More turmoil as NFP recalls its national chairperson, Mkhabela, amid power struggle:
The future of the National Freedom Party’s (NFP) eDumbe mayor, Sibusiso Shevu Mkhabela, hangs in the balance.
This comes after the party’s national executive committee (NEC) announced that Mkhabela be removed as party national chairperson and NEC member.
“The NEC resolved to remove Cde Sibusiso Mkhabela from the position of national chairperson and as member of the national executive committee with immediate effect,” said party secretary-general Sunset Bheki Xaba in a communique.
He was also removed as a member of the party’s national working committee.
No reasons were given about what had led to his recall from the party’s highest decision-making body.
Mkhabela is a close ally of the now-expelled former party KZN chairperson Mbali Shinga. Shinga, who was also the MEC for social development, was sacked on June 4. She was also removed as a member of the legislature. This follows the party’s appeals tribunal upholding the decision to fire her.
Her woes stem from the fact that she defied party instructions during a no-confidence vote against KZN premier Thami Ntuli in December.
Although the NFP had given Shinga instructions to vote for an uMkhonto weSizwe Party-sponsored motion, she had instead supported the DA, ANC and IFP who are in the government of provincial unity (GPU).
Fighting her removal from the provincial cabinet and her party, Shinga has since approached the Pietermaritzburg High Court. She also wants the court to prevent anyone from being sworn in as her legislature replacement.
Mkhabela was among the prominent voices accusing party president Irvin Barnes of dividing the party and pushing for his removal. While Barnes and his supporters want the party to join forces with the MK Party and the EFF in a bid to topple the KZN GPU, Mkhabela, Shinga and their sympathisers want the party to remain in the GPU’s fold.
It is unclear what will happen to Mkhabela’s mayorship amid the developments.
The NFP’s top leadership also suspended Zodwa Mtshali, the KZN provincial secretary. Mtshali is also the deputy mayor of uMhlabuyalingana Local Municipality, in the KZN far northern KZN region. Mtshali was suspended for what the party called unruly behaviour after she issued a media statement against Shinga’s expulsion and affirmed the position of the provincial executive to rally behind Shinga’s court bid.
She has been suspended for three months, pending an internal investigation.
Injustices, civil society and the baseless anti-development rhetoric:
There is a tired accusation that resurfaces every time communities resist pollution, challenge mining licences, oppose gas projects or question government decisions: communities and NGOs are “anti-development”.
It is an accusation designed to delegitimise dissent; to suggest that those raising concerns about health, livelihoods, land, water or democratic participation are obstacles to progress. But South Africa’s history tells a different story. In fact, many of the rights and freedoms people enjoy today exist because civil society organisations (CSOs) refused to remain silent when silence would have been easier and politically convenient.
To understand the role of CSOs, one must first understand what the Constitution was meant to do.
The Constitution was never written to comfort the powerful. It emerged from the violence and exclusions of apartheid as a system in which the law was used to deny dignity, land, healthcare, movement and political voice to most people.
The democratic Constitution therefore carried a deeper responsibility, not only to establish democratic institutions but also to protect people from abuses of power, whether by the state or private interests.
At its core, the Constitution is meant to serve those most vulnerable to exclusion: the poor, workers, rural communities, people living next to mines, refineries and industrial zones and those denied healthcare, clean water, decent housing and meaningful participation in decisions affecting their lives. It recognises that without dignity and material justice, freedom would remain incomplete.
This is why the Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) role remains one of the defining examples of democratic civil society in post-apartheid South Africa. The TAC did not invent rights. It gave life to rights that existed on paper. At the height of the HIV/Aids crisis, when denialism and political paralysis cost lives daily, the TAC organised communities, educated the public and challenged the state in court to force the rollout of antiretroviral treatment.
At the time, activists were accused of embarrassing the government, creating instability and undermining authority. Yet history has since rendered its judgment on the matter clearly. Had the TAC remained silent in the name of political convenience or “stability”, countless more South Africans would have died waiting for treatment that proved to save lives.
The TAC tested whether constitutional rights would mean anything for poor black South Africans dying in public hospitals and townships. Section 27 guarantees the right to access healthcare services but rights written into law mean little if governments can ignore them without consequence.
