basic nutrition, for children’s best interests to be paramount in all matters concerning them, and to equality,“ he said.

The DA says government has failed to provide a justification and is ignoring its own scientific advice. Steenhuisen says it is overwhelmingly in a child’s interest to go to school.

“Under the rotational model, schoolchildren’s access to basic education is being severely stunted, which will negatively impact the rest of their lives. South African schoolchildren in no-fee schools have lost over half of their normal school days since the start of the pandemic and have learnt less than half of what they would normally learn, “ he added.

He warns that the long-term effects on children will be lower educational attainment, lower earnings, higher unemployment, and lower-skilled occupations in adulthood.

On the issue of access to food, Steenhuisen says less than half of children received free school meals in February and March 2021.

Sheenhuisen argues that school children present a low risk of contracting or transmitting Covid-19.

The risk is far too low to justify these enormous harms, he said.

“Furthermore, teachers and other adults have had plenty of time to get themselves vaccinated. So children cannot be made to pay the cost of keeping adults protected.

"This rule, therefore, amounts to a huge intergenerational injustice. Government is choosing to sacrifice those least able to defend their own interest,” he stated.

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is conducting its own probe into public fund misappropriation allegations against the African National Congress (ANC), which surfaced in a leaked audio recording, even though the matter has already been referred to the Public Protector.

The committee believes that the comments only reflect a part of the discussion that was captured in the clip and that the publicly available portion has far-reaching implications. On Tuesday evening, the committee resolved that it was necessary for the committee to conduct its own probe.

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

Scopa will first ascertain the authenticity of the recording and whether it was indeed Ramaphosa's voice. In the next few days, it will write to the president and demand a written statement or affidavit on the clip's authenticity. The committee expects a response from him seven days after receiving the letter.

In addition to Scopa's decision, ANC MP Mervyn Dirks said he would ask Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo to investigate a possible perjury charge against Ramaphosa.

Dirks said Ramaphosa did not disclose the issues which surfaced in the audio clip to the Zondo Commission when he testified.

In his opening remarks, Dirks said Ramaphosa and other party leaders had not denied the authenticity of the recording, except to question how it made its way into the public domain.

Dirks wrote to Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa to ask that Ramaphosa be investigated. The ANC suspended him for this. He took the matter to court and it was dismissed. He was admitted to the meeting despite his suspension.

The committee, in accordance with a legal opinion it obtained, will, through a written response from Ramaphosa, also seek to establish whether and how the alleged unauthorised expenditure was captured in the financial statements.

They also want to establish whether the alleged unauthorised transactions were detected by the Auditor-General when auditing the State Security Agency's books. If this is not established, it should be determined whether any officials misrepresented facts in the financials.

Scopa will also find out who the individuals are who benefited from the funds and whether the unauthorised expenditure was reported. If it was not reported, the committee will also try to determine if there was any conduct that constituted a misrepresentation by any individual and where the gaps were to allow the misconduct to go unpunished.

Hlengwa said the committee would also remind Ramaphosa that they have the right to compel him to appear before it or issue him with a summons if necessary.

Economic Freedom Fighters MP and Scopa member Veronica Mente proposed that Ramaphosa be treated as a whistleblower because he might have information that could assist the committee in holding to account those who squandered public funds.

In the leaked recording, Ramaphosa could be heard saying, "And I said in this case, I am prepared to fall on the sword so that the CR17 campaign should be the only one that's looked at and not the others. each one of us knows that quite a bit of money that is used in campaigns and bussing people around and doing all manner of things is often from state resources and public resources and we cannot kid ourselves when it comes to that."

"One of the officials said, as these people from the State Security testify, one of the officials said soon they will be revealing about how money was used for some campaigns, and I said I would rather they say you got money from this business for CR17 than for the public to finally hear that their public money was used to advance certain campaigns. one of the officials said, soon they will be revealing about how money from the SSA was used for some campaign. And I said Heaven forbid," he ...

As South Africa strives to recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, science and innovation are playing a prominent role both in the efforts to overcome the disease and to rebuild the economy, President Cyril Ramaphosa says in his weekly newsletter.

