ANC wants Tshwane mayoralty, even without outright win in 2026:
The ANC in Tshwane will demand the mayoral position even if the party fails to win local government elections later this year outright but manages to secure a majority in council, its regional secretary George Matjila said.
“The position of the ANC is that where we are the majority, we must lead. In the event that the ANC does not win the elections and we are forced by circumstances to be in a coalition setup, but we have a majority vote, it means the ANC will have the mayoral position,” Matjila said.
The ANC currently holds the deputy mayor position in the City of Tshwane through its regional chairperson, Bonzo Modise, with ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya serving as mayor.
After supporting a string of mayors from minority parties in municipalities such as Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg, the ANC resolved that in all hung municipalities where it has a majority, it would field its own mayor rather than support those from smaller coalition partners in the province.
In Tshwane, the ANC previously supported Murunwa Makwarela from the Congress of the People. In Ekurhuleni, Sivuyile Ngodwana from the African Independent Congress was replaced by the ANC’s Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, while in Johannesburg, Kabelo Gwamanda from Al Jama-ah was replaced by ANC mayor Dada Morero.
This, however, has not happened in the capital, despite the ANC having a majority within the coalition.
Insiders within the party believe that deploying Moya as mayor could cost the ANC votes, as her popularity in the city has been steadily growing, which could benefit her party, ActionSA. There is also a view among some that Moya has been given most of the credit for the metro’s achievements, at the expense of members of the mayoral committee (MMC) .
Asked why the rule that the ANC must lead where it has a majority was not being applied in Tshwane, Matjila said the party was prioritising stability and respecting the agreement entered into before the new rule was adopted.
“We are still of the view that Tshwane is where it is because of that agreement. We are stable and we want to continue in that direction to ensure stability,” he said.
He dismissed the notion that Moya was outshining all the MMCs in the coalition, insisting that the ANC had the best-performing officials in Tshwane.
“We are comfortable with the work of our own MMCs. We are not worried about media hype and so forth,” Matjila said.
“If you want to believe that there is an individual who is better than others, for us that is not important. We still believe that our MMCs are doing well and that is why the executive mayor is shining — because of the good work the MMCs are doing.”
Former Numsa leader accuses Irvin Jim of perjury and abuse of power:
A former senior official of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and current president of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, Ruth Mamolaba Ntlokotse, has accused Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim of perjury and unconstitutional abuse of power.
The allegations that Jim misled the courts to protect a union-linked insurer and silenced members who questioned his decisions are contained in a 16-page letter dated 6 February, addressed to Jim and circulated among union structures. The document was leaked to the Mail & Guardian.
Ntlokotse’s letter responds to a public statement issued by Jim on 18 January after the collapse of his long-standing alliance with Numsa Investment Company chief executive Khandani Msibi. Although Ntlokotse is not named in the statement, she says the claims mirror narratives previously used to justify disciplinary action against her and other leaders who raised concerns about the union’s investment arm.
Ntlokotse, who was expelled from Numsa in 2023, challenged the disciplinary decision in court but her urgent bid was dismissed. She raised her allegations publicly after the resignation of Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, who cited death threats against her. The allegations come as the union prepares for its leadership conference later this year.
At the centre of the dispute is an affidavit deposed by Jim on 3 February 2022 in high court proceedings that resulted in the provisional curatorship of 3Sixty Life, a Numsa-linked insurance company.
In the affidavit, Jim stated under oath that Numsa was not aware of complaints from members regarding delayed or unpaid funeral claims since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Ntlokotse argues that there was correspondence from union locals, internal meeting records and regulatory documents that demonstrate the union’s leadership was aware of complaints well before the affidavit was filed.
According to the letter, the Port Elizabeth branch raised formal concerns about non-payment and delayed payment of funeral benefits in January 2021, followed by further correspondence later that year indicating that the problems persisted.
She states that the issue was also discussed at national executive committee meetings as early as December 2018 and again in May 2021.
The letter cites reports from the Office of the Ombudsman for Long-term Insurance, which recorded unusually high complaint ratios against 3Sixty Life, as well as a replying affidavit filed by the Prudential Authority during the curatorship proceedings.
The affidavit stated that claims worth R1.2 million remained unpaid, including claims predating curatorship and attributed that to incompetence at the insurer.
