This comes as the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) announced this week that it has been given the green light by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate “allegations of serious maladministration” at the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, to “recover any financial losses”, and also investigate “unlawful or improper conduct by officials” within the municipality.

While the SIU have been tight-lipped about their plans so far, an internal audit document from 2023 on the municipality’s street light supply and maintenance tenders revealed a flawed supply chain management process.

Two tenders connected to street lights were flagged in this internal audit.

The first tender from 2019 – numbered SCM/18-207/C – was for the installation and maintenance of street lights and allocated to three different companies. Preliminary investigations found that the municipality didn’t have enough stock for this tender to be executed by contractors. The report showed that the municipality was aware of this.

The investigation found that the municipality had procured just over R180 million in stock, which exceeded its budget.

Then in 2020, the municipality issued another tender — numbered SCM/20-27/S — also for the supply of street lights to three other companies. The cost of the second tender has not been confirmed.

However, when stock from the 2019 tender was counted in 2020, auditors found that some of it was damaged and could not be used.

This week the SIU stated that it would specifically investigate the SCM/20-27/S tender as well as alleged maladministration and unlawful conduct related to it.

Defenders of the People (DOP) councillor Tukela Zumani told GroundUp that he submitted evidence of corruption to SAPS related to these tenders earlier this year.

The lack of street lights and maintenance of existing lights makes it unsafe for the residents, he said. “Having a city that is almost completely dark is not only unsafe, but also a serious challenge for economic activities,” Zumani said.

“It is mind-boggling how this could be allowed to happen,” said Zumani. He said that if you drive around at night or early in the morning, “the entire city is dark” and that this could not be attributed to vandalism, an excuse used by the municipality, and which GroundUp has reported on.

Wasteful expenditure

According to the 2023 audit report, “The Electricity and Energy Directorate initiated and completed the procurement process … despite being aware that there was no existing contract in place for the supply of materials and that the stock levels of these materials necessary for the successful execution of contract SCM/18-207/C were critically low.”

“This ignorance resulted in the procurement of materials that were not in stock, exceeding the budgeted amount, which expenditure can be deemed as irregular and unauthorised,” it read. The budget on this contract was exceeded by about R24 million.

The report also stated that upon investigation they could not verify the street light installations. The GPS coordinates for installations could not be verified, that Electricity and Energy officials did not have the necessary device to read the GPS coordinates provided by service providers, and that there were no job cards for installations.

“Whilst [Electricity & Energy] officials authorised payments for installations, [Internal Audit] could not verify by means of physical inspection, in some instances the location of streetlights which were allegedly installed,” the report said.

The municipality is yet to respond to our questions sent on Wednesday.

This article was first published by GroundUp.

A loud and boisterous audience cheered on competitors at the championships, hosted by South African Armwrestling Federation (SAAF) on Friday and Saturday.

“You have to be focused and be in that mindset that you’re going to win,” says Rafeeq Joseph, who co-founded the Cape Viperz, based in Heideveld, one of the few arm-wrestling clubs in the Western Cape.

This was the Federation’s biggest championship in its 22-years of existence. Arm-wrestling clubs have been popping up across the Western Cape since 2022.

Following a few intense rounds of arm-wrestling on Friday, Joseph celebrated winning the 75kg left-arm division of the tournament. “This is my biggest and proudest moment in the sport,” he said.

When he was starting out in the sport, he broke his arm.

“After I broke my arm, I wanted to prove to myself that I can be a champion,” he said.

Sean Christie, a SAAF organiser and competitor, said arm-wrestling as a sport has been established in the Highveld, Gauteng, for two decades. “The Cape is catching up quickly,” he said.

He described arm-wrestling as a “passion sport”. “You’ve got the son, daughter, mum, and dad in some cases all competing,” he said.

Christie joked that many older arm-wrestlers still reference the 1987 “cult classic” movie Over The Top, starring Sylvester Stallone as an arm-wrestling trucker. But the “rough, tough, macho” image of the sport is changing quickly as more youngsters join.

A handful of women also competed at the weekend. Nataly Barbosa won the senior 80kg ladies left-handed division. She is also a record-breaking powerlifter and a coach.

She said she will continue with the sport and “try to get more women into it”. The sport is beginning to attract more female competitors, Christie said.

This article was first published by GroundUp.

Sasol is ranked at 56. Carbon Majors is a database of historic production data from 122 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers. The top emitters from 2016 to 2022 are Chinese state-owned coal companies (grouped as one in the report), Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Coal India, and National Iranian Oil Company.

Despite the Paris Agreement on climate change signed in 2015, carbon emissions by many of the fossil fuel companies on the Carbon Majors list have increased in the past seven years compared to the seven years before.

In 2023 world CO₂ emissions increased to a record-high, according to the International Energy Agency.

