Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Zuma clings on as state in flux
Threats to boycott speech Deputy mayor: City delayed desalination
AS THE Hawks continue a hunt for the architects of state capture, the man who allegedly allowed it to happen on his presidential watch is fighting to stay in office.
Five days before he is scheduled to deliver his State of the Nation Address ( Sona) in Parliament, President Jacob Zuma is due to discuss his future at a tough meeting with the ANC’s top six, including party president Cyril Ramaphosa, tomorrow.
And while MPs finalise the process by which the president could be impeached, a date has been set for the National Assembly to consider another no confidence motion.
The groundswell of discontent with Zuma’s continued occupation of the highest office in the land grew yesterday, with some ANC structures demanding he step down immediately.
Opposition parties threatened to boycott the Sona, if Zuma was allowed to deliver the all-important speech that outlines government business for the year.
Yesterday, United Democratic Movement ( UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa said opposition parties were considering a boycott of the opening of Parliament, scheduled for Thursday.
“When we meet the Speaker (Baleka Mbete), we will assure her we want South Africa’s image to be protected, but she must heed our call that we don’t want President Jacob Zuma to deliver Sona‚” said Holomisa. “This is a matter of principle. Investors are not coming to South Africa. We have been downgraded. We are accused of tolerating hyenas‚” he said.
Zuma also faced mutiny within his party, with the Limpopo ANC Veterans’ League amplifying calls by their national structure for him to step down by calling for his recall.
“We are seriously concerned about the impact comrade Zuma’s protracted stay as president of the country will have on the already frail and struggling image of the ANC and our performance in the 2019 general elections, which are just around the corner,” said Limpopo ANC Veterans’ League chairperson Jacob Marule.
Should Zuma survive this weekend, his next hurdle in clinging to power is likely to be on February 22. This is after Mbete bowed to pressure from the EFF and set that date for the motion of no confidence. The red berets had wanted the debate to happen before Sona. DA chief whip John Steenhuisen said they would write to Mbete demanding a postponement of Sona until February 21.
Parliament has been speeding through a process to establish the mechanism to impeach a president.
However, Zuma’s loyalists came out in his defence yesterday, threatening not to support the ANC in the 2019 elections should the sitting president be removed before the end of his term. The president’s backers included KwaZulu-Natal civic bodies, the National Taxi Association and Black First, Land First (BLF).
BLF spokesperson Thandiswa Yaphi said although her party did not ideologically support the ANC, it was “lately” in full support of Zuma’s “radical economic transformation” programmes such as “free education in tertiary institutions”.
A group calling itself Amabutho e-Sizwe SamaZulu also vowed to descend with all its “warriors” on the ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House, on Monday.
Amabutho convenor Sizwe Zuma said they hoped to invite other tribal authorities, including their respective warriors, to join them in ensuring that Zuma completed his term of office and tribal lands were not taken away by the state.
Bafana Nzuza, of the Hands Off Zuma campaign, condemned the “double-speak” against Zuma. He said Ramaphosa’s ANC had “fooled” them by creating an impression that they stood for unity within the party while harbouring intent to fire Zuma.
The Hawks, meanwhile, are poised to pounce on Zuma’s close friends, the Gupta brothers, and their associates in government and parastatals implicated in state capture. Highly placed sources familiar with the investigations said the probe was continuing.
“The law is taking its course. It’s not just the Guptas because state capture is broad. It involves executives of parastatals and cabinet ministers,” said one of these sources.
But there is suspicion that the Gupta brothers may be out of the country. Last Saturday, air flight tracking websites noted the Guptas’ learjet with the registration number, ZS-OAK, flew from Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai to New Delhi, returning to Dubai on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, former public protector Thuli Madonsela has warned that a large amount of evidence of state capture has probably been destroyed.
She was speaking at a conference titled “Beyond State Capture and Corruption” at Century City yesterday. THE City of Cape Town delayed water desalination projects despite the ongoing drought and diminishing surface water supplies, a move that has placed residents at risk of water shortages.
The city’s deputy mayor, Ian Neilson, confirmed this with Weekend Argus yesterday, saying it had not been possible to undertake the projects earlier.
Neilson said this was because of “uncertain rainfall predictions for winter, and the risk of over-capacitating the system at a significant cost to the ratepayer.
“The city started procurement of emergency supply schemes as soon as we had a reasonable idea of what augmentation would be required going into (the current) summer,” he said.
The city is now racing against Day Zero – when taps are predicted to run dry on April 16 due to surface water shortages – by building two desalination plants.
The contracts for short- term desalination plants at Monwabisi and Strandfontein were awarded to a joint venture by Water Solutions and Proxa.
These two plants are expected to produce water by next month, will run for two years only and will not meet the long-term water security challenges. Neilson said the city had appointed Quality Filtration Systems to run a third desalination plant at the V&A Waterfront.
But at the Cape Town Press Club this week the national Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane said she wanted to appoint Umgeni Water.
This has thrown a spanner in the works, as the city now needs to review its process, said Neilson.
“Before the minister issued this directive, there was already a process in motion to install a desalination plant at the V&A Waterfront and this project is on track to begin producing water, 2 million litres a day, by March,” said Neilson.
“The minister’s directive that the city appoint Umgeni Water to install a desalination plant at the V&A Waterfront is now being reassessed. The city plans to engage the department on their proposal to clarify some aspects.”
Neilson said this included the “choice of location as before the minister issued this directive there was already a process in motion to install a desalination plant at the V&A Waterfront and the land is not owned by the city”.
Neilson said the city also needed to assess how Umgeni would operate, as the following points were unclear:
Whether any environmental impact assessment has been conducted.
How the operational costs are to be managed.
The appointment of Umgeni
Water to do the installation, and why a figure of R400 million has been mentioned when we would expect the cost of a 10 million litres a day plant to be in the order of R100m.”
Weekend Argus asked the national Water and Sanitation Department why Umgeni would charge R400m when the city’s preferred bidder would charge R100m. It directed queries to Umgeni.
Umgeni’s board chairperson, Gabsie Mathenjwa, did not offer any details.
“Given that the award has yet to be finalised, it will not be appropriate at this stage to discuss projected costs associated with the establishment of the proposed plant, ancillary costs and estimated cost of operation and management,” she said.
Mathenjwa said Umgeni had received a “directive” from Mokonyane on December 11 to “immediately investigate possible interventions that would alleviate the plight of consumers in Cape Town”.
GrahamTek, a Cape Townbased desalination company with projects in Saudi Arabia, said the R100m figure was more accurate than R400m.
Tom Callaghan, the company’s business developer, said they had previously pulled out of bidding for a contract for the city’s desalination projects because it would run for only two years.
Callaghan said they offered the city a 15-year plan with no capital outlay, which the city refused.
“They say they don’t have the funding. But we said to them they don’t need to pay anything upfront.
“They have to commit to a contract with us for 15 years and we can sell the water to them at R12 for 1 000 litres,” he said.
“They can recover that from charging for the water.”
The City did not answer questions about GrahamTek’s offer.
Neilson said they were trying to raise an additional R2.1 billion for projects to ensure water security in Cape Town.
“The city has reprioritised some R2.6bn of our existing annual budget (for water projects),” said Neilson.
The city had also met “various financial institutions, especially development funding institutions, which are known to provide concessional funding” to raise “funding up to R2.1bn for various capital programmes”.