Listen here.The once carefully curated moral image of the Democratic Alliance (DA) is showing more cracks. In their weekly chat, Chris Steyn and political commentator Solly Moeng discuss the R4-billion South African Reserve Bank (SARB) investigation into the company founded by DA Finance spokesperson Dr Mark Burke, and the pro bono security provided to former DA Mayor Tania Campbell by tenderpreneur and attempted murder accused Cat Matlala. Moeng also comments on the allegation that Matlala’s passionate legal representative, Advocate Annelene van den Heever, was regarded as a “close friend” of the notorious late taxi boss Mswazi Mbisi; as well as the gruelling grilling suspended MP Fadiel Adams is facing from Madlanga Commissioners. “…a very murky world … has been operating at the expense of the rest of South Africa. And we really hope that it all comes out so that we never have to be here again.” As for the collaboration that has been announced between AfriForum and March and March, Moeng says: “..they all in their own way think they're fighting their corner because the centre has not been fighting their corner on their behalf…”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.1)The once carefully curated moral image of the Democratic Alliance is showing more cracks. With me is political commentator Solly Moeng. Welcome, Solly.Solly Moeng (00:11.666)I think the DA - as we head to these next elections - is inadvertently giving its political opponents all sorts of things to say, but you are not holier than us. Look at yeah, look at what happened: there was the matter of the former leader Tony Leon's agency apparently going behind the scenes to influence political decisions. Now there's this matter here. There was the matter of Steenhuisen and all that stuff that he brought into the public.This Mark Burke story is big - and obviously clearly the company that he led no longer… his brother… is apparently leading it now, clearly contravening the currency control regulations by using people's money to to take out four billion rands into into the outside market, basically pretending that these people were in agreement, they knew what was being done because we know that each individual can take up to twelve million rands, two million rands without needing to a clearance from SARS and ten million rand for foreign investment purposes. And it seems like these people didn't know. So obviously he has not been charged but his name has been dragged into this thing. It's good to see what the DA does with this. Will it do with him what it often demands of other parties to do with their own people when they get dragged into this sort of thing? Or are they going to say well he's innocent until proven and guilty, which is what everybody else does.Chris Steyn (01:49.983)At the moment they seem to be backing him and he is denying all wrongdoing. He said he resigned in 2024 to pursue a political career, but he was still chairman of the group until this year.Solly Moeng (02:06.826)Correct. And the funds were blocked last year, late last year. So surely when this thing happened, when the steps were taken against the company late last year, he should have maybe resigned then or come out to then to say, Look, this is what's happening in my space. I'm sorry. But then he waited. Maybe he was hoping that it would end there, that it would never see the light of day. Now it's in the light of day, but he should have resigned long ago. So it's really his cross to bear…And the DA has decided, well, we can't deal with this, especially as we have … elections. We can't have all these crooks that we've been calling crooks all these years looking at us saying, Uh-huh, what did we say? You are not different from usChris Steyn (02:50.998)Especially since he is the Finance Spokesperson for the party.Solly Moeng (02:54.492)Exactly. And he sits on two important parliamentary committees, including the Appropriations and the Joint Finance Committee. That's very important. He has access and view of a lot of decisions taken by government. At that level I think that it's consequential.Chris Steyn (03:16.142)Still on the Democratic Alliance, interestingly, when tenderpreneur and attempted murder accused, Cat Matlala finally appeared at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, one of the things he put on the record was that the only services he had provided to Ekurhuleni municipality was pro bono protection services for the former Democratic Alliance Mayor, Tania Campbell.Solly Moeng (03:41.185)Yeah. I think maybe at some point she must also come out and say and tell us what she knew. Was she aware of it? Was she aware of the nature of the relationships? Or was she just saying, you know, I'm a mayor, services are being provided, this is what it is, and assume that everything was done correctly. Because Cat Matlala's VP company also participated in the 2022 State of the City address…They were there as VIP protectors, they provided security.But