ANC NEC turns against Sisulu

Committee demands decisive action against ‘unacceptable’ dissent by minister

● Tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu came under fire at the ANC’s national executive committee meeting this weekend, with the party’s highest decision-making structure siding overwhelmingly with President Cyril Ramaphosa in the battle over her criticism of the constitution and the judiciary.

The outcome of the NEC meeting exerts further pressure on Ramaphosa to axe Sisulu after she implied that he had lied about the conclusion of a meeting between the two of them. Ramaphosa had said after the meeting that Sisulu had apologised for the controversial remarks about the judiciary.

There is growing impatience among Ramaphosa’s backers, who want him to act decisively against Sisulu instead of taking a more circumspect approach.

Yesterday, ANC alliance partner Cosatu came down hard on Sisulu, with the labour federation’s president, Zingisa Losi, telling the NEC Lekgotla her behaviour was unacceptable.

“We deploy members to represent the movement, not themselves, in government. Their mandate is the ANC’s election manifesto.

“Yet we are now subject to persons who swore an oath to defend the constitution, running to the media to rubbish the very constitution this movement of Madiba drafted,” Losi said.

“It is unacceptable and unbecoming for senior leaders and cabinet members to attack the constitution. The failure of the ANC to discipline deployees is feeding a culture of mediocrity.

“In fact we are seen to reward and promote those who have been found wanting. If comrades are tired, then they must leave. As we emerge from a decade of state capture, we cannot tolerate ANC public representatives publicly attacking our constitution.”

On Friday at an ordinary NEC meeting, former tourism minister Derek Hanekom is said to have called for Sisulu to be dragged before the party’s integrity commission for undermining the president. This call was seconded by ANC Veterans League president Snuki Zikalala.

Sisulu’s ally Tony Yengeni came to her defence, but NEC members the Sunday Times spoke to said the overwhelming sentiment at the meeting was that action should be taken against Sisulu by the ANC and by Ramaphosa.

“Derek Hanekom raised the issue about her conduct and that it’s not helping the situation, and she must be referred to the integrity committee over her public spats with the president,” said one NEC member.

Another said the consensus of the meeting was that Ramaphosa had no choice but to act against Sisulu.

“We made it very clear to the president that she has crossed the line, and also she called the president a liar, so action must be taken against her in government,” the NEC member said.

“She serves in cabinet at the behest of the president. It’s not the ANC that appointed her but the president. He doesn’t bring a list of ministers to the NEC and say, ‘I want to appoint so-and-so.’ We just said he must take action. Let him decide what action he takes.

“This matter does not deserve any leniency because the minister dares you as the president. Like in any employment [relationship], if you go and challenge your boss, the boss [will] tell you to pack your things and go because he’s the boss, he’s the one in charge.”

Approached for comment yesterday, Sisulu said by text message: “No… the media has completely complicated this matter to make it sensational . The ANC will hopefully release a statement [on] Monday . Don't fall into [the] trap of believing gossip . It might sell newspapers but the truth should always be important for you. So wait until you are better informed.”

According to government officials familiar with the matter, at his meeting with Sisulu on Wednesday, Ramaphosa referred to previous occasions on which she had appeared to be undermining his authority.

These included her decision to move Mbulelo Tshangana from the position of director-general in the department of water & sanitation to the department of human settlements; and her attempts to have deputy minister David Mahlobo moved from water & sanitation by swapping him with deputy minister of human settlements Pam Tshwete.

Presidency insiders said there was also unhappiness in the Union Buildings about her comments in March last year that a claim by Tokyo Sexwale about vote-buying at the

ANC 2017 leadership conference — which elected Ramaphosa as party president — should be investigated.

Government insiders said Sisulu interpreted the raising of these issues at the meeting as a sign that the president was building a case against her, and therefore she responded as she did to the apology statement.

A Sisulu aide said she was also irked that presidency officials had quoted her directly in the statement without consulting her or her office.

“The onus is on the president to prove that she said what they quoted in their statement. If Cyril says the minister must apologise, like when he told Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams to apologise publicly for breaching Covid-19 regulations, then he should have said so,” the aide said.

“There should have been a joint statement on the meeting and so that’s what made her angry. Why would the guy go and issue a statement on her behalf that she must apologise for something that never happened?”

Asked if there was a recording of the meeting between Sisulu and Ramaphosa, her spokesman Steve Motale said such questions should be directed at Mondli Gungubele, the minister in the presidency.

The Sunday Times has learnt that Sisulu’s allies approached members of Ramaphosa’s inner circle to appeal for an amicable solution to the row. But a Ramaphosa aide said the saga had gone too far for them to find each other.

“The matter will be handled by the national working committee now because the NEC has proposed that she appears before the integrity committee. Government processes will then unfold in the coming days,” said one insider.

Sisulu is believed to be planning to challenge Ramaphosa for the position of ANC president at the party’s December elective conference. But few NEC members spoke up for her at the NEC meeting. Even Yengeni’s remarks, though “spirited”, were confined to her right to state her views.

An NEC member sympathetic to Sisulu said her “only crime” was to do “what South Africans normally do — if you have an idea or an opinion, you raise it”.

However, a senior cabinet minister said Sisulu went against the principles of the ANC.

“That constitution was largely created by the ANC,” the minister said.

“Secondly, the ANC as a governing party, whatever its weaknesses, its main responsibility is to safeguard the constitution. Thirdly, Lindiwe herself has sworn allegiance to the constitution both as an MP and as a minister. Fourthly, when this constitution was drafted, she was part of the people who drafted [it].

“That is what we were raising, that the ANC has to maintain that posture of protecting the constitution and protecting the judges.”

But independent analyst Susan Booysen, a professor at the Wits School of Governance, said Ramaphosa should be wary of firing Sisulu.

“His best option is a very boring one of keeping her in this minor, humiliated position in government,” she said.

“Tactically, it’s a good option because if he makes [a] sideways movement he is going to encounter huge resistance from either side. The fact that she is inside means that the scrutiny on her is much higher and she is subjected to the same scrutiny as the RET [radical economic transformation] faction.” University of Johannesburg professor Mcebisi Ndletyana said Ramaphosa had not shown any inclination to fire Sisulu.

“Instead he seems to have instructed her to apologise. But of course it is not in her interest to apologise because she has set herself up to be the defiant one, and a supposed champion of the downtrodden who are being betrayed by the law and the ANC,” he said.

“As the defiant one, you are not supposed to shrink in the face of a presidential instruction, you are supposed to continue being defiant because that is what you purport to be. That is why she has taken this defiance dance further, defying the president, which are all grounds to get fired.”

Ndletyana said Ramaphosa suspected that if he fired her, Sisulu would “use the old trick of being a victim of abuse of power … That is the outcome she is looking at, which you can distort. The president has decided not to give her that weapon.”