By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The first group of South African men who got trapped in Ukraine’s Donbas region after being lured into fighting alongside Russian forces returned home on Wednesday.
The men were lured into fighting under the pretext of “bodyguard training” in Russia by former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, and others associated with the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party.
President Cyril Ramaphosa raised the fate of the trapped men in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two leaders had “pledged their support to the process of returning South Africans fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.”
Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and ANC MP Ronald Lamola during a heated SONA debate confirmed that the men who got trapped in Ukraine are on their way home.
Lamola criticised the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) and its leader for being irresponsible over men trapped in Ukraine.
More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv’s foreign minister said last month, urging countries to warn their citizens about recruitment.
Lamola tore into MK Party, whose actions both on the bench and in the political arena have shown “dishonesty and a complete lack of ethics.”
“The MK Party is shouting rhetoric about selling out and claiming that public-private partnerships in the economy amount to wholesale privatisation,” he said.
He added that some of the party’s leaders, “including your unelected supreme leader”, were part of the generation of the African National Congress, referring to former president Jacob Zuma, who now leads the MK Party.
The ANC officially cut ties with Zuma in July 2024 after its national disciplinary committee resolved to expel him following a hearing held on July 23, in his absence.
Lamola also told the Democratic Alliance (DA) to decide whether it wants to be in government or in opposition, arguing that it cannot be both.
Lamola was responding to a speech by DA MP Baxolile Nodada.
“Honourable Nodada, everything you have just claimed here was started by the ANC sixth administration. You cannot have your cake and eat it,” Lamola said.
“The DA needs to decide whether it is in government or it is in opposition. You cannot be both. In this House, we are confronted by two dangerous extremes.”
He described one as extreme left and the other as extreme right, saying both were “counter-revolutionary” and led to destruction and polarisation in society.
“Africa’s greatest son of literature, Ben Okri, once asked: to poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. And this is what the honourable members of the opposition have been doing,” he said.
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said that the country’s Constitution would be thrown out the window if it ever fell into the hands of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
Gwarube accused the MK Party of not seeing the value of the country’s constitutional democracy.
She used her speech during the debate to also speak about the Government of National Unity (GNU), which she joined about two years ago.
Gwarube said members of the GNU were guided by a clear purpose to stabilise the country.
She also told the joint sitting that Ramaphosa had correctly placed growth and jobs at the centre of the national agenda.
Limpopo Premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba has told Members of Parliament (MPs) that the surge in applications for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Military Skills Development System (MSDS) highlights the urgent need to change the status quo.
Just a day after the SANDF opened applications for its 2027 MSDS intake, hundreds of young South Africans flocked to Thohoyandou Stadium to submit CVs and application forms for the two-year programme.
According to Statistics South Africa, youth unemployment stands at 43.8%, with millions of young people struggling to find stable work.
Despite the challenges, Ramathuba said the country was witnessing a positive economic outlook.
“Let us stand resolute in the confidence that progress in South Africa is not temporary,” she said.
In his State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa announced that government would establish a professional State Property Company this year to “transform the 88 000 buildings and five-million hectares of land owned by the State into professionally managed engines of growth and development”.
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson described the initiative as the “most significant reform of State property management since 1994”, arguing that the professionalised entity would consolidate income generating and strategically located assets into a single structure with a verified and digitised asset register.
The roles of owner, manager and developer would also be separated, which Macpherson said would create space for private capital to invest in precinct upgrades, mixed-use housing and redevelopment.
“The vehicle includes a dedicated development capability, funding bulk services and precinct preparation so underutilised land becomes bankable projects. Clear project pipelines will allow private sector partners and sovereign funds to participate with certainty.”
Macpherson argued that the initiative would drive large-scale investment and job creation, citing the Government Precinct Programme in Tshwane and Youngsfield housing development in Cape Town as examples of how lease expenditure and vacant land could be converted into capital formation, urban regeneration and jobs.
He also announced that well-located public land in the Johannesburg inner city would be used for housing, and that hundreds of residential properties would be offered to nurses, police officers and teachers.
Ramaphosa will reply to the debate on his State of the Nation Address tomorrow, 19 February, at 14:00.
The reply follows a two-day debate on the address by Members of Parliament during the joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces held at the Dome (Nieuwmeester Parking).