Through litigation, mobilisation and public pressure, the TAC demonstrated something essential about democracy: rights are not self-executing. They must be defended, demanded and deepened through public participation and accountability. The legacy matters profoundly today.
The same Constitution that protects access to healthcare also guarantees the right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being. It protects dignity, equality, access to information and just administrative action. The rights were never intended to exist in isolation from one another. Together, they form part of a democratic vision in which people are not treated as disposable in the pursuit of profit or political ambition. This is why environmental justice struggles are constitutional struggles.
When communities challenge toxic air pollution in Mpumalanga, they are defending constitutional rights. When residents question oil and gas exploration that threatens water sources and livelihoods, they are defending constitutional rights. When people demand meaningful consultation before projects proceed on their land, they are not obstructing development and democracy; they are exercising it.
Yet increasingly, CSOs and community organisations are portrayed as enemies of development whenever they challenge powerful political and economic interests. The framing deliberately avoids more uncomfortable questions: Development for whom and at whose cost?
For too long, development has been narrowly defined through extraction and large-scale industrial expansion alone: more mines, more fossil fuel projects, more pipelines and more infrastructure. Communities are repeatedly told to sacrifice in the name of jobs, growth and investment. Yet many of the areas carrying the heaviest environmental burdens remain among the poorest and most neglected in the country. People living next to coal plants struggle with unemployment. Communities near refineries continue to suffer from pollution-related illnesses. Rural areas targeted for extraction often lack basic services long after companies have extracted wealth from the land.
Communities therefore have every right to ask difficult questions. If development destroys water sources, deepens inequality and leaves people sick while profits flow elsewhere, who is benefiting? These are not anti-development questions. They are democratic questions.
Civil society organisations often step into these struggles because ordinary people do not have equal access to power. People cannot always afford lawyers, scientific experts or policy specialists capable of challenging corporations and state institutions. CSOs help level the playing field. They create space for participation where decisions are otherwise made behind closed doors. They force transparency. They ensure that constitutional obligations are not reduced to symbolic promises. This is not sabotage. It is democracy functioning as intended.
Importantly, environmental justice organisations are not simply saying “no”. Across the country, NGOs and community movements continue advocating for cleaner energy systems, affordable electricity, public accountability, resilient human settlements, safer public transport, sustainable livelihoods and development models that prioritise human well-being over short-term extraction. They are not opposed to development. They are opposed to forms of development that treat poor and working-class communities as sacrifice zones.
There is also a deeper irony in the accusation. Many of the voices that dismiss CSOs benefit from rights secured through decades of civil society struggle. From access to HIV treatment to anti-corruption work, housing rights and environmental protections, organised civil society has repeatedly strengthened South African democracy when institutions alone proved insufficient.
South Africa’s progress has never come from unquestioning obedience to power. It has come from organised people insisting that the country live up to its constitutional promises. The TAC understood this. Environmental justice movements understand it too. Safeguarding rights is not anti-development. It is how democracies prevent development from becoming exploitation.
Siphesihle Mvundla is groundWork’s climate and energy justice campaigner.
South Africa’s transformation drive under scrutiny as JSE black ownership remains low :
Despite a post-apartheid political economy spanning more than three decades, South Africa is lagging behind in its transformation crusade, given that Standard Bank and Nedbank have less than 1% black ownership and neither have concluded black economic empowerment (BEE) transactions for a decade.
In significant findings laying bare the slow pace of transformation, respected economist Duma Gqubule has released the latest Black Ownership on the JSE Research Report, in partnership with the Black Management Forum and the Transformation Lens.
The research, examining black ownership on the JSE during the first three decades of democracy, has provided valuable insights into economic transformation, ownership trends and inclusive participation in South Africa’s capital markets.
Released on Monday at the JSE, the report has found that there were “significant policy design failures that have contributed to the wide gap between actual ownership — as reported by companies in their annual reports — and what is on the BEE certificates”.
That was because of policy design failures and political compromises, made during the drafting of the BEE Codes and sector charters.
