Making headlines: Judgment day for DA's State capture order application against Zuma; ANC wants its NEC to have powers to hire and fire public representatives; And, Zimbabwe voters need more time to register after turmoil

For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Madiba.

Judgment day for DA's State capture order application against Zuma

Judgment is expected in the Pretoria High Court today in the DA's application for an order that President Jacob Zuma adhere to the Public Protector's "State of Capture" remedial actions, establish a commission of inquiry and allow the Chief Justice to appoint a judge for the inquiry.

Judgment was reserved in September, where Zuma's lawyer Advocate Ishmael Semenya, said the crux of his client's argument against implementing the remedial action of the report was that it would be unconstitutional to do so.

He argued that the Public Protector "does not enjoy the power under the Constitution of telling Zuma to establish an inquiry and that the Chief Justice will appoint the judge".

The DA also sought a declaratory order that Zuma's conduct in delaying the establishment of the commission is unconstitutional.

In her State of Capture report, former public protector Thuli Madonsela recommended that Zuma establish a commission of inquiry and that Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng choose a judge to preside over it.

ANC wants its NEC to have powers to hire and fire public representatives

The African National Congress wants its national executive committee to have powers to recall its deployees in all spheres of government.

This is contained in a document written by the party's constitutional affairs subcommittee ahead of the party's upcoming 54th national conference this weekend.

The section dealing with the powers of the NEC proposes a new rule that reads: "Appoint and disappoint all public representatives at national, provincial and local levels in government and the performance of such public representatives."

Member of the party's legislature and governance subcommittee Andries Nel, said the proposal would only deal with elected public representatives and not officials in the public service or other state institutions.

He said the committee had identified a failure by government officials to implement ANC policy.

And, Zimbabwe voters need more time to register after turmoil

Zimbabwe's political parties want to give voters another two months to sign up for next year's election after political turmoil disrupted the registration process, an opposition official said.

The ruling party and opposition groups will ask electoral authorities today to extend next week's voter registration deadline into February, said Douglas Mwonzora, the secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change.

The army forced former president Robert Mugabe out of office last month, ousting the only leader the country has known since independence.

Mwonzora, who also co-chairs an inter-party group monitoring voter registration said the military coup disturbed a lot of things.During that period, many potential voters did not go out to register because there was serious political uncertainty in the country.

Zimbabwe started registering voters in September. But its Electoral Commission yesterday said that just over 4 million voters out of a target of 7 million had signed up, eight days before the deadline to end the process.

Also making headlines:
Cape Town's "Day Zero" has moved forward by two days after water consumption increased to "dangerous levels" from an average of 611-million litres per day last week to 628-million litres this week, Mayor Patricia de Lille said yesterday.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today
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