He notes that he recently attended the launch of a vaccine manufacturing campus in Cape Town, which forms part of a multimillion-rand investment by multinational technology company NANTWorks, headed by South African-born scientist Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Ramaphosa points out that South Africa already has advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in companies such Aspen Pharmacare, Afrigen Biologics and the Vaccines and Biovac Institute, which is a public-private initiative.

“These projects will greatly aid South Africa in our quest to become a hub of scientific innovation, research and development, especially in vaccine manufacturing for Covid-19, cancer, tuberculosis and other future pandemics,” he acclaims.

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa also highlights that aerospace company SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched three South African-made nanosatellites into space, from Cape Canaveral, in the US, earlier this month.

The satellites form part of a project to detect, identify and monitor shipping vessels along the South African coastline.

“These are just some of the projects that demonstrate how science and technology have a key role to play in our economic recovery, in attracting greater levels of investment, and in contributing to skills, knowledge and technology transfer to capacitate our country’s workforce.

“We are therefore prioritising investment in science, technology and innovation to revitalise and modernise existing industries, as well as to create new sources of growth and stimulate industrialisation. There is huge potential in agriculture, mining, energy and manufacturing, among others,” Ramaphosa says.

He notes that this is an area where government has been pursuing several collaborative partnerships with the private sector and academia to broaden the frontiers of scientific endeavour.

For example, he mentions projects undertaken around hydrogen, energy storage and renewable energy; and support for emerging farmers through the Agricultural Bio-Innovation Partnership Programme.

Government also has funding partnerships with a number of South African universities in the field of nanotechnology development, Ramaphosa points out.

“We are looking far into space by enhancing the capabilities of the South African Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project and supporting a number of new discoveries using the MeerKAT telescope.

“At the same time we are using science to support and guide municipalities to plan for and assess the risks of climate change.

“We are looking at how to harness new technologies for development, such as using three-dimensional printing to build houses,” Ramaphosa points out.

He says a proper digital transformation of economy and society will rely on a combination of technical skill and intellectual enterprise.

“Visiting the Biomedical Research Institute at the University of Stellenbosch last week, for which our government has invested R300-million, it was not so much the impressive laboratories that inspired awe, but rather the human skills and capabilities that had enabled such innovative research.

“We need solid investment in skills development in these different industries, and a firm commitment to increase the number of students studying science, if we are to promote scientific excellence and its attendant economic benefits,” he emphasises.

Therefore, Ramaphosa says, government will continue to support initiatives such as the Grassroots Innovation Programme of the Department of Science and Innovation, which provides support to local innovators to develop their concepts, create prototypes and commercialise their ideas.

He also highlights the Imvelisi Enviropreneurs Programme, which offers boot camps and business mentoring for inn...

ActionSA welcomed former Democratic Alliance (DA) Midvaal mayor Bongani Baloyi to its ranks on Monday.

Baloyi left the DA in December last year, after 14 years with the party and having been announced as the DA’s Gauteng premier candidate for 2024.

Baloyi become the youngest mayor when he took the reins at Midvaal in 2013.

Under his stewardship, which ended after the 2021 local government elections, Midvaal municipality received seven clean audits and was ranked the top-performing municipality.

He will serve on ActionSA’s Senate, the party’s highest decision-making body.

“Baloyi’s joining of ActionSA does not take place in a vacuum. The results achieved by ActionSA have positioned the party such that we have been overwhelmed by South Africans joining our ranks. I am informed that our party membership doubled in the week following the elections,” said ActionSA president Herman Mashaba.

Mashaba said Baloyi remained committed to see out his term of office for the people of Midvaal.

Baloyi said he was proud of his record with the DA and of the work that he had achieved.

“I am also proud of my 10 years as the mayor of Midvaal and I must extend my sincere appreciation to the community of Midvaal who are the real heroes of my tenure as executive mayor,” he added.

Baloyi explained that he was not joining ActionSA out of anger or disappointment.

“I must state from the outset that my joining ActionSA is not out of anger or out of disappointment, it's actually because of the hope they are invoking. I join ActionSA knowing very well the work that lies ahead for all of us, this is a very significant moment in our country,” he said.

Baloyi added that he believed there was a realignment of the country’s politics where diverse South Africans of all capabilities needed to join hands and work together, because there was “one enemy and that enemy is the African National Congress”, he said.