A near wholesale dependance on government contracts is perhaps the most salient feature of KZN-based VNA Consulting’s financial profile.

Bank records underpin just how reliant the firm is on public tenders. From January 2014 to September 2017, VNA Consulting received about R945-million in its main business account. Roughly R925-million of those funds, or nearly 98%, came from government departments and other public sector clients.

The bank records, obtained through ongoing defamation proceedings, also reveal VNA’s primary stomping grounds. Nearly 96% of the payments into the VNA account came from provincial departments in KZN and in the Free State.

The KZN department of transport, by far the firm’s biggest client, contributed R629.6-million to VNA’s coffers. Other significant clients were the Free State’s department of police, roads and transport (R183.4-million), KZN’s department of public works (R59.6-million), and the Free State’s department of human settlements (R31.2-million).

It is against this background that we now examine a series of donations that VNA made to the ANC in the corresponding period. We also reveal new details on payments that VNA made to a company owned by Ace Magashule’s son, Thato. At the time, Magashule senior was the Free State’s premier.

The transactions we’ve unearthed give rise to pressing questions. For starters, are VNA’s contributions to the governing party linked to its earnings in ANC-controlled domains? Also, do such donations go hand-in-hand with questionable transfers to politically connected individuals?

In a letter from the company’s lawyer, VNA strongly denied any impropriety.

“VNA refutes any suggestion or insinuation that any of the donations made by it were unlawful.”

The company also refuted any suggestion or insinuation that its donations were alleged kickbacks.

“VNA was lawfully entitled to make such donations,” stated the letter. “None of the said donations were concealed in any way.”

VNA added that its donations were all accounted for in the company’s annual financial statements.

Concerning VNA’s revenues, the company’s attorney stated: “VNA acknowledges that the principal source of its income from January 2014 to September 2017 was for work undertaken on behalf of the state. All such work was undertaken in terms of agreements that were lawfully concluded following open tender processes.” The full responses from VNA’s attorney can be accessed here. Those responses not relevant to this piece were blurred out.

Paying the party

Some of VNA’s donations to the ANC appear to be closely tied to payments the company received from government departments. In some instances, the company appeared to practically forward bits of its earnings from tenders to the governing party.

One of the first transactions VNA effected after a November 2014 payment from KZN’s transport department was a R8,000 donation to the ANC.

The donations we’ve scrutinised were paid between April 2014 and September 2017. VNA Consulting made 15 separate contributions to the governing party’s benefit. Most of these funds were paid directly into the party’s accounts. In one instance, VNA paid a private company for an ANC Youth League “breakfast meeting”.

VNA’s payments to the ANC, or to the party’s direct benefit, totalled nearly R5-million. This figure isn’t exactly eye-watering. But the quantum is not really the issue here. Our misgivings instead arise from the manner in which VNA passed on chunks of its earnings from government departments to the governing party. Add to the picture transfers to politically-connected individuals — as we’ll detail below — and the optics become all the more troubling.

Donations totalling R2.24-million were paid from VNA’s main Standard Bank account. The rest, nearly R2.5-million, were made from an FNB account VNA had opened in 2014.

We first focus on the Standard Bank account. This is the company’s main transacting account. Here, VNA received fees from government clients totalling nearly R1-billion.

The bank statements from June 2017 are a great place to start. They reflect how little time VNA had wasted in making large donations to the ANC after the company had received funds from government clients.

On the 19th of that month, VNA Consulting received in its main business account two payments totalling R8.3-million. The money had come from the KZN department of transport. The very next day, VNA transferred R1-million to the ANC. The only funds that had entered VNA’s account before the donation were those paid by the KZN department of transport.

A similar sequence of transactions occurred later that year, but this time it involved the Free State’s provincial government. On 5 September 2017, VNA received just under R366,000 from the Free State’s department of human settlements (FSHS). Two days later, the department paid VNA roughly R31,000. On the very day of the second deposit, VNA transferred R200,000 to the ANC Youth League.

Next, we scrutinise a series of transactions that saw VNA pay the ANC on the same day it received funds from the KZN provincial government.

On 30 April 2014, the KZN transport department paid R3.35-million into VNA’s business account. The bank statements don’t show us at what time the money arrived in VNA’s account. What they do reveal is that at 15:01 that same day, VNA transferred R500,000 to the ANC. The correlation between VNA’s payment from the provincial government and its donation to the governing party seems staggering.

What’s more, the donation was apparently made specifically to the ANC in KZN. Whoever made the payment from the VNA account entered “ANC KZN FUNDR” as a reference for the transaction. We couldn’t help but question the intent behind this donation. Did VNA, in effect, forward funds from the KZN provincial government to the ANC’s structures in that province?

In December 2015, VNA again transferred funds to the ANC, also shortly after the company had been paid by government. On 7 December, the Free State’s department of police, roads and transport paid R9.6-million into the VNA account. Three days later, VNA transferred R1-million to the ANC. Half of this donation was paid directly form the VNA’s Standard Bank account. The second R500,000 transfer came from VNA’s FNB account.

We put it to VNA that its donations were, in effect, public funds that it had forwarded to the ANC.

“Donations were made when sufficient funds were available therefor,” VNA said through its attorney.

The FNB account

Unlike the Standard Bank account, VNA’s FNB account received no deposits from government clients.

In fact, most of the monies that went into this account seemed to stem from a bit of work VNA did for Vodacom. The cellphone giant was one of the few — if not the only — private sector clients VNA had during this period.

We nevertheless found several instances where VNA transferred funds to the ANC shortly after it had received payments from government clients in its Standard Bank account.

For instance, on 15 December 2015, VNA received in its Standard Bank account a R10-million payment from the KZN department of transport. That same day, VNA made a R250,000 payment from its FNB account to the governing party’s benefit. The transaction reference was “Staff Vouchers – anc”.

Meanwhile, transactions from February 2016 reveal a possible link between a payment from the Free State provincial government and the ANC’s structures in that province. On 11 February, the Free State’s department of police, roads and transport paid R2.45-million into VNA’s FNB account. The next day, VNA deposited R172,000 into an ANC account, referencing the transaction as “ANC – Free State”.