the relationship there…that illegal MOU they had signed with Mkhwanazi is what brought them to where they were at. Surely the mayor should have known better. Somebody in her circle, in her advisory team, should have said, you know, the stuff over there is toxic. And it doesn't seem that nobody did that. It doesn't seem like she raised it. So she really can't keep quiet forever. She must say something.Chris Steyn (04:38.679)Hm. Now Cat's a very passionate advocate, Annelene van den Heever, her name has appeared as a close friend on the alleged funeral programme…of the notorious taxi boss, Mswazi Mbisi.Solly Moeng (05:14.856)Yeah. I mean I've tried to find the source of that. I haven't managed to do so. But if it is true that she was also there, it's a big problem, isn't it? I mean I was worried if just a week ago we were told there was a Big Five, that the firm consisting of Big Five names and not all of them were emerging and people said to me, Just be patient, you will see all these doors are slowly, slowly being connected. So if she is in that grouping or grouping of you know that kind of crowd, it's going to be quite hard for her to keep holy…just a legal I think she's going to have to come up and say, okay, I've known these people, this is my relations, these are my friends. So and so was my friend and under these circumstances.Otherwise, it means that everything that we know now is just a tip of the iceberg, which it really is. I mean, we don't know everything that we're supposed to be knowing. Big names are coming out, tumbling out of the closets and those people who are involved in processes that we're supposed to be trusting, who know that, they've answers to give to us. I think it's about time they came out without being pushed, just like Burke. Malema, also his name is coming out. You can't continue to be honourable Mr. Julius Malema because clearly it's not things are not pointing that way.And political party funding is a big problem. I mean you could pretend you don't just go to people's weddings and homes and farms for nothing. There's always money involved. And the question is where does that money come from? Who has been killed if anybody or hurt? What kind of State institution has been working for that money to get to where you are at? So politicians can pretend to be the guardians of our democracy while at the same time they enable stuff to happen that makes…that funds their operations.Chris Steyn (07:13.633)Hm. It makes her very vociferous defence of him more interesting. It's almost as if she's trying to answer on his behalf.Solly Moeng (07:22.772)Yeah. Yeah. It's almost as if she's defending herself more than she's defending him. Yeah, it's just Yeah, yeah. It's almost like she's doing everything she can to make sure he doesn't get to be asked questions. You know? Yeah. But it's a matter of time, isn't it?Chris Steyn (07:26.285)Exactly. Is she defending him or herself? I was wondering, you know, pre pre pre-defending herself so long.Mm-hmm. So what did you make of his final, or not his final but finally he appeared, of his day of testimony?Solly Moeng (07:52.235)Well, look, he didn't answer many of the key questions. I mean he gave some things away, others not. The friendships that he denied. But he is coming back on the twenty fourth, isn't it? Well, before the twentieth of August they must submit their supplementary affidavit. I think he's going to have to answer more questions. The Madlanga Commission of course will continue to assure him that the evidence that he provides to them is not going to be used against him when he goes to court on the eleventh, I think, of September. So look, he is he will give as little as possible, but he knows that the noose is tightening strongly around his neck. At some point, he failed to get a deal with the NPA; he can't have those conditions anymore. He's going to have to decide what can I give in exchange for what given where we are at now. And Annelese is going to have to be clear about whether he she defends herself or him or both of them and whether she can keep running like this forever. I mean buying maybe she's buying for time, at the expense of what? Of truth. It'll come out. The truth will come out at some point and let's hope that it's going to be kind to her as well. We don't know what we don't know. We're really just speculating. But her conduct is driving this speculation, understandably.Chris Steyn (09:14.657)Now, it's entirely possible that her close relationship with a former taxi boss or the late taxi boss was because of a professional relationship. She might have, you know, represented him or done legal work for him to the extent that he regarded her as a - or the family regarded her- as a close friend.Solly Moeng (09:32.321)Correct.But everything that's coming out linked to his name is not nice. It's really nothing that is attractive. Now he's being described in some circles as the President of this, the big honcho of the so-called