Trouble in the House of MK

17 February 2025 - Has MK’s time run out? Is the ANC back on track to 50%? Will the NHI be implemented? Does SA have an AGOA future? Is Johannesburg’s Day Zero around the corner?

Trouble in the House of MK

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s (MKP) money troubles, reported on in last week’s Risk Alert, could prove to be the least of its headaches. Strife between party leaders burst into the open last week. From emerging as the third largest political party following the 2024 elections, MKP now faces the kind of money and management problems that could spell the end of the party before the 2026 local government elections.

Last week, prominent MKP Member of Parliament Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, daughter of party leader Jacob Zuma, was forced to issue an apology after she publicly labelled the secretary-general, Floyd Shivambu, the “worst thing that has happened to the party”.

Ms Zuma-Sambudla‘s subsequent apology was addressed to Mr Zuma and the rest of the party’s leadership, but failed to directly address and apologise to Mr Shivambu. Only in a later statement, released on 13 February, was a direct apology offered to the secretary-general. Amidst the perception that he was “parachuted in” and suspicions over his close ties to his former party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, resentment towards Mr Shivambu has been bubbling under the surface.  

According to media reporting, there has been further strife between the party’s chief whip, Mzwanele Manyi, and its deputy president and parliamentary leader, impeached former judge John Hlophe. Mr Zuma, the party patriarch, was reportedly dissatisfied with the speech delivered by Mr Hlophe during the post-State of the Nation Address debate in Parliament. Mr Hlophe placed the blame on Mr Manyi. News24 sources allege that matters became “physical” between the two at a party meeting on Wednesday.

While not conclusive, MKP’s performance in a recent by-election – in the uMkhanyakude District Municipality Ward 15 in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) – indicates that party activist morale is on the decline, the regional leadership’s eye is off the ball, and resources are running low. In the May 2024 elections, the party won 54% of the vote in this ward; in the latest by-election it won only 19%, behind the ANC’s 30% and the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) 48%, up from 29%. The IFP stands to benefit greatly should MKP fold, especially in KZN.

Mr Zuma’s history and force of personality are the main factors keeping the party together, not ideology, party history or party structures. Should he be ruled out of action temporarily or permanently, the strongly competing personalities in the party’s leadership will vie with each other for a piece of the empire. The party will not survive such a scenario.

ANC buoyed

The ANC stands to benefit from the weakness of its main rivals. It has taken the measure of its partner in government, the Democratic Alliance (DA), and discovered that it is mostly harmless. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have lost much of their senior leadership – including, most recently, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, who has been pushed out of the party and joined radio station Power FM – and the MKP is showing signs of instability, as described. The ANC stands to benefit from these developments, and we will likely see a rise in its support levels in upcoming polling. The party could gain sufficient self-confidence to countenance a GNU without the DA, EFF or MKP in it, ruling as a minority government until 2029 in the expectation that it can regain its electoral majority then.

NHI uncertainty

The forthcoming Budget, set to be delivered on Wednesday by the finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, will provide more details of the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI). Finding the funding required for the NHI is one thing; the implementation of the legislation poses a substantial risk to the future of the GNU.

While reporting earlier in the month claimed that the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) had “found each other” on the NHI’s implementation as part of the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP), and the role and existence of medical aids, the health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, subsequently poured cold water on such claims.

During an interview on 5 February, DA leader and agriculture minister John Steenhuisen said, “There was a very clear target in the MTDP, which said at the end of the five-year period all medical funds would be collapsed into a single fund. That has now been removed from the draft MTDP as a project. That is in black and white”. In a separate interview planning, monitoring and evaluation minister Maropene Ramokgopa indicated that she, Mr Steenhuisen and Dr Motsoaledi had reached an agreement on the NHI, with the implementation thereof set to be made the responsibility of a ministerial advisory committee.

The uncertainty and public back and forth on the NHI reflect the ongoing tensions not only between GNU partners, but also power struggles within the ANC. Should the NHI form a large part of the Budget or MTDP, the DA’s claim that it is exerting significant influence over policy will become more tenuous. Its case for remaining a part of the GNU will become more difficult to sell to its supporters.

Washington: Mission critical

President Ramaphosa continues to mull over sending envoys to Washington to calm the waters after President Trump’s executive order on South Africa. However, any delegations that Mr Ramaphosa might send should not go purely to preserve South Africa’s access to the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) but should set their sights higher. South Africa’s participation in AGOA is likely a thing of the past. An overriding focus on AGOA will cast South Africa in the role of a supplicant instead of presenting it as a proactive growth-and-investment partner on the African continent.

Instead of AGOA, negotiators should focus on making a proactive, value-adding and value-increasing investment case for American companies. Details of significant reforms to labour legislation, moves away from onerous indigenisation requirements, as well as upgrades to property rights protections, would do much to bolster South Africa’s case.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) has a rare window of opportunity to set the country on a radically different path from the low-growth one it has trod since 2008. Signals from various parts of the world, including the United States, Argentina, Vietnam, and India, are of deregulatory reforms, with a keen focus on investment and job creation. To follow their lead, the GNU will need to adopt a hard-nosed foreign policy and geopolitical stance premised on stimulating domestic growth while creating trade opportunities and attracting capital – as opposed to the insipid route composed of buzzwords and sentiment that has been trod up until now.

Having been in office for less than a month, Mr Trump and his administration have made clear their stance towards South Africa and will not go out of their way to receive South African delegations. South Africa’s choice is whether to take the harsh but unequivocal messages on board and reform domestic policy – to the ultimate benefit of South Africans – or to continue wishing that reality was different.

Water troubles around the corner

Red lights are once again flashing on Rand Water’s dashboard. In a statement released last Wednesday, the entity that supplies water to the Gauteng metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni indicated that “storage is declining rapidly”. Both Johannesburg and Tshwane are consuming more water than agreed upon with Rand Water; the former used 1,743 million litres on 3 February, the last day on which the measurement was taken, against a target of 1,528 million litres. On the same day Tshwane used 853 million litres, versus a target of 752 million litres of water a day.

Regular reservoir and pumping outages are exacerbating the stress on Rand Water’s systems. Already frequent outages in large residential parts of Johannesburg put paid to the “overuse” narrative often put forward by municipalities; regular and ongoing leaks are the biggest pressure point on water supply. In November 2024 Rand Water indicated that of 5.2 billion litres it provided to Gauteng municipalities daily, 2.5 billion litres were lost to leaks, ageing infrastructure, and theft.