VNA said it refuted any suggestion or insinuation that the above donation was meant as a gratification to the ANC in the Free State on the back of the payment from the provincial department.

Later that year, VNA again made a substantial donation to the ANC. The payment came hot on the heels of yet another large payment from a government department. On 4 July 2016, the KZN transport department paid R9.5-million into VNA’s Standard Bank account. The following day, VNA, from its FNB account, transferred R500,000 to the ANC. This transaction’s reference was “Donation-anc”.

Finally, on 22 February 2017, VNA received R3.3-million from the KZN transport department. As always, the money was paid into the company’s main Standard Bank account. The next day, R500,000 was paid from VNA’s FNB account to the ANC, with transaction references ‘Ancyl’ and ‘Anc Youth League’.

Of the 15 donations VNA had made to the ANC from the two bank accounts, nine were paid either on the same day or the day after VNA received funds from provincial government departments. Three donations were paid within three days of VNA receiving such funds. On two occasions, there was a lull of five days. Only once did more than a week lapse between such inflows and outflows. On average, VNA transferred funds to the ANC within two and a half days of receiving payments from its public sector clients.

Thato Magashule

While scouring VNA’s bank statements for donations to the ANC, we noticed that Narsai’s company had transferred funds to a company called Marvel Deeds. The name immediately rang a bell. In 2020, we revealed that Marvel Deeds was owned by Ace Magashule’s son, Thato, and that the company had received Covid-19 contracts from the Free State provincial government.

What the bank records now revealed was that VNA had transferred nearly R1.2-million to Marvel Deeds. This was done in eight tranches, paid between September 2016 and March 2017. The round-figure transfers ranged in value from R50,000 to R300,000.

It should be obvious why these transfers warrant suspicion.

During that timeframe, Thato’s father was still very much in control of the provincial government. What’s more, in the corresponding period, VNA had received roughly R45-million in fees from provincial departments in the Free State. Were VNA’s payments to Marvel Deeds perhaps tied to the contracts the company had clinched in a Magashule-controlled Free State?

VNA rejected the suggestion.

“Marvel Deeds was lawfully appointed to undertake and execute certain building construction work concerning a private development on behalf of VNA, and were remunerated therefor,” stated the company’s attorney.

It added: “The relevant contract and invoices evidencing the work undertaken and payments effected are all available for inspection. The contract and payments had nothing to do with Mr Ace Magashule, the former Premier of the Free State Province. The payments were certainly not a ‘kickback’ or ‘illicit gratification’.”

We hoped to speak to Thato Magashule to hear more about his work for VNA, but he could not be reached for comment. He did not respond to multiple text messages seeking his comment.

Cash for Zuma foundation

Our doubts about the so-called construction project are not without merit.

The transfers to Thato Magashule’s company marks the second known instance where VNA paid monies to the son of a prominent political figure. In both instances, the payments were supposedly related to a private development.

This journalist’s book, Gangster State, unpacked a R2-million payment VNA had made in 2015 to a company owned by Dudu Myeni’s son, Thalente. Narsai and VNA Consulting subsequently sued the author and the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House. The case is ongoing.

The Zondo Commission would later hear startling testimony regarding events that transpired after VNA had paid Premier Attraction. The commission ultimately found that the funds had ended up in the Jacob G Zuma Foundation’s bank account.

Thalenti Myeni’s company, Premier Attraction, received the R2-million from VNA in June 2015. Four months later, Premier Attraction transferred R1-million to a company called Isibonelo Construction. Premier Attraction also paid R1.15-million to Isibonelo in December 2015. On the very day of the latter transfer, Isibonelo paid R1-million to the Jacob G Zuma Foundation.

In February 2016, Isobonelo paid a further R800,000 to Zuma’s foundation, also shortly after it had received funds from Thalente Myeni’s company.

A protected witness, “Mr X”, described to the commission how he’d been instructed by Dudu Myeni to make the transfers from Isibonelo’s account.

Thalente Myeni testifying at the Zondo Commission. (Screengrab: YouTube)

In the end, the commission rejected Thalente Myeni’s story about the supposed work he’d done for VNA.

“Mr Myeni’s claims that these were all legitimate business dealings cannot be accepted as correct. He was extremely vague in his testimony about the work with VNA Consulting. He did not know how many people worked on the ‘project’. He could not recall the names of the people at VNA Consulting with whom they had worked. He said that there was no method by which they would account for the work done and he was unable to provide any details of the precise work that would earn his company R2 million.”

The commission’s report also states: “The evidence that was presented at the Commission indicates that the dealings between VNA Consulting, Premier Attraction (Mr Thalente Myeni’s business), Mr X’s business, Ms Duduzile Myeni, and the Jacob Zuma Foundation were not arms-length business dealings.”

Despite the commission’s findings, VNA and Narsai insisted that there had been a lawful contract between VNA and Myeni’s company.

VNA’s version of events is thus: Myeni’s Premier Attraction had been contracted to provide certain services to a private developer for a housing project in Mpumalanga. VNA then took over the contract from Premier Attraction.

“VNA agreed to compensate Premier in an amount of R2-million for the work they had completed as at the date of the takeover on the basis that VNA would recover the said amount from the developer when funding was secured,” reads the letter from VNA’s attorney. And: “A full disclosure with the relevant documents in this regard was made to the State Capture Commission.”

However, none of the documents VNA submitted proved that Premier Attraction had done any work on a private development.

While VNA and Narsai at least submitted some documents, Myeni failed to provide any records for his supposed role in the project. This prompted the commission to take a very dim view of the dealings between VNA and Premier Attraction.

“The Commission has seen a number of instances of this type of alleged ‘business dealings’ during the course of its hearings,” reads the Zondo Commission’s final report.

“Witnesses would come before the Commission and claim that there were genuine business relationships between various parties but then could not ever produce a contemporaneous document to corroborate their version. The absence of contemporaneous documents is a compelling indicator that no genuine business relationship existed.