Sasol was ranked at number 47 for historical emissions during the years 1854 to 2022 in the Carbon Majors report. Two other South African companies, Seriti Resources and Exxaro Resources, were also listed as carbon majors, both from 2016-2022 and from 1854 to 2022.

Sasol’s total emissions increased slightly in 2023 from 2022 to over 64,000 kilotons of CO2, according to its 2023 Climate Change report. Sasol said in the report that the increase in total emissions was due to “higher production rates, as well as process inefficiencies, external power interruptions and shortage of natural gas”. The company said that in 2024, production levels are expected to increase, resulting in further increased emissions at its Secunda operations.

Referring to this report, spokesperson Matebello Motloung told GroundUp that the company has achieved an approximate 5% reduction from its 2017 baseline “through ongoing mitigation interventions”. However, this figure does not include its Natref refinery emissions nor its Mozambique operations.

Sasol has committed to reduce greenhouse gases by 30% by 2030 and reach Net Zero emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. In terms of the Paris Agreement, which was signed by South Africa, emissions must be reduced to zero by 2050 in order to keep global temperature limited to a 1.5°C increase.

Asked to comment on the Carbon Majors report, Motloung said that the company “was not afforded an opportunity to consult on the report or its contents and as such we have not yet considered its contents in detail”.

But, he said, Sasol is “committed to decarbonising our operations and to 2050 Net Zero ambition”.

However, shareholder activist organisation JustShare has raised concerns that Sasol will not be able to meet its commitments.

The company is “facing a diminishing window to achieve its promised targets” Emma Schuster, senior climate risk analyst at JustShare, told GroundUp. She said Sasol had made no “discernible progress” on its targets.

Schuster said Sasol “has a 20 year record of failing to meet emissions targets” and had not put in place any mechanisms for holding those responsible accountable. “Its emissions – and those of most other carbon majors – continue to go up,” she said.

For years JustShare and the Centre for Environmental Rights have expressed concern that Sasol has not shown any real signs of decreasing its emissions.

As “by far the biggest sources of climate-changing greenhouse gases”, the companies in the Carbon Major list “have an outsized responsibility to reduce their emissions”, Schuster said. She said that the fossil fuel industry continued to generate substantial profits through the expansion of operations, despite record-high emissions in the past few years.

Sasol has said it is shifting its operation to produce green hydrogen from renewable energy and has recently signed a contract for the supply of 69 megawatts of renewable energy to its Sasolburg site. This is one of the “first of several agreements Sasol intends to finalise in the coming months as it secures the renewable energy supply required to produce green hydrogen”, the company said in a statement.

This article was first published by GroundUp.

The companies are, in separate matters, opposing the refusal of 15-year commercial fishing rights, saying that the decisions were unlawful, and that their applications were scored incorrectly.

The Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP) 2021 was concluded on 28 February 2022. The department received a total of 2,473 applications. The companies were among 1,213 appeals received but were not successful.

The appeals ended in December 2023 and a subsequent total of 845 rights were granted.

Fishers have long been dissatisfied with the outcome of the fishing rights process.

In July 2022, GroundUp reported on the appeals process and that some fishers had been calling for the process to be scrapped.

Lawyers Dewald Smit and Shaheen Moolla are representing about 10 of the applicants in separate cases against the minister. Applicants are challenging the minister’s refusal of their rights in various sectors such as tuna and hake long-line. Many of them are previous rights holders.

In one application by Greenfish Traders, a seafood company that exports to Europe and the US, it said the minister failed to properly address its appeal and also scored the company incorrectly.

Paper Quota Holders are quota holders who rent out their quotas to fishing companies.

Greenfish’s court papers raise concerns about Paper Quota Holders with no vessels, factories, or tuna pole fishing knowledge who were successful but are now selling their permits to businesses like Greenfish, who are “actually able to fish, process, and market tuna”.

In another application, Mossel Bay Indigenous Fishermen, who applied for hake long-line, said that it took the minister 16 months to decide its appeals.

The company stated that it was “forced to subsist and barely exist for some two years while the minister and her department made these unlawful decisions to refuse the … fishing right”.

The company argues that despite their fishing rights being terminated in December 2020, “due to departmental incompetence and simple bad planning, no fishing rights allocation process had been planned to ensure an uninterrupted continuation of commercial fishing”.

Prairie Pride Trading, who had an unsuccessful application for hake long-line, said that every single appeal decision for hake long-line all had the same date. The company’s court application read that it was “not humanly possible” for the minister to read, apply her mind, and decide on 280 hake long-line appeals in a single day.

Moolla told GroundUp that the FRAP process was “rushed and haphazardly allocated” and that there were also extensive flaws in the online process.

Peter Mbelengwa, department spokesperson, said that “the FRAP Appeal process was fair, equitable and transparent and resulted in the correct outcome”.

The department and minister “have received positive feedback on the outcome of the appeal process”. He said the 12 court cases represent a mere 0.48% of the total number of applications.

