Just Energy Transition Plan (JETP) @KASIBCNEWS

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted the decision by US President Donald Trump to revoke international climate finance, including funds allocated to South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Plan (JETP).

This is a blatant act of economic sabotage, proving once again that the United States uses financial aid as a tool to impose its will on sovereign nations. As the EFF, we have always stated that South Africa has been a willing experimental tool for transitions to alternative methods of energy generation, while being given incentives and exorbitant loans to abandon coal as our basesupply for energy generation. 

The US-funding has always been designed to encourage South Africa to abandon coal, and has trapped us in loan agreements for this purpose, and now this withdrawal of financing is yet another means to exhibit strength by the US in response to South Africa’s principled stance against Apartheid Israel.

It is no coincidence that this decision was announced just minutes after a parliamentary debate, initiated by the EFF, on the United States' decision to halt aid to South Africa. 

The timing of Trump’s move is a clear act of retaliation, exposing the deep-seated arrogance of Western imperialists who seek to punish nations that refuse to bow to their dictates. 

Trump’s actions confirm what the EFF has always maintained: foreign aid is a weapon of neocolonial control, designed to keep African nations dependent, vulnerable, and submissive to Western interests. 

The United States, under Trump’s racist and imperialist administration, has made it clear that it does not support genuine development but rather seeks to cripple South Africa’s progress towards energy sovereignty. 

We must ask: Why should South Africa’s ability to transition to renewable energy depend on the financial whims of a foreign power? The very fact that Trump can revoke such funding at will proves that our government has failed to establish true self-reliance in energy production. 

The ANC-led administration’s dependence on Western climate finance has now backfired, further exposing the dangers of outsourcing our developmental agenda to imperialist forces. 

The EFF maintains that South Africa’s energy transition must not be privatized or reliant on foreign donors. A Just Energy Transition must be fully state-led, ensuring that Eskom remains publicly owned and is capacitated to drive the shift to renewable energy. South Africa must immediately invest in alternative energy sources, utilizing its vast natural resources to develop independent, sovereign energy production. 

Workers and communities reliant on coal and fossil fuel industries must be protected, with guaranteed economic alternatives that do not leave them in poverty. Above all, South Africa must reject all forms of economic blackmail by Western powers and take decisive steps to resist US interference in our domestic affairs. 

South Africa must break free from Western control and take full charge of its energy future. The time for economic self-sufficiency is now. 

R350 MILLION COVID-19 Pandemic Grant Fraudsters @KASIBCNEWS 

The DA calls for the swift investigation and prosecution of 6,000 more State employees, found by the Special Investigations Unit to have unlawfully received the special Temporary Employment Relief grant during the COVID-19 Pandemic, while simultaneously receiving their government salary or remuneration.

An amount of R350 million is believed to have been stolen from the people of South Africa by this callous fraud, committed by State employees.

The SIU revealed to Parliament last week that over 6,000 state employees benefited from the TERS benefit, while also being paid by the state, through acts of fraud and corruption, which must be investigated and prosecuted.

Investigations into all 6,000 cases must now be undertaken by the Public Service Commission. The DA has written to the Chairperson of the Commission, requesting him to launch this probe without delay.

It must also be investigated as to whether officials at the Unemployment Insurance Fund, which administered the TERS payouts, contributed to this fraud, or played a role in the corruption of the process.

The Head of the SIU, Advocate Andy Mothibi, emphasised out of the SIU’s investigation that government employees manipulated the system for personal financial gain.

At the highest office of ANC Government, the Presidency, former Spokesperson Khusela Diko was herself implicated in an irregular PPE contract with her husband, and stepped down from her role, showing the heights from which the pandemic relief funds were plundered, misappropriated, and corrupted.

It appears that across Departments, State employees living in all nine Provinces cashed in on Pandemic Relief funds meant for those desperately in need, for their own selfish enrichment. Gauteng-based State employees were found to have been most implicated, with 1,665 cases in that Province alone.

The DA will push for the Public Service Commission to process these investigations, and hand them over to the police for prosecution, as soon as possible.