“This is because, in the ordinary course, genuine business relationship produce records – records of emails between the parties, records of work done, progress records on performance, and records of interactions and conversations. The absence of records, together with an inadequate explanation for their non-existence, means that the relationships were probably not genuine ones.” DM

Read more in Daily Maverick: Party to the Plunder? Tshwane bus project, Prasa trains deal behind R10m ANC donation

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘Lift the cap’ – Tshwane transport tender ballooned from R88m to nearly R800m

Read more in Daily Maverick: Party to the Plunder? Transparency is needed on ANC’s tender-linked fundraising machinery

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On 20 April 2020, murder accused Zane Kilian, then a debt collector, obtained a Consumer Trace Report — used to establish debt and credit records — on the Anti-Gang Unit’s Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear, which revealed that Kinnear was a police officer.

This was the gist of Hawks Captain Edward du Plessis’ recent testimony in the Western Cape High Court. He explained that Kilian tracked Kinnear’s cellphone and used the MarisIT system to gain access to his personal information. That information included his home and work addresses, employment history, banking information, bond account number and which bank held the bond.

Du Plessis began his testimony on Tuesday and will continue on Thursday before Judge Robert Henney. Du Plessis is a member of the national task team that investigated the murder of Kinnear.

Kilian and underworld figure Nafiz Modack are the main accused in the assassination of Kinnear in front of his Cape Town home on 18 September 2020 and of the attempted murder of the lawyer William Booth in Cape Town on 9 April 2020.

Kilian has admitted to “pinging” Kinnear’s cellphone to trace his location, and claims he did so at the behest of Modack.  

Last week, the court heard testimony from former police officer Bradley Goldblatt that he sold bundles of 50 pings for R2,100 per month to Kilian. He also admitted to selling the MarisIT system to Kilian for R5,000.    

Read more in Daily Maverick: Hawks were monitoring pinging of Kinnear’s phone when he was assassinated, court hears

Modack and Kilian, along with 13 co-accused, are collectively facing 124 charges including murder, attempted murder, corruption, gangsterism, extortion, the illegal interception of communications, money laundering and contravention of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.

The other accused are Jacques Cronje, Ziyaad Poole, Moegamat Brown, Riyaat Gesant, Fagmeed Kelly, Mario Petersen, Petrus Visser, Janick Adonis, Amaal Jantjies, former Anti-Gang Unit Sergeant Ashley Tabisher, Yaseen Modack, Mogamat Mukudam and Ricardo Morgan.

55,000 pings

During Du Plessis’ two-day testimony, the court was told that Kilian carried out 5,307 pings between 2019 and 2020. During the same period, 55,000 pings were carried out across SA.  

Du Plessis said: “The first ping that Kilian carried out during the said period was on 30 April 2019 on the phone of [Kinnear’s] wife and the last one was … 15 minutes … after the murder of Kinnear. 

“The pinging and Consumer Trace Report on Kinnear started on 20 April 2020. That was days after the attack on Booth at his home on 9 April 2020. On 20 April 2020, Kilian knew that Kinnear was a police officer because he had his employment history.

“The Consumer Trace Report done on Kinnear showed his address, his cellphone number, a picture of him, the distance between his workplace and his home address and the time it took, and was generated on 20 April 2020 with a corresponding ping. 

“Kilian had to read this report to get the number of Kinnear’s wife at the bottom of the Consumer Tracing Report. On the same date a Consumer Trace Report was also carried out on Kinnear’s wife, Nicolette,” Du Plessis said.

Summarising, prosecutor Greg Wolmarans told the court that after Kilian began pinging Kinnear and Booth, he knew, among other things, that Kinnear was a police officer, that Booth was a lawyer, and he knew where both of them lived, had pictures of them, their personal banking information, and a map of how long it would take them to travel from their workplace to their home.

“At the dawn of this saga Kilian, from this Consumer Tracing Report, would have known that he was dealing with a police member. There is nothing in this trace reporting to indicate that this is repossession of anything, much less a vehicle,” Wolmarans said. 

The trial continues. DM

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Leaders of political parties have criss-crossed South Africa to hold meetings on street corners in townships, dorpies and cities, led marches against all manner of issues and knocked on doors. It has been an intense campaign, regardless of party colours. 

Pundits have long predicted the governing ANC would drop below 50% and lose its majority, and so coalition talk has tailed the campaigning alongside opposition parties’ determined boosting of their chances at the hustings. 

But the devil is in the details – from geography to voter turnout and voter sentiment. 

The shifting voter outlook has been fundamental to the ANC campaign that has stepped up in intensity in recent weeks. Traditionally that’s how the governing party has galvanised enthusiasm, and thus voting support. That this is working is reflected in ongoing polling that has lifted support for the ANC a handful of percentage points already.  

The possibility that the ANC may just squeak in with 51% can’t be ruled out. It would be a 6.5 percentage point drop from the ANC’s 57.5% support in 2019, which itself was a significant drop from the 62.15% gained in the 2014 elections, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). Still, clinching even a 51% majority that allows the ANC to form the next government would be proclaimed as success.

On the campaign trail, personal contact is a proven ANC tactic, as is fielding President Cyril Ramaphosa as point man on the meet-and-greet and on the posters that finally appeared in strategic spots. 

Ramaphosa remains more popular than the ANC itself, and trust in political leadership – the Ramaphosa factor – is a crucial determinant in voters’ choices in research recently released by the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa. 

But the ANC’s election support aims are misguided, and modest. 

Much of the governing party’s election calculations seem based on offsetting losses in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng by boosting support to 80% or more in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, according to the leaked audio of April’s National Executive Committee election meeting. 

But an election analysis shows the ANC has never hit 80% support in the Eastern Cape, getting close only in 2004 with 79.27%. The last time the ANC hit 80% plus in Mpumalanga and Limpopo was in 2009 – 85.55% in Mpumalanga and 84.8% in Limpopo, according to the IEC. 

