Presidency responds to calls for Ramaphosa to step aside
Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s criticism of President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to a spokesperson for the presidency Vincent Magwenya, is a reflection of her own performance.
“It’s a fact that some people might blame the president for their own failings. When a member of the president’s team claims that the president has failed, they may very well be projecting their own failure within the team rather than necessarily the president’s, Magwenya said. The president doesn’t work alone, he works with a team of people.
Magwenya was responding to a query regarding calls for Ramaphosa to step aside pending the conclusion of the probe into the Phala Phala scandal during his weekly media briefings in Cape Town.
In an interview with the SABC, Sisulu stated that Ramaphosa should step aside until his name has been cleared in accordance with the ANC’s resolution.
She reportedly said: “I am uncomfortable with the way it is applied and I would propose as we go into the next conference anybody who we feel has serious allegations against them should step aside.
“For instance, the Phala Phala situation for me would need that until everyone is very satisfied that there is nothing wrong or criminal about it. But as long as it hangs on the president, it hangs on everybody else as well. It is not fair to us, it is not fair to the president either.”
Members of the cabinet, according to Magwenya, have a direct route to the president and report to him directly.
It is “anticipated professional decorum,” he continued, “that they will bring those concerns directly to the president should they have any worries about their work, the president, and the situation of various topics regarding the country.”
“That does seem to break from the expected and well-established decorum of the working relationship,” Magwenya said about calls made on public platforms and in the media.
The spokesperson of the Presidency responded to the question of whether Ramaphosa feels undermined by his staff and plans to take action against them by saying that “any member within [the cabinet] that steps out of the established decorum, that behaviour is more of a reflection on them than it is on the president.” No member of the president’s cabinet has ever received public criticism from him.
If Ramaphosa has issues with his ministers’ performance, he brings them up in private, he claimed.
“The president is not naive or oblivious to the reality that we are in a time of contestations within the ruling party and so different persons in their capacity within the governing party will choose to exercise their rights in any form or manner,” the statement reads.
You would expect cabinet ministers to know better that we allow the investigations to be completed before any declarations are made, according to Magwenya, who stated that the Phala Phala farm scandal was under investigation.
The president does not feel undermined since he is aware of the dynamics, the speaker said, adding that the calls “may be viewed as noise that is generally there.”
When asked if Ramaphosa had submitted his response to the section 89 independent panel of experts, who gave him 10 days to address any provided information (from October 28 to November 6), Magwenya responded that the president will do so on Sunday.
“In accordance with the panel’s established guidelines, the president will present his submission to the inquiry panel by November 6th. The president will abide by that date and those procedures because they do not allow for direct, in-person contact.
Ramaphosa’s submission’s specifics would be made public after the panel finished its work.