“These documented complaints were known to union leadership at the time the affidavit was deposed,” Ntlokotse writes, arguing that Jim’s sworn statement amounted to a deliberate denial of known facts. A February 2022 letter from the Port Elizabeth branch, cited in the document, described the affidavit as “full of distortions and untruths” and accused Jim of perjury.
Ntlokotse also challenges Jim’s claim that the affidavit was authorised through Numsa’s constitutional structures. She states that no meeting of the national office bearers, central committee or NEC was convened to discuss the curatorship ruling or to mandate legal action.
In the letter, she says she was informed via WhatsApp on 21 January 2022 that Jim intended to depose an affidavit but the document was neither shared with leadership structures nor approval sought.
She argues that that violated Numsa’s constitution, which vests the authority to institute or defend legal proceedings in the central committee.
“The deposing of an affidavit in High Court proceedings is not an administrative act,” she writes. “It is a constitutional and political act that requires authorisation.”
The dispute escalated after Ntlokotse objected to the affidavit in a letter to the national office bearers, dated 7 February 2022. She says the internal correspondence was later characterised as misconduct, leading to her suspension and eventual expulsion from the union.
Her letter situated her case within a broader pattern of disciplinary action taken against dissenting leaders. She points to the suspension of more than 50 elected leaders before Numsa’s 11th national congress, the placement of the Mpumalanga region under administration and the exclusion of multiple regions from congress processes.
In July 2022, the Labour Court interdicted the congress, ruling that the suspensions were unconstitutional and the central committee had acted outside its powers. The court found that the exclusion of Mpumalanga undermined the legality of the congress.
Ntlokotse argues that the judgment confirms that disciplinary mechanisms were used to suppress internal dissent rather than enforce organisational discipline.
The letter also raises concerns about the financial management of 3Sixty Life and the Numsa Investment Company, citing findings by the Prudential Authority and public reporting on a Deloitte investigation.
These include unexplained inter-company transfers, loans amounting to tens of millions of rands to related entities and the use of policyholder funds for purposes unrelated to funeral benefits.
She refers to a compliance letter issued by the registrar of labour relations in April 2023, which raised concerns about Numsa’s failure to submit properly consolidated and audited financial statements, weak financial controls and unexplained loans linked to union-associated entities.
Asked for comment, Jim told the M&G that the union “cannot be expected to discuss our internal affairs in the level of detail you are requesting”.
“Our relationship with the department of labour is like that of any other union: the department advises us on legal compliance and we strive to follow the law,” Jim added.
Every business depends on nature and most are helping destroy it, landmark report warns:
The accelerating loss of nature has become a critical systemic risk that threatens global economic stability, financial markets and human well-being.
That’s the stark conclusion of a landmark new report published this week by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes).
The assessment, known as the Business and Biodiversity report — approved by representatives of more than 150 governments — reframes biodiversity loss not as a distant environmental concern, but an immediate economic threat that reaches into boardrooms, supply chains and households alike.
From food production and water security to insurance, tourism and global trade, it finds that every sector of the economy depends, directly or indirectly, on nature’s continued stability. Yet economic growth has come at a staggering ecological cost and the systems that reward profit continue to penalise protection.
Between 1820 and 2022, the global economy grew from $ 1.18 trillion to more than $ 130 trillion. Businesses played a central role in that expansion. But the failure to account for nature — and to integrate its value into economic and financial systems — has driven unprecedented biodiversity loss, with 14 out of 18 categories of nature’s contributions to people now in decline.
The consequences are not evenly shared. While wealth and material capital have grown, natural capital has shrunk. The benefits of growth have accrued to some, while the ecological costs — degraded land, polluted water and collapsing ecosystems — have fallen disproportionately on others, particularly in poorer regions and among Indigenous and local communities.
This imbalance has now reached a tipping point, Ipbes warns. The decline of biodiversity and ecosystem services is no longer a background trend but a critical systemic risk, with implications for human rights, economic resilience and long-term prosperity.
The report describes how business governance and strategy have developed in systems that largely ignore or undervalue biodiversity, creating a gap between how companies operate and what nature needs to survive.
Business decision-making is driven by short-term timelines driven by quarterly profits, annual reports and fast investment returns while ecosystems recover over much longer periods.
Because of this mismatch, biodiversity loss is rarely factored into corporate decisions and companies struggle to justify action under traditional ideas of fiduciary duty that prioritise short-term shareholder returns. At the same time, markets do not properly price biodiversity or the services nature provides, such as clean water, climate regulation and pollination.