Since then, their support has consistently dropped in those identified key provinces, as in others. Contributing factors include ANC factional battles, increasing corruption in government, and State Capture, while basic service delivery from water and sanitation to effective community-centred policing has declined. 

The rotational power cuts that have left households and businesses without electricity for up to 12 hours a day in Stage 6 load shedding also helped turn sentiment negative.

The 2024 elections, different to previous ones, have emphasised provincial dynamics. Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have emerged as potential kingmakers.  

But while Gauteng dynamics that have already brought the ANC young Turks under Premier Panyaza Lesufi together with the EFF are likely to be limited to South Africa’s economic heartland, KwaZulu-Natal dynamics could significantly impact the national scene. 

That’s partly because the IFP has already indicated its willingness to participate in a government of national unity. This opens the door to an ANC-IFP deal, particularly if the ANC nationally comes in below 47% support, which would be too little to take control with just a handful of pliant one- or two-seat parties. 

In this scenario, the IFP’s estimated 6% polling would ensure a rather uncomplicated cooperative coalition arrangement in both KwaZulu-Natal and nationally that would put the ANC in the lead. 

The IFP has nostalgic ties to the KwaZulu-Natal premiership, and previously from 1999 the ANC accommodated this, even though it won the province. 

The impact of the MK party headed by ex-president Jacob Zuma remains to be seen. Whether the party’s leadership battles have dented support will unfold on election day, but Zuma has been a pull factor in the ethnic vote in KwaZulu-Natal – when he was ANC president support shot up to 62.9% in 2009 and 64.5% in 2014, but dropped back to 54.2% in 2019, according to IEC statistics.

Initial polling put the MK party around 20 percentage points, similar to the ANC and IFP in KwaZulu-Natal, with EFF support stalling. 

The IFP taking its polling support into a government of national unity with the ANC would in effect render any opposition KwaZulu-Natal government impossible. Among the Multi-Party Charter opposition parties, the IFP is the largest. Without it, the around 40% combined charter support would significantly drop, making an opposition government most likely out of reach.  

But that impossibility would have been a reality anyway on the back of the DA’s insistence that uMgeni Mayor Chris Pappas be premier. Such hard-line attitudes would not be new. In 2021 a handful of municipalities could have come into opposition control had DA Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille, who led negotiations, not insisted the DA had to be in charge as the biggest party, according to political insiders. 

While the DA internal polling earlier in 2024 hit 27% nationally, pundits’ estimates of support hovered around 21% to 22%, indicating a lack of significant growth over time.  

The 2024 elections will show the impact of the DA strategy of consolidating the base around strict market liberalism. In a campaign built on fearmongering over a so-called Doomsday ANC-EFF coalition, the DA’s flag-burning advert triggered pushback from among key voting constituencies, including disenchanted ANC voters. 

But Zille, in an interview with Newzroom Afrika broadcast on Tuesday, 21 May, stood by the advert, saying it’s “not gone wrong” for the party. 

The recent University of Johannesburg research on reasons voters chose to cast their ballots the way they do, shows only 24% of respondents said effective governance was the decider. That would indicate the DA motto of where it governs it governs best has not gained the traction needed to shift votes.  

If the DA loses voting support nationally, it must face ditching national leader John Steenhuisen. If not, inevitable accusations of racism would follow as ex-leader Mmusi Maimane was made to fall on his sword when the DA lost 1.46% support in the 2019 elections.  

But anything better than the 20.7% support of 2019 will have the DA claiming success, even if its opposition coalition Moonshot Pact is shot down.

Somewhere in all this, Rise Mzansi is being closely watched as a rising political newcomer. Smaller political parties like the Freedom Front Plus and national elections debutante ActionSA must find their feet. 

The Patriotic Alliance relies on ballots actually being cast by its targeted voting base, working-class voters from Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain, to Westbury in Johannesburg, and to the northern parts of Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.

In South Africa’s 30th year of constitutional democracy, amid tough socioeconomic circumstances, deepening inequality and tumultuous global geopolitics, the 2024 elections test everyone as never before. DM

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

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South Africa stole the show at this year’s RHS Chelsea flower show when it won a gold medal with perfect scores from the RHS judges as well as awards for the “Best exhibit in the Pavilion” and the “Best New Design” award. This is unprecedented for South Africa at the Chelsea Flower show. RHS president Keith Weed CBE presented the awards to the team on the opening day of the London show.

Britain’s Charles III (L) visits the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show on 20 May 2024 in London, England. (Photo: Arthur Edwards – WPA Pool / Getty Images)

Team South Africa proudly shows off their awards at the Chelsea Flower Show. (Photo: Mandy Ackerman)

Described as one of the most outstanding exhibits in the history of the Great Pavillion, this year’s design was inspired by the windswept slopes of the Cape Mountains. 

Head designer Leon Kluge and artist Tristan Woudberg led a group of volunteers to create this year’s multi-award display which included large clay sculptures which formed the backdrop for a display of fynbos cut flowers. 

This is Leon Kluge’s third Gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show after winning the top prize in 2018 and 2019 for South Africa. It is South Africa’s 38th Gold medal in its history at the Chelsea Flower dating back to 1976. It’s the first time South Africa has won “Best New Design” and “Best in the Great Pavillion”.

A multitude of species was presented in the display, from the high-altitude fynbos to the strandveld brimming with bulbs which hug the coastlines. The display celebrates the beauty and significance of one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.

An incredible 22,000 stems were used in the display to create a proudly South African explosion of fynbos.

This year special effort was made to include rarely seen hybrids such as Protea “Snow Leopard” as well as the Protea sulphurea and the blushing brides (Serruria florida).