“Recognition of indirect ownership means that companies get free points and full compliance in many cases, even if they do nothing to transform their ownership structures — a major contributor towards inflated scores of JSE-listed companies.
“A back-door route towards compliance rewards companies for doing nothing.
“Allowing passive indirect ownership to count is a betrayal of the spirit of true empowerment, which is to encourage direct ownership by active black shareholders who can influence company strategies.
“There are weak incentives for companies to get into replacement BEE transactions.”
Scathing in his findings, Gqubule has argued: “For the empowerment process to continue, companies should eventually conclude replacement BEE transactions after the exit of black shareholders.
“In this way, there can be liquidity in empowerment finance and new beneficiaries.
“According to the continuing consequences principle, companies can retain up to 40% of their points after the exit of black shareholders.
“But since many transactions have long funding periods, they can retain points for a decade.
“In mining, the ‘once-empowered, always-empowered principle’ has shut the door on replacement transactions.
“Some companies who are committed to BEE implemented transactions, including Exxaro, Impala Platinum and Northam.
“In finance, companies can provide black business growth funding to meet their ownership shortfalls.
“There were replacement transactions at Old Mutual and Absa, with FirstRand, Sanlam and Capitec retaining black ownership.
“But Standard Bank and Nedbank have less than 1% black ownership — not having concluded BEE transactions for a decade.
“There have been large replacement transactions in the telecommunications sector, where the law requires BEE.”
The report has found that ANC heavyweights like Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale, who participated in earlier transactions, never accounted for most of the deal flow.
Black ownership accounted for R255 billion, equivalent to 6.7% of the top 60 total and 6.9% of South African assets.
Seventy-seven percent of black ownership was in mining and banks, which had 8.4% and 8% black ownership, respectively.
Gqubule said the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) had provided limited funding for companies to purchase shares on the JSE.
“The PIC provided R32 billion, of which R16 billion went to one individual, Jayendra Naidoo, to buy shares in Steinhoff.
“The IDC has funded black participation in Exxaro and Capitec.
“The farce of this policy concession, which explains the bizarre ownership scores of JSE-listed companies, becomes evident when one looks at the PIC, asset manager of Government Employees Pension Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
“The PIC is the government’s means of financing its obligations to pay pensions and unemployment benefits — and the workers do not own the shares.
“The PIC owned shares worth R1.1 trillion with top 60 JSE companies at end-December 2024 — equivalent to 6.7%.
“If one excludes the value of non-South African assets — 78.5% of the top 60 market capitalisation — PIC shares were equivalent to 31% of the value of South African assets worth R3.7 trillion.
“The PIC owned shares worth R303 billion in 14 finance companies within the top 60, equivalent to 19.5% of the value of South African assets.
“If one adds the 31.2% PIC ownership to the 6.9% finding in this paper, the result is 38.1% for 2024 — almost the same as the BEE Commission finding of 39% in the 2022 report.”
Among its far-reaching recommendations, the report called for the redefinition of the BEE “for a new era within a new vision and plan to fix a broken economy that is heading for two decades of declining average living standards”.
It said there should be a new macroeconomic policy framework with targets for GDP growth and jobs.
Other recommendation included:
- A fusion of racial, gender and structural transformation;
- The SA Reserve Bank, PIC and IDC should start talks on a super fund to finance purchases of shares on JSE;
- Developmental targets for banks and non-bank-financial institutions;
- Comprehensive review of BEE legislative and policy framework, including ownership;
- Mining and finance charters must align with new BEE policy and law;
- Elimination of the gap between what companies report in their annual reports and what appears on their BEE certificates, with effective and actual ownership being measured;
- The review of the BEE Codes must abolish the modified flow-through principle, the exclusion of mandated investments and the back-door route to compliance through indirect ownership;
- Companies should get recognition for past transactions on a sliding scale that falls to zero after three years to create liquidity in empowerment finance; and
- The new scorecard should have separate sections that measure actual ownership and the continuing consequences of past transactions.
“Anglo’s exit has shown that we should not allow mining companies to play monopoly with our natural resources.
“We must bring back our minerals and have a target of 51% ownership by the state, communities, workers and BEE companies,” Gqubule said.
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