Firm. He was the man to go to and suddenly he died, apparently of a short illness. I mean, we don't know what's going on in that space. It's very scary. I mean, how many of these people are there? All these big successful so-called successful businessmen, men and women in Sandton and other places, they own farms, they gift each other animals and…they count, they discuss the weight of drugs, you know. I mean Van Wyk and Matala… so all it's a very murky world that has been operating at the expense of the rest of South Africa. And we really hope that it all comes out so that we never have to be here again. Hopefully never have to be here again. But again, we don't know.Chris Steyn (10:33.931)Over to suspended MP Fadiel Adams, he's going to face a grueling grilling at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. Solly, what drama he has created.Solly Moeng (10:47.124)Man, I don't know what happened in his childhood. We all had issues happening in our childhood, but it's like I thought Malema was the naughty boy of politics, but Fadiel Adams, is something else, you know. And it's a pity that I mean he keeps telling these lies. There was stuff about his computer, there was stuff about how he got hold of that Section 27 whistleblower affidavit and the Parliament came back and said, No, wait a minute, you know, the computer was functioning.Then he lied about how, you know, the reasons for him submitting his affidavit late to the commission, and and now he's he's also facing that case…and he was linked to Johnson and the IDAC, and it seems like there was some kind of plot to use him, or I don't know if he used them or they used him, they used one another to to weaken the criminal justice system to go after people who are really credible for the reasons for reasons they should not have done so.So it's gonna be interesting to see how far he's going to go in telling the truth, if he will tell the truth, or if he'll continue trying to trip the process. I don't know who's representing him, if anybody. So it's I don't see him, I don't see him winning. Yeah, I really don't. And his political standing for the so-called Coloured community, I think that's also going to take a beating because I've got Coloured friends who don't want to be identified with this guy.Chris Steyn (12:20.247)Mm, Maybe the Patriotic Alliance will have him.Solly Moeng (12:24.526)No, Al Jamah, also Al Jamah. So all these minority groupings are coming together to stand in each other's corner. We don't know. Look if you support him on the basis of Colouredness or narrow racial ethnic reasons, I think that it's going to be hard to defend. If the Al Jamah is going to defend him because it's Coloured, they are also going to suffer. Obviously they want to make sure that the Coloured vote doesn't go back to the DA or you know, it stays within their groupings. If he loses it, it must go to PA. If the PA can't get it, Al Jamah must get it. But Coloured people are not fools, you know what I'm saying? I think that it's important that we respect that people not everybody says I vote like this because…It doesn't mean all of the issues that have been raised that concern the broader Coloured community are not real. But I think that we would be silly to reduce Coloured people to thinking in those narrow narrow narrow terms. Just like black people or white people, you know what I'm saying? There are people who think and then they act in terms of voting on all in all groups. And there are people of course who are easily misled by Malemas, by the ANCs, by other politicians on the basis of where they look.Chris Steyn (13:51.49)Fadiel and Johnson and all those people involved in that plot to discredit certain people and to get other people sort of shoehorned into the positions they want, they must have thought they had gotten away with it. It fell apart at the last minute.Solly Moeng (14:24.882)Yeah. And they were silly to think they would get away with that…the sort of thing one cannot hold on to forever. I mean it's the same people now as the advocate in the IDAC office who came out and said, But that's not true. Yeah, that's not true. These are the things that happened. If Johnson, for instance, now it is coming out that she was not a good leader, she was a control freak, she had issues with people. And then she did things with those people to outsiders. She would have been a fool to think that one day her own people in the office that she wasn't treating with respect would not one day take their chance when it's offered to them to stand up and say, Okay, this is the kind of person that we've been dealing with. This is a person who's been doing this to South Africa. And you know what? It's a good thing that a South African of Indian origin stood up and said, That's not right because there's already people out there saying, there's an Indian Mafia, what's going on, the Indian side. But the truth is there are people of all colours who are involved in this nonsense…There