Proteas were a huge part of the SA display. (Photo: Mandy Ackerman)

A multitude of species was presented in the display, from the high-altitude fynbos to the strandveld brimming with bulbs which hug the coastlines. (Photo: Mandy Ackerman)

After a four-year hiatus and the sponsor of three decades (1989-2019) withdrawing their support, a private sector-led team stepped forward to ensure South Africa’s flora was represented. The team which is spearheaded by Kluge, an acclaimed plantsman and landscape designer with numerous international floral exposition awards to his name, along with Keith Kirsten, conservationist Michael Lutzeyer, and Marinda Nel came together to realise South Africa’s return. A transformative contribution from the Rupert Nature Foundation as well as Grootbos Private Nature Reserve along with numerous contributions from the private sector provided the financial support needed to create the display in London.

The team also spotlights the Grootbos Florilegium, a collection of botanical illustrations depicting rare plants in the Grootbos Nature Reserve. DM

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It is a sign of our difficult times that no political party has been able to dominate this electoral campaign with any one issue. Instead of parties arguing against each other about one or two issues, they have been talking about different issues to different people. This is a result of several dynamics which show how our society is changing.

First, some of the narrative is now pushed through social media, while even the formal media has splintered into many more channels than existed just five years ago. As each brings its own flavour to the discussions, the national narrative has split even further.

Second, it’s impossible to assess the campaigning on social media.

As campaigning using WhatsApp is encrypted, it is difficult to gauge what parties are doing on that platform.

But this is not just about the media, it is also about our society.

In the past, a small group of elites determined what political topics were uppermost in the South African dialogue. To a large extent, those elites were in the ANC and the DA.

Now, those two parties no longer shape the national discourse.

Even the DA’s flag-burning advert, a clear attempt to provoke an argument if ever there was one, did not dominate the agenda for more than a few days.

People living in the suburbs who rely on English-language formal media may well believe the EFF is losing ground. Those living in townships, consuming podcasts and social media in many other languages could have a completely different perception.

Our political discussions have become more diffuse and complicated without many people realising it, and while some people believe very little will change in next week’s election, others anticipate dramatic change.

As a result, this election is more difficult to predict than past polls and it is impossible to assess “sentiment”.

Of course, polling can mitigate this — if it’s accurate.

A strong pull

Observers of this election have noted certain elements which reveal how powerful our political gravity is. 

Just two years ago, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba often kick-started issues that would dominate talk radio for an entire day. He did this by calling in to stations in Gauteng.

But in this electoral campaign, ActionSA has not made much of a splash in the media.

While two newer entrants, Rise Mzansi and Build One South Africa, attracted acres of media coverage at the start of the year, they too have failed to make much media headway in the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, the ANC, at least according to polling, has increased its share of the vote fairly significantly, while the DA appears to have lost some momentum.

This shows that the ANC benefits from the pull of political gravity in our society.

There are several factors behind this.

First, and perhaps most important, is demographics.

As the last census noted, “There has been a steady decline in the white proportion of the population, from 11% in 1996 to 7.3% in 2022.”

More people are moving to Cape Town than Johannesburg, with many of the new Capetonians coming from the Eastern Cape. 

While this process is difficult to assess accurately, it could limit the DA in the Western Cape, simply because most arrivals are not the suburban migrants from Gauteng that so many speak about.

As race is still an important factor in voter choices (but is declining in importance over time), this may well matter to the DA.

The power of incumbency

Another important part of this gravity is the power of incumbency, especially for the ANC.

There is some evidence it has used its power in government to benefit it electorally. 

The Sunday Times reports of a recorded meeting in which ANC officials talk about government campaigns during the campaigning period suggest the timing of these campaigns has been politically deliberate.

This week’s Scorpio exclusive by Pieter-Louis Myburgh goes much further, suggesting the party has benefited financially for many years from the power to assign tenders.

Party to the Plunder? Tshwane bus project, Prasa trains deal behind R10m ANC donation

The Economist recently tied together several elements of stories showing how money flowed from a Russian-owned manganese mine in the Northern Cape to the ANC.

And of course, the ANC surely benefited from the Hitachi deal with Chancellor House that saw Eskom receiving badly designed boilers at power stations.

Meanwhile, load shedding has disappeared off the political radar — it has been two months since Eskom last implemented rolling blackouts.

Considering the sheer power of load shedding as a political issue, the timing of this is certainly curious.

Another important factor in our political gravity is the simple history of a political party: the older it is, the better its chances of surviving. If it survived the last elections, it may survive this one, and if it survived the 2014 elections, it will probably still be here late next week.

This explains why the ACDP and the PAC are likely to survive these polls, but Ace Magashule’s ACM probably won’t (there are exceptions to this rule: Cope will probably also disappear after this poll).

There is one other rule of gravity, which is that to have any prospect of growing over the longer term, a party has to hold internal elections at which the leadership can change.

This is why the ANC and the DA are so much bigger than other parties, and why the EFF appears to be running low on steam in this election (that could still change).

Of course, MK appears to defy the laws of political gravity. But that is only because it is still early days and it has a former president from SA’s oldest political party. It seems impossible to believe that MK will contest the next general election in 2029.

While our society is changing, the centre of its political gravity is moving very slowly. Newer entrants will feel every gram of weight as they try to climb the mountain to electoral success. DM

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

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“The IGI (Inspector-General for Intelligence) found that SAPS-CI (crime intelligence) viewed post-surveillance notification order as problematic, resulting in non-compliance,” says the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) report on the 2023/24 financial year published four working days before the end of the current Parliament’s term on the eve of the 29 May elections.

For the State Security Agency (SSA) the IGI also found “failure to provide post-surveillance notification to targets of lawful interceptions, in transgression of court ruling and read-in provisions”.

This report follows days after the 2022/23 JSCI report was published — a year late. While the JSCI is now up to date, its reports while published in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports (ATC) remain without standing because the House has not adopted them.

But the SSA and police crime intelligence contravention of the interception law was but one in a series of unlawful acts.

The SSA conducted “unlawful intelligence activity related to a registered undercover project”, according to IGI Imtiaz Fazel whose list of SAPS crime intelligence unlawful activities was longer and included “prima facie evidence of unlawful and criminal conduct in operations of undercover units”, abuse of the Secret Services Account by a unit in KwaZulu-Natal and the “possession of listed devices such as grabbers without the certificate of exemption”.