Companies therefore face little financial penalty for harming nature and gain few rewards for protecting it, leaving weak incentives to conserve, restore or sustainably use biodiversity.
Business-as-usual still dominates
Despite mounting evidence, the report finds that the conditions in which businesses operate continue to reward behaviour that drives nature’s decline.
Large subsidies still flow to activities that degrade biodiversity, often with the support of industry lobbying. In 2023, global public and private finance flows with directly negative impacts on nature were estimated at $ 7.3 trillion. Of that, private finance accounted for $ 4.9 trillion, while environmentally harmful public subsidies made up about $ 2.4 trillion.
By contrast, just $ 220 billion — roughly 3% of that amount — was directed towards conservation and restoration.
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business,” said professor Stephen Polasky, a co-chair of the assessment. “Yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to degrade biodiversity than to protect it.”
Short-term incentives, weak enforcement and voluntary reporting regimes have allowed ecological damage to remain largely invisible on balance sheets. While individual projects may appear profitable, their cumulative impacts can push ecosystems past irreversible thresholds – with cascading economic consequences.
Blind spot in boardrooms
One of the report’s most striking findings is how poorly biodiversity is understood and managed within the corporate world.
Less than 1% of publicly reporting companies mention their impacts on biodiversity. Among financial institutions representing about 30% of global market capitalisation, the most commonly cited barriers to assessing nature-related risk are a lack of reliable data, models and scenarios.
Too often, the report notes, businesses spend more time navigating competing frameworks for disclosure than taking meaningful action. Scientific research, meanwhile, is rarely written with business decision-makers in mind, further widening the gap between knowledge and practice.
“This report cuts through that confusion,” said Matt Jones, another co-chair of the assessment. “It brings together years of research and practice into a single integrated framework that shows both the risks of nature loss to business and the opportunities for business to help reverse this.”
Measuring what matters
The report emphasises that while no single method can capture all business impacts and dependencies on nature, useful tools already exist.
It proposes three core principles for assessing biodiversity-related methods: coverage, accuracy and responsiveness.
What needs to be measured depends on the context — whether a decision is being made at a single site, across a supply chain or at a portfolio level. Local, site-specific decisions require bottom-up approaches, including on-the-ground observations and participatory monitoring.
Corporate and financial decisions can rely on broader, top-down models that assess risk across regions and sectors.
Indigenous lands, knowledge and exclusion
The report, too, highlights how industrial development now threatens 60% of indigenous lands globally and a quarter of all indigenous territories are under high pressure from resource extraction.
Yet indigenous peoples and local communities, who are often the most effective stewards of biodiversity, remain underrepresented in business research and decision-making.
“Data and knowledge are siloed,” said professor Ximena Rueda, a co-chair of the assessment. “There is limited recognition of indigenous peoples and local communities as holders of knowledge on conservation, restoration and sustainable use.”
Respectful collaboration, the report argues, is not only an ethical imperative but a practical one. Better integration of scientific and Indigenous knowledge can improve risk management, reduce conflict and unlock long-term value.
What businesses can do better
While the scale of the crisis is daunting, the assessment stresses that many actions that benefit biodiversity also make business sense.
Improving efficiency, reducing waste and emissions, strengthening supply-chain transparency and shifting finance away from harmful activities can all reduce risk while protecting ecosystems. Financial institutions, in particular, have the power to redirect capital at scale.
Crucially, the report warns against greenwashing. Transparent strategies, credible metrics and public disclosure of both impacts and lobbying activities are essential if business action is to translate into real biodiversity outcomes.
“Better engagement with nature is not optional for business — it is a necessity,” said Rueda. “It is vital for their bottom line and long-term prosperity.”
Ipbes is clear that businesses cannot deliver transformative change on their own. Governments, financial actors and civil society must work together to reshape the conditions under which markets operate.
The report identifies five pillars of an enabling environment: policy and regulation, economic and financial systems, social norms and culture, technology and data and capacity and knowledge. Across these areas, it sets out more than 100 concrete actions that could align economic activity with ecological reality.
“We need to move beyond the false choice between being pro-business or pro-environment,” Polasky said. “All business depends on nature. Protecting it is not a constraint on prosperity – it is a prerequisite.”
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