Morning Brief – Monday, 5 September 2022

Good morning. Today we’re covering President Cyril Ramaphosa’s meeting with US President Joe Biden this week, Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s exit from his post, and the millions of rands spent by police on safety and security for political parties.

Nuclear high on agenda when Ramaphosa meets Biden – Business Day (for subscribers)

President Cyril Ramaphosa will travel to Washington DC this week to meet with his US counterpart Joe Biden where nuclear non-proliferation will be high on the agenda of the pair’s meeting.

Biden recently wrote a letter to the US Congress alerting them to the fact that the US and SA had extended the Agreement for Co-operation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy for another four years. The original agreement was signed in 1995 and was going to expire in December.

The meeting has been initiated by Biden with Ramaphosa continuing to New York for the first full in-person UN General Assembly since 2019, following his White House appointment. Due to Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions, the annual UN meeting has not been able to take place over the past couple of years. Read more here.

‘I was not pushed out or recalled,’ insists outgoing Gauteng Premier David Makhura – Daily Maverick

Gauteng premier David Makhura shut down any assertions that he had been recalled by the ANC Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee or that he was resigning during a press conference on Sunday.

Makhura confirmed he would soon be leaving his post while the outgoing premier said he had not written a resignation letter and that he had determined his own fate.

He said he had informed the party in February that he was ready to leave and that he did not expect to deliver the next state of the province address. Read more here.

‘Safety and security’ at ANC events have cost the police R4.6m since 2019 – News24

While the budget for visible policing continues to shrink, some R5.7 million has been spent on providing “safety and security” at political events since April 1, 2019.

ANC events alone have cost R4.6 million while R900,000 has been spent on the EFF and a further R65,000 on the Democratic Alliance.

Nearly half of the money spent on ANC events was in Mpumalanga and occurred between March and August this year while there were no events in KwaZulu-Natal and all the events listed in the Western Cape and Northern Cape were labelled as no-cost events. Read more here.