A contributing factor in such police crime intelligence unlawfulness was inadequate regulation. “(T)he internal operational policies were outdated and had not been reviewed since 2015. The policy instruments were in draft format…” it emerges in this JSCI 2023/24 financial year report.

This continuing unlawful conduct must raise questions over commitment to clean governance, given the longstanding concerns over the intelligence services’ politicisation, malfeasance and excessive secrecy as, emerged from the 2018 High Level Review Panel on the SSA and the 2022 Sandy Africa panel on the July 2021 violence.

Civil society organisations have cautioned about the lack of accountability by intelligence services, again as recently as in public submissions to the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill that was pushed through Parliament in less than six months.

During those public hearings Fazel, ultimately unsuccessfully, appealed to MPs for greater teeth during the legislative drafting of the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill to ensure all his recommendations were implemented.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Vague intelligence law amendments open door to ongoing abuse by State Security Agency

Whether the IGI’s current recommendations that police crime intelligence corrects its failure to provide post-surveillance notifications, specifically for journalists and lawyers, would be adhered to remains unclear from the JSCI report.

Rica ructions

This notification provision emerges from the landmark February 2021 amaBhungane Constitional Court judgement on the Regulation of Interception of Communication and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, or Rica, when South Africa’s highest court also declared unconstitutional bulk interception, or Internet traffic surveillance.

In South Africa, no interception can legally and lawfully take place outside Rica. The interception judge Bess Nkabinde, retired from the Constitutional Court, also has confirmed this, welcoming in her report to the JSCI as “commendable” the Rica review following the amaBhungane judgement. It was also necessary given the limitations of the Office of Interceptions, including “its outdated machinery”, she added in her report to the JSCI.

But while Parliament has adopted the Rica amendment legislation processed by the justice committees to give effect to the Constitutional Court judgement, that Bill has been sitting on the president’s desk for over five months now.

Coincidentally, it appears the SSA’s reluctance to apply for interception orders noted in the 2022/23 JSCI report when it applied for only one has been ditched. In the 2023/24 financial year, the SSA applied for eight new interception orders, effectively wire-taps, reapplied for five others and applied for amendments to four existing interception orders. Police crime intelligence maintained momentum, with 92 new interception applications, up from 78 the preceding year.

However, Nkabinde in her report highlighted these numbers were significantly down from the 622 applications for the year to December 2022.

On the financial front the intelligence services again received qualified audit opinions, according to the JSCI 2023/24 report.

Again, much of the report that’s meant to provide accountability and transparency about intelligence services is mired in continued secrecy.

The rands and cents of the irregular expenditure and wasteful and fruitless expenditure that’s key to the qualified audit opinion are redacted. Redacted even are the pages on which the SSA and police crime intelligence financials appear — “on pages xx to xx”, it says instead.

Despite SSA and police crime intelligence now able to submit almost properly drafted annual performance plans that set out targets, indicators and achievement goals — the JSCI claimed that as a result of its oversight — these intelligence services continue to fail to meet their targets.

Between the redacted blocks of performance targets and achievements for the SSA and police crime intelligence, the auditor-general says, “I could not determine achievements”.  DM

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Pretoria said it would comply with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would mean arresting the Hamas and Israeli leaders if warrants for their arrest were granted and they set foot in South Africa.

Read in Daily Maverick: Israel-Palestine War

“We have a legal obligation in terms of fulfilling elements of the Rome Statute and we will discharge that duty when required to do so,” Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told Daily Maverick.

“We have affirmed our status as a signatory to the Rome Statute and we will continue to campaign for equal and consistent application of international law.”

Pretoria has been reprimanded in the past by the ICC and its own courts after ignoring an ICC request to arrest and surrender the then Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, when he visited South Africa for an African Union summit in 2015. Bashir was indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly carried out between 2003 and 2008 in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson to President Cyril Ramaphosa. 29 April 2024. (Photo: GCIS)

In 2023, Pretoria faced a repeat of the Bashir incident when Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — accused of war crimes in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — was scheduled to come to South Africa for a BRICS Summit in Sandton. In the end, Pretoria diplomatically (albeit with some flip-flopping) left the decision to Moscow, and Putin agreed not to attend.

The ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, on Monday announced that he was seeking warrants of arrest for Hamas’ top brass, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory assault on the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas leaders for whom arrest warrants are sought are its chief in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar; the commander of its military wing, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri; and the organisation’s political bureau leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

The decision of whether to issue the arrest warrants now rests with the Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the ICC.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ICC seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders – reactions

Pretoria welcomed the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders.

“The law must be applied equally to all in order to uphold the international rule of law, ensure accountability for those that commit heinous crimes and protect the rights of victims. To this end, the Rome Statute is premised on holding those most responsible for atrocity crimes accountable for their conduct,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.

South Africa welcomes decision by ICC Prosecutor on the application for arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister and Defence Minister and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity within the context of the Gaza conflict. https://t.co/TaCAosNzd8

— The Presidency 🇿🇦 (@PresidencyZA) May 20, 2024

The ICC in The Hague was founded by a multilateral treaty, the Rome Statute. There are 124 states parties to the Rome Statute. Israel is not one of them, but Palestine and South Africa are both signatories and have international obligations to the other state parties.

Notably, South Africa was the first African state to sign the Rome Statute on 17 July 1998 and ratified it on 27 November 2000.

However, Pretoria has for years toyed with the idea of pulling out of the ICC. In 2016, former president Jacob Zuma attempted to withdraw South Africa’s membership of the ICC, following the embarrassing Bashir debacle. However, the high court ruled that the attempt was procedurally unconstitutional and invalid.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Explainer — the ICC arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders, and how they could play out

Reactions from Western nations 

On Wednesday, Norway became the first country in Europe to vow to arrest Netanyahu and the Hamas officials should they set foot in the country.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Norwegian broadcaster TV2: “If he [Netanyahu] or one of the Hamas leaders who are also indicted should appear in Norway, then we are obliged by international law to do so. The same applies to all countries in Europe with the exception of Turkey.”