Mbelengwa said the department intends to defend the decisions taken during the appeals process. He added that the department was unable to respond to some of GroundUp’s questions as they are about an “ongoing legal process”.

Several of the matters will be heard in the Western Cape High Court in May.

This article was first published by GroundUp.

In August and September each year, the hills and valleys of the Namaqualand are covered in wildflowers and daisies. The colourful flowers, many of which are endemic to the Northern and Western Cape, only bloom for a short period in the semi-arid landscape. The flowers have adapted to the harsh and dry conditions of the Northern Cape, which is prone to low rainfall.

On the gravel road that leads to the park is a sign in Afrikaans that reads: “Thank you for your prayers and support throughout the drought! From Namaqualand farmers.”

The national park spans about 146,000 hectares, and while there are a few hiking trails and a diverse bird population, it is the over 3,000 floral species that are the main attraction.

“The previous few years we had droughts, so the flowers weren’t as beautiful,” says Leonard Cloete of SANParks.

He said the flower season is the “most important time of the year” for the Northern Cape. “People from other provinces and other countries come to see the flowers. Their contribution to the economy is invaluable.”

“You can never exactly say when the flowers will peak. We reckon the middle to the end of August. It depends on the amount of rain we get,” he said.

Research by Jennifer Fitchett, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found that the Namaqualand wildflowers are blooming earlier each decade.

Fitchett told GroundUp that the flowering was triggered by the amount of rainfall, the timing of the onset of the rainfall season, and temperature.

“The earlier the onset, the earlier the flowering is likely to be. The later the onset, the later the flowering is likely to be,” she said.

Climate change effects are also a concern in Namaqualand. Events such as the timing of the flowering of the wildflowers, “are one of the most sensitive indicators of climate change,” said Fitchett.

The early flowering broadly points to climate change, she said. In the long term this could lead to a shorter dormancy period which could weaken the flower.

The earlier flowering is also an indication that the flowers are adapting to changing spring times.

This article was first published by GroundUp.

But Makhubele wants the hearing postponed because her legal representation has not been paid by the office of the state attorney. This is according to a letter Makhubele’s legal representative sent to retired judge president Achmat Jappie on 20 July. 

“Unfortunately, we cannot commit to a date since we do not know when the impasse with the office of the state attorney will be resolved. We will notify the tribunal as soon as our fees are settled,” the letter reads.

The tribunal consists of Jappie, retired judge Seun Moshidi and attorney Noxolo Maduba-Silevu.

Makhubele is facing the tribunal hearing after commuter activist organisation #UniteBehind laid the complaint with the Judicial Service Commision (JSC) in 2019. The complaint accused Makhubele of misconduct when she took up dual roles of Gauteng high court judge and chairperson of the Prasa board, violating the separation of powers principle of the Judicial Code of Conduct, and also further misconduct allegations while she was on the Prasa board.

In 2020, the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) referred the matter to the Judicial Conduct Tribunal after it found the allegations to be “very serious”. But the tribunal faced many delays and only resumed three years later, in February 2023.

#UniteBehind has since raised concern about further delays in the hearing, because Makhubele has “already sought, and been granted, substantial postponements for purposes of securing legal representation”.

The organisation recommended a short postponement of no more than a month. If a longer postponement was desired, Makhubele “should then bring a proper application for a postponement under oath, duly served on the tribunal, the evidence leaders and the complainant, so that its merits can be properly considered”.

Director of #UniteBehind Zackie Achmat said: “Justice Makhubele’s costs, conduct and the withdrawal of her legal team appears to follow the pattern of the criminally convicted former president Jacob Zuma and the disgraced public protector in their defences. #UniteBehind demands that all the costs of Justice Makhubhele’s legal teams for the JSC be made public immediately.”

#UniteBehind has also requested that Makhubele pay its legal fees for a court case that she promptly withdrew after making an application to the Gauteng high court to prevent her suspension as a judge. The application was withdrawn with the costs tendered.

The organisation requested written permission from Judge President Dunstan Mlambo of the Gauteng high court “in terms of section 47 of the Superior Courts Act to issue and pursue a writ of execution against Judge Makhubele’s assets for the recovery of our client’s costs”.

In response and in writing to Mlambo, Makhubele’s legal representative said #UniteBehind’s legal team is “relentless in their pursuit of Judge Makhubele” and that “their conduct is bordering on harassment and abuse”.

“It is not as if Judge Makhubele is refusing to pay. It is only if the state attorney refuses to pay the bill that they can look upon her for payment. They must allow that process to conclude,” the letter read. They requested the judge president to urge #UniteBehind to “temper their … sense of grievance towards Judge Makhubele”.

In response to a request for comment, the office of the chief justice confirmed that the tribunal will resume on Tuesday.

Makhubele’s legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

This article was first published by Ground Up.