Governance & Politics - 08 April 2024

08 Apr 2024

GOVERNANCE & POLITICS

• President establishes water task team. Faced with a water crisis in Gauteng and other municipalities throughout the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa has established a water task team under the leadership of Deputy President Paul Mashatile. Gauteng has recently been plagued by severe water shortages, with residents in some areas going without water in their taps for days and even weeks on end. Old infrastructure and a lack of maintenance are common problems in many municipalities affected throughout the country. (Source)

• Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has stepped down as National Assembly speaker, but said that her resignation does not imply her admission of guilt in corruption allegations brought against her. This followed a ruling by the High Court in Pretoria, which dismissed her application to block her arrest and struck her application for an interdict off the roll with costs. Her lawyers accompanied her to the Lyttleton police station in Centurion, where she was processed. She then appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court where she was charged with 12 counts of corruption and one of money laundering and granted bail of R50 000. It is alleged she received over R4.5 million in kickbacks from a defence contractor when she served as defence minister. The matter has been postponed to 4 June for the state to add another accused. (Source)

• The new work visa regulations were issued by the department of home affairs that will make it easier for skilled foreigners to come and work in SA. The regulations introduce new remote work visas for foreigners earning more than R1m a year who want to relocate to SA. They introduce a points system to replace the controversial critical skills list. The home affairs minister has to publish a notice outlining the points system criteria, promised for end-April. This approach will provide more flexibility for skilled visa applicants than the existing system, enabling foreigners with appropriate qualifications and experience earning above a threshold to seek work in SA, rather than targeting particular skills or professions. (Source)

• Corruption Watch released its annual report titled Changing the Landscape, said that since its inception more than 12 years ago it had received at least 46 900 complaints of alleged corruption. It described Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape, together with the Free State, as hotspots for monitoring corruption, highlighting how firmly entrenched corruption has become in South African society. Corruption Watch is a local chapter of global anticorruption body Transparency International. (Source)

• Sars collects more. The SA Revenue Service this week reported it had collected R9.5 billion more in the last year than February’s budget estimates, extracting more than expected in corporate taxes and clamping down on refund fraud. Sars has taken aim at delinquent tax advisers, revoking the licences of tax practitioners whose own tax affairs are noncompliant, with Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter warning taxpayers not to take advice from advisers living on the edge of the law. (Source)

• Representation in tax courts. After years of uncertainty, a full bench of the high court has ruled South Africa’s tax courts are not ‘courts of law’ and non-lawyers, including accountants, can represent taxpayers in any of the country’s tax courts. This means all taxpayers in South Africa can have a tax practitioner represent them if they bring a dispute to any tax court in the country. (Source)

• Migration. The Stats SA has published its Migration Profile Report for South Africa, revealing the numbers of people who have left the country behind – and those who have returned. The data shows that, since 2000, around 413,000 South Africans have emigrated to other countries. In 2000, 501 600 South African citizens resided abroad. By 2010, that number had increased to 743 807, and by 2020 – the latest available data from the United Nations – their numbers had reached 914 901. Since 2000, the number of South Africans in the UK has grown from 136 720 to 247 336, in Australia from 80 650 to 199 690, and in the US from 65 171 to 117 321. New Zealand has almost tripled its South African emigrants, from 25 359 to 73 846, and Canada from 36 949 to 48 093. In 2011, 45 866 citizens returned, but by 2022, the returns had dropped to 27 983. (Source | Source)