By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) believes there is no public spat between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
Speaking to SABC News, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe refrained from commenting on whether the Sisulu matter has been discussed in the party’s ongoing two-day Lekgotla.
He said the meeting reflected on service delivery, unemployment and economic recovery, among other issues.
“The [ANC] will never convene a meeting to discuss utterances made by individual members out in the public. We have [indicated] that we will issue one consolidated statement at the end of the lekgotla which [will] reflect on the [matters] of the national executive committee [NEC], but also then deals with programmatic interventions that movement would have adopted coming out of the meeting,” he said during the interview.
The ANC’s lekgotla got underway virtually on Saturday following the party’s NEC meeting, which took place on Thursday and Friday.
Pule insisted that the ANC is not going to “feed into a media narrative that suggests a spat”.
“We do not believe that there was a public spat,” the ANC spokesperson said.
Mabe highlighted that the ANC supports the country’s judiciary, adding that every party member was entitled to their own opinion.
“The ANC has already pronounced itself on matters that deal with the judiciary. We support the independence of the judiciary [and] we have actually come out to encourage members that where they have got their views… the organisation has sufficient platforms to allow every member, regardless of their [position in the party], to be able to ventilate on those 77 views,”he continued.
According to reports that NEC members at the meeting have overwhelmingly sided with Ramaphosa, calling on the President to show Sisulu “no leniency.”
Former Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom allegedly called for Sisulu to be summoned before the ANC’s integrity commission for undermining Ramaphosa, although Tony Yengeni came to her defence.
Meanwhile our sources has stated that the ANC’s top six officials has left the Sisulu matter for the national working committee (NWC) to decide whether to escalate it to the NEC.