ActionSA says it has approached Parliament to investigate DA’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, Dean Macpherson, for denigrating its supporters as “pharas”, the phrase used to refer to worthless or drug-addicted people.   

In a statement issued on Thursday, ActionSA MP Alan Beesley said his party wrote to the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests requesting an investigation into Macpherson in his capacity as the DA MP and Public Works and Infrastructure Minister. 

Macpherson referred to ActionSA supporters as pharas outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court on July 24 during the hearing of legal action, which the DA and ActionSA jointly launched against eThekwini Municipality’s failure to address the city’s sewerage problems.

This reporter has a video of Macpherson addressing DA members in the presence of their provincial leader, Francois Rodgers. 

During an interview with this reporter, Macpherson repeated the same word, which translates to hobos.

Pharas is a shortened version of the Zulu word amaphara, which means hobos, street beggars, and drug addicts.

“These terms, directed at a group of predominantly black ActionSA supporters, are not only deeply offensive but, in the context of our country’s painful history, cannot be divorced from their racially charged and dehumanising connotations,” said Beesley. 

He said it was unethical for Macpherson, as DA’s senior leader, MP, and minister, to “resort to such racist and inflammatory rhetoric”. 

“This kind of conduct is fundamentally incompatible with the values enshrined in the Constitution and the responsibilities of elected public officials. 

“Despite ActionSA’s public call on 28 July 2025 for an immediate apology, Minister Macpherson has refused to retract his remarks or offer any sign of remorse for the harm caused,” said Beesley.

In the video, Macpherson is heard saying: “There is a smallanyana (little) party, (referring to ActionSA), they just brought up some people and we don’t know who they are since they are paras, they gave them some green T-shirts. 

“When you asked which party (they belong to), they said ‘angazi’ (I don’t know), ‘I am just here for one meal and one drink’, and they were here for just singing and dancing.”    

Beesley called for the Ethics Committee to act against Macpherson to preserve Parliament’s dignity, “but more importantly, to affirm the fight against racism in South Africa”. 

“We have therefore called on the Ethics Committee to take decisive action against this errant minister and at the very least ensure that he issues a written public apology to ActionSA supporters and to the people of South Africa at large,” he said.  

The animosity between the two parties was laid bare outside the court, where their supporters were there to support the court action. 

The DA supporters who carried placards picketed against the eThekwini Municipality as their party had been granted the right to do so. 

The ActionSA’s provincial leader, Zwakele Mncwango, alleged that Macpherson had approached the police to disperse his party members because their party had not applied for picketing.

Mncwango said ActionSA members were not picketing when they were approached by police, adding that police stopped removing ActionSA supporters after he and Rodgers intervened. 

In response to questions sent by this reporter, Macpherson described ActionSA as ‘nothing other than an attention-seeking organisation with dubious motives’. 

He said ActionSA seemed to be always working on distracting him whenever he fights corruption, for reasons he did not understand. 

“It was in January of this year that they called for me to be suspended after they tried to push claims that I bribed journalists in relation to the exposes being written about the IDT (Independent Development Trust), and now they come up with bogus claims of racism, just as we have concluded the investigation into IDT. 

“Their agenda is very clear: to attack and discredit me so that I back off investigating corruption and maladministration in the department,” said Macpherson. 

bongani.hans@inl.co.za

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