Norway, in a historic move together with Ireland and Spain, announced that it would recognise Palestinian statehood. Israel immediately denounced the decisions and recalled its ambassadors to the three European nations, the Associated Press reported.

The three nations join an increasing number of countries which have recognised a Palestinian state amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Norwegian ambassador Gjermund Saether. (Photo: Siya Duda/GCIS)

Gjermund Saether, Norway’s ambassador to South Africa, noted that since the Oslo Accords in 1993, (which Norway helped negotiate), “We have obviously been very involved in supporting the Palestinian Authority to help build a Palestinian state. And the idea was always that it should be a two-state solution. And the whole world agreed on that.

“But now, we find that the time has come to also recognise Palestine, because the two-state solution is in danger,” Saether said.

“And it’s not only related to what’s happening in Gaza. It’s also very much related to what’s happening in the West Bank with Israeli annexations of territories, et cetera. So now there is a need for recognition of the Palestinian state that is stronger than before. We used to say that we want the recognition of the State of Palestine to be part of a broader peace agreement. But we cannot wait for a peace agreement.

“And of course, this cannot — in any way — be seen as a support to Hamas and what they are doing. We have been condemning Hamas very clearly from the very start when it attacked Israel on 7 October,” he told Daily Maverick. 

In terms of the ICC, Saether said Norway did not want to “take a position” on Khan’s decision but wanted to “protect the ICC”.

“Everybody should respect the mandate. If there is an arrest warrant issued for Prime Minister Netanyahu or for the Hamas leadership — it’s the same thing as the arrest warrant that has been issued for Vladimir Putin — they will be arrested upon arrival in Norway if they set foot there. So we are quite consistent.” DM

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From the tiny squeaking desert rain frog on the Namaqualand coast of South Africa to the little freshwater Twee River redfin endemic to the eastern Cederberg part of the Olifants River System, some species in South Africa are in crisis and guarding against their extinction is an expensive, time-consuming process.

Over the next five years, investments exceeding R1-billion are needed to recover species that are on the brink of extinction and under threat in South Africa, according to cost estimates based on Red List assessments done by the South Africa National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) and its partners.

This was revealed at the South African satellite event of Reverse the Red’s World Species Congress last week, where speakers from national conservation and biodiversity organisations, NPOs, public sector and special interest groups came together to take stock of the status of species conservation in South Africa.

Under the spotlight was the work that’s being done to save species on the brink of extinction and address species conservation challenges that remain unmet.

Conservation efforts are being undertaken in South Africa through landscape and seascape conservation initiatives.

But Domitilla Raimondo, the threatened species programme manager at Sanbi, asked: “What happens when those efforts are not enough? Where stopping habitat loss and protecting areas is not enough and they [species] are too threatened to be conserved by these landscape-level initiatives?”

Guidance has recently been developed by the Global Species Action Plan from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, supporting the implementation of the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, to assess the conservation status of all species and identify those needing targeted recovery action.

This is to inform Target 4 of the framework, which has 23 action-oriented global targets until 2030 to halt the human-induced extinction of threatened species and for the recovery and conservation of species.

Raimondo said that South Africa had completed Red List assessments for 12 taxonomic groups in South Africa.

These show what proportion of species are threatened with extinction. The bigger circle shows all the species in that group, and the smallest circle shows how many are endemic. The colours show how threatened they are — red is critically endangered, orange is endangered, yellow is vulnerable, brown is if not enough is known about it, and green means they are under no threat.

After the Red List assessments were done, Raimondo said they were able to identify which species needed what and which ones were in serious trouble.

“Over the last three weeks, I’ve asked all our species experts to spend the effort on what species need recovery and exactly what they need. Do they need site management, invasive clearing, ex situ conservation and reintroductions, how much is that going to cost? They came up with detailed spreadsheets that allow us to do the costs,” she said.

It was found that investments exceeding R1-billion over the next five years were needed to recover species on the brink of extinction and under threat in South Africa.

This assessment forms part of the proposed actions from the Global Species Action Plan.

The Cape gannet. (Photo: BirdLife South Africa)

Species in urgent need of recovery actions

“We have the expertise, the track record and the scientific and biodiversity proficiency to effectively halt the rapid decline of species toward extinction. We have done well and, in many respects, set best practice standards that other regions and nations follow. However, much remains to be done,” Raimondo said.

1 Freshwater fish

Based on the above, the most threatened wildlife group in South Africa is its freshwater fish. Thirty-five freshwater fish species and 30% of all the freshwater fish in South Africa are in urgent need of recovery action. These include the giant redfin, Clanwilliam sandfish and the Barrydale redfin.

Conservation interventions have begun for 11 out of the 35 species. To recover all the species, R168,105,000 is needed over the next five years, whereas the expenditure for the past five years was only R18,680,000, meaning a nine-fold increase in spending is needed.

2 Amphibian species 

Amphibian species are the next-most threatened group in South Africa with 11 in need of urgent recovery, including the rough moss frog, Table Mountain ghost frog, micro frog and the desert rain frog. Raimondo said  10% of South Africa’s amphibians needed urgent management interventions and interventions had begun for only six of the 11 species.

To achieve the necessary targets, a four-fold scaling up of resources was required. To recover all species over the next five years, R92.5-million is needed, as opposed to the R22.3-million that was spent over the past five years.

“A lot of critically endangered species are highly impacted by invasive alien plant species, and many of them are restricted only to one or two sites. The desert rain frog is collapsing at the moment because of climate change and mining,” Raimondo said.

3 Mammal species

South Africa has 14 mammal species in need of urgent recovery action, including the Hartmann’s mountain zebra, black rhinoceros and bontebok. Fifty per cent of these are small mammals, like the riverine rabbit and De Winton’s golden mole, which are critically endangered.

