Johannesburg - ANC presidential hopeful and national executive member Lindiwe Sisulu has denied that she chickened out during the voting for the Section 89 panel report on the Phala Phala saga in Parliament.
Sisulu and another presidential candidate, Dr Zweli Mkhize, were bashed by social media users for not being in Parliament on Tuesday when voting on the report took place.
In an interview with Professor Sipho Seepe during a series of discussions facilitated by the Press Club South Africa, Sisulu denied being cowardly and indicated that she would have voted for the adoption of the report since she had made her position clear on the matter.
Sisulu said she never intended to run away at all. She said that during the debate she received a message that she and Mkhize were being targeted for expulsion and she then went out to check the content of the message, but when she came back the doors were already locked since the voting had begun.
The tourism minister said she had made it clear that the panel report was a fantastic document and she did not agree with the position taken by the NEC to vote against the report, which she said was not the position of the NEC but was for the individuals who wanted to shield the president for their own interest.
She corroborated Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s version that they were both suppressed and prevented from talking at the NEC by Gwede Mantashe, who was chairing the meeting.
Sisulu added that she again voiced her disagreement with the “NEC” position to vote against the report in the caucus before Parliament debated the matter but was howled down by the party MPs.
“To answer your question, whether I would have voted yes or no for the report, I can tell you that I would have voted the same way I expressed myself during the caucus and NEC meetings,” said Sisulu.
Furthermore, she said as far as she knew the president had already decided to leave but was stopped by people who depended on him who told him not to go, adding the way she trusted Ramaphosa she had never thought she would on a particular day sit and discuss him having put money under a mattress.
She said she believed that had Arthur Fraser not revealed the Phala Phala robbery the president would not have revealed it.
Sisulu also added her voice to the growing list of party leaders who are disagreeing with the president in his utterances that former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure of nine years as the country’s president was a waste. She argued that there were a lot of things Zuma did, among others the introduction of the Department of Veterans.
Daily News