By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Tourism minister and ANC presidential hopeful Lindiwe Sisulu says for the sake of the ANC and the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa must resign.
In the City Press interview Sisulu accuses Ramaphosa of having secured the party’s presidency in 2017 through “money, manipulation and misrepresentation, aided and abetted by external forces on a level not previously experienced in the ANC.”
“The assessment of leadership with [Cyril Ramaphosa] as the head sees a dysfunctional ANC in all regards. Under this leadership, the ANC disbanded all its leagues … The organisation finds itself in the intensive care unit.”
Sisulu suggested this week that Ramaphosa had fired her as Minister of International Relations in 2019 because she implemented an ANC decision he didn’t like – to downgrade South Africa’s embassy in Israel to a mere ”liaison office”.
It took until April 2019 before Sisulu implemented the downgrade decision. The Jewish community reacted vociferously. A few months later, Ramaphosa shuffled his Cabinet and moved Sisulu to tourism.
“I felt very punished by the government standing back when the Jewish community was complaining,” Sisulu told the SABC this week. “My own government did not come up to support me.”
Asked if she had ever raised the issue with Ramaphosa, Sisulu said she had not, but added that it must have been obvious to Ramaphosa she was being “punished” merely for implementing ANC policy.
“I expected him to come to my rescue. [But] I was left dangling alone.”
Sisulu said she had never asked Ramaphosa why he had shuffled her to tourism as he had the right to choose his own Cabinet.
Minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele has lashed out at Sisulu saying her public comments about Ramaphosa were “disgusting” and “irresponsible” lies.
According to Gungubele, Sisulu should have been fired long ago but Ramaphosa has calculated that doing so would make her the centre of attention.
Gungubele’s comments come after Sisulu’s string of comments calling for Ramaphosa’s head, criticising his leadership style and even accusing him of firing her as foreign minister for downgrading the Israel embassy to a liaison office.
The decision to downgrade the Israeli embassy was a resolution of the 2017 ANC Nasrec conference.
According to Gungubele, Ramaphosa could not have fired Sisulu for implementing ANC decisions and such an accusation cannot stand the test of time.
Meanwhile Ramaphosa’s critics, led by presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, on Friday has also called on him to step aside over the Phala Phala farm burglary fiasco.
Leading the charge at the NEC meeting were supporters of the radical economic transformation (RET) faction led by Dlamini-Zuma, former Cosatu president and small business development Deputy Minister Sidumo Dlamini, staunch supporter of former president Jacob Zuma Tony Yengeni and ANC MP Tandi Mahambehlala.
“He gives a report and the next he says he’s been selling these buffaloes for years. Then he says he has declared but he couldn’t explain why he banks his money in the mattress.”
Ramaphosa who is looking to win a second term in December, has been under pressure to publicly explain what happened at his Phala Phala game farm, where cash in foreign currency was stolen during a burglary in 2020.
The details of the burglary were first reported by former spy boss Arthur Fraser, who opened a criminal case against Ramaphosa this year, accusing him of breaching the Prevention of Organised Crime Act by not reporting the burglary.
Denying any wrongdoing again on Friday, Ramaphosa told NEC members that he “could not have known that those at his farm then kept the money in couches and mattresses”.
However, his critics remarked that the scandal has trashed the party’s public image, and that him remaining at the helm, would impede the work of investigative agencies probing Phala Phala.
This weekend’s NEC meeting is the first face-to-face gathering in two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is also the NEC’s last gathering ahead of the party’s national elective conference to be held on 16-20 December at the venue.