Raimondo said, “Golden moles in particular have not yet had a lot of conservation attention, so there’s work needed. We haven’t managed to do a proper costing analysis yet on mammals; it’s incredibly difficult because there’s so many partners … but it’s pretty high numbers needed for mammal consultation.”

Five per cent of South Africa’s 299 mammal species need urgent management interventions, all species are receiving management interventions and no scaling up of resources is needed.

4 Bird species

Two per cent of South Africa’s 732 bird species — 16 — are in need of urgent recovery action.

“Botha’s lark is crashing, so is the blue swallow. Our vultures are in big trouble — a lot of work is happening on them, but they are still in very serious trouble,” Raimondo said.

Half of the birds that need urgent intervention are marine species. The African penguin is declining extremely fast with much needed to conserve its fishing grounds.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Lawsuit launched against environment minister in bid to halt African penguin extinction

Management interventions have begun for all 16 species, but these need to be upscaled 15-fold, according to cost estimates.

Raimondo said that to recover all 16 species, R695-million was required for the next five years as opposed to the R44.85-million spent over the past five years.

Long-tailed cormorant. (Photo: Caroline Rowbottom)

5 Plant species

South Africa has 109 plant species in need of urgent recovery action. Raimondo said management interventions had begun for only 15 of these (14%).

“We have a big challenge with plants in that many of them are being illegally poached. While we can collect them for ex situ conservation, we can’t yet put them back. Overall, we’re only working on 15 out of 109,” she said.

Raimondo said a 40-fold upscaling of resources was needed to recover all the plant species, requiring an expenditure of R309.80-million over the next five years as opposed to the R7.69-million that was spent over the past five years.

“We know what it’s going to take to achieve our Target 4 and it requires a significant upscaling of our investment. We have the know-how, we have the knowledge of what’s needed, we have the people, we just need the financing,” Raimondo said.

The overwhelming sentiment at the South African satellite event was that it is possible to bring these species back from the brink of extinction.

Can we ‘reverse the red’ for marine fish species?

Dr Judy Mann-Lang from the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation told the story of a recovery that took 26 years.

The species is the seventy-four seabream, the Polysteganus undulosus, a fish species endemic to southern Africa and found from Cape Town to southern Mozambique.

The name “seventy-four” was given to it because it supposedly resembles the man-o’-war ships of old that had 74 gun ports.

Mann-Lang said the seventy-four — which grows up to 100cm and has a lifespan of over 20 years — was heavily exploited and intensively targeted throughout the 20th century by commercial and recreational line-fishing vessels, especially in their spawning grounds in southern KwaZulu-Natal.

Mann-Lang said that in the 1910s, commercial and recreational fishers were catching about 1,400 tonnes of seventy-four each year. By 1923, this had dropped to about 600 tonnes. By the 1950s, it was under 400. By 1985, the species had virtually disappeared from the catch.

In the 1950s, fishermen requested authorities to do something about declining catches. In 1962-63, the Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI) did some studies on the biology of the seventy-four.

In 1985, the first regulations were implemented and reviewed in 1992. In 1996, ORI conducted a stock assessment which found there was only 5% of the spawning biomass left — they still had a massive problem.

In 1998, South Africa implemented a 10-year moratorium on catching seventy-fours. In 2007, the species showed little sign of recovery and the moratorium was extended for another 10 years.

In 2019, there was a rezoning of the Aliwal Shoal to close seventy-four spawning areas, and South Africa declared new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and offshore MPAs to protect the deeper reefs where the adults and juveniles live.

In 2024, there is now a draft Red List assessment to downgrade the seventy-four from “critically endangered” to “endangered”. After 26 years of efforts to halt the decline, signs of recovery of the seventy-four are starting to appear.

“We are starting to see signs after 10 years of the moratorium of recovery of this incredible species. Twenty-six years, the first 10 years and the second 10 years plus another six years. It takes time, but we’re starting to see signs of recovery.

“Fishermen are saying now that they are catching this fish when they fish on the deep reefs. We’re also starting to see on our baited remote underwater cameras signs of seventy-four… For conservationists, for us to see this happening is incredible,” Mann-Lang said.

She said this showed it was possible to reverse the red. “It’s difficult and takes time but it can be done. When we first saw these videos, we actually cried because we realised just how vulnerable these fish were and how conservation action can help.” DM

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Following an in-depth investigation of all activities from 7 February 2013 to 30 September 2023, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has debarred disgraced financial adviser Craig Warriner for 30 years. During this time, he will not be allowed to:

• provide, or be involved in the provision of, financial services;
• act as a key person of a financial institution; and/or
• provide specified financial services to a financial institution, whether under outsourcing arrangements or otherwise.

Warriner hit the headlines in October last year when he handed himself in to authorities and admitted that he had been running a Ponzi scam that allegedly ran into billions of rands.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Investments in BHI Trust at risk following arrest of fund manager for fraud

On further investigation, the FSCA found that the BHI Trust and Warriner, in his capacity as a trustee of BHI Trust, acted as discretionary financial services providers (FSPs) in that they exercised discretion in buying and selling securities on behalf of several clients. To do this, they should have had a category II FSP license and they did not. Warriner also rendered financial services to clients on behalf of BHI Trust while it was not authorised as an FSP. Both these offences were a transgression of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act. Warriner appeared in the Palm Ridge Commercial Crimes court in April 2024, and is scheduled for another court appearance later in May.

Don’t get caught by fraudsters

The FSCA advises that when accessing financial services and/or financial advice, you should check:

• that an entity or individual is authorised by the FSCA to provide financial products and services, including for giving recommendations about how to invest.
• what category of advice the person is registered to provide, as there are instances where companies or people are registered to provide basic advice for a low-risk product and then offer advice on far more complex and risky products.
• that the FSP number utilised by the entity or individual offering financial services matches to name of the FSP on the FSCA database.

You can confirm a service provider’s status and FSP number by calling the toll-free number: 0800 110 443; conducting an online search for authorised financial institutions by license category; or conducting an online search for a financial institution that is an authorised FSP in terms of the FAIS Act. DM

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