are Afrikaans people, there are Zulu, Xhosa people, there are Indian people, Coloured people. I mean, this is who we are. So in all of us, there are bad people, there are good people, and I think that's how we should judge them by their acts. I'm very happy that these things are coming out, and I really hope there's going to be consequences for them. Even those who apparently now conveniently got shot, they can now come, you know, to testify, those who got hospitalised. The long arm of the law must eventually reach them so that South Africans can see that the concept of equality before the law does exist, that nobody stands above the law. It's important. If there are no consequences, just the like there have not been consequences for people like Zuma on State Capture and, as in the past, it's sending the wrong message to the people of South Africa. It's important.We want to get to a point where we know that this democracy works for everybody. It's not some kind of Orwellian Animal Farm where some are more equal than others. They have carried themselves all day long as if they are more equal than others. It's now up to the system to prove them wrong and to prove to us, to give us that confidence again that we need in our democracy.Chris Steyn (16:44.191)Lastly, what do you make of the collaboration that has been announced between AfriForum and March and March?Solly Moeng (16:52.672)Hopefully eventually it'll be a good thing. I mean AfriForum says it stands for Afrikaans people, March and March says it stands for black people. I mean black people is like they are not homogenous, right? But you know, good for them. They stand for their interests…and it's good that they're saying, Okay, let's stay away from politics, let's focus on social economic development. Maybe the March and March will get some funding leads from AfriForum because it seems to to to raise funds very easily. Maybe they'll have good, difficult conversations about genocide in South Africa, how do we get some of the powers at national level to be devolved to provincial levels that…so they will have some really hard discussions and some some some easy conversations. But I think it's a good thing. I see people saying, that's nonsense, it's so surprising. Maybe I think let's just give them time and see what comes out of it because they all South Americans, they all in their own way think they're fighting their corner because the centre has not been fighting their corner on their behalf. Their their grievances cannot be said to be not legitimate, right? So let's just hope that they don't act against the interest of us, the collective South Africa, in whatever they're going to be doing over the next months. So let's just watch them and hope that they yeah, they strengthen our country in their little ways.Chris Steyn (18:20.921)It seems to have come about because she had, Jacinta, had said that she wanted to build an organisation like AfriForum.Solly Moeng (18:28.544)She did say. …AfriForum has been accused of…, but they've also been doing some good things. For instance, they raised funds to create an Afrikaans University… Naledi Pando and others are saying, Well you can't do that. Well maybe these guys will build a Zulu or Sotho or Xhosa or Black University, you know. They'll do some good things. Let's see how they're going to unfold together as a broad civil society movement or two. Hopefully the more they talk to each other they'll realise that they probably have more in common than stuff that sets them apart. I think I prefer to look at it in a more positive way. It's surprising of course we didn't see it coming.Jacinta will need money. There have been questions about where March and March gets money, who funds it. These things will come out. The thing is, as long as they don't kill people, hurt people, damage infrastructure, you know, go against the law. I have to give it to her that she's been saying to her followers, please don't don't hurt people, don't don't… let's give it some credit. The issue of immigration has to be dealt with by government, but not by civil society movements. The issue of farm killings, for instance, that AfriForum has been making a noise about. We know there's no genocide. I mean anybody who says there's genocide today is lying, but farm killings have happened. That given the kind of country that we are, we allow ourselves to have difficult, uncomfortable conversations. Because those are the things that make us who we are. If we don't create space for uncomfortable conversations, people are going to start putting bombs and stuff in places… because they're not being given the space in public to say this is what we stand for. Let's allow that to happen. It's important. This is how we build this difficult, diverse society that we are.Chris Steyn (20:33.389)Indeed, thank you. That was political commentator Solly Moeng speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Solly.Solly Moeng (20:41.025)Thank you, Chris.