Tourism Minister and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Lindiwe Sisulu yesterday said President Cyril Ramaphosa should have listened to his instincts and resigned over the Phala Phala scandal.
Instead, those who enjoy patronage from the president convinced him to stay on and fight the scandal, to protect their own jobs, Sisulu said.
Sisulu was speaking to political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe in a Press Club South Africa discussion.
Sisulu said she had been locked out of the National Assembly before Tuesday’s crucial vote on the Section 89 independent panel report which found prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa may have violated the Constitution.
She said that on Tuesday, her intention was to vote for the adoption of the motion when she received a message that she and former health minister Zweli Mkhize were being targeted and the suggestion was that they not vote.
“I left the National Assembly to find out what this message was about and by the time I returned the doors had been closed.
“I thought, either way, it does not matter. The ANC was held by the scruff of the neck to vote the way that it voted and it was wrong.
“A threat was made about losing your job, not over your own integrity but over something that the president should be responding to. You are saying to people who have been representing the ANC for a very long time that if you don’t vote in a particular way, you are going to be kicked out of your job.”
Asked about her reaction when the scandal broke, Sisulu said she was shocked.
“We have experienced Phala Phala and whether we like it or not several very important laws have been broken.”
Sisulu said she believed that Ramaphosa’s first instinct was to resign.
“But it was the people around him, I believe, who are dependent on him and his patronage that said what about us… we are sitting with a situation where a group of people are holding the whole country and its integrity to task.
“How it happened is an example of how you can erode the very essence of the integrity of any economy.
“We should have allowed Comrade Cyril to resign and we should have investigated the matter to make sure that it doesn’t ever happen again,” said Sisulu.
She said instead there had been cover-up after cover-up.
Sisulu said she believed that if former spy boss Arthur Fraser had not revealed that there was hidden money stolen from Ramaphosa’s farm, then the latter would have not revealed the presence of a large sum of foreign currency and that it had been stolen.
“I never would have thought that I would be here talking about Comrade Cyril and money stashed at Phala Phala. That is not how I associate his position and his relationship with society.”
Sisulu questioned why the law-enforcement authorities (NPA, Hawks, SARS, SARB) were so slow in dealing with the matter.
“Why is there no uproar like we saw with Nkandla. Here again we have something out of this world happening and the hype is not at the same level.
“Because there are people beholden to the president and feel they are protected by him whereas when Comrade Zuma was facing the Nkandla scandal he was possibly on his way out. We need as the ANC to look at our own integrity, examine what level of integrity is required of a Member of Parliament, and have checks and balances so we can retain some level of trust from our people,” said Sisulu.
On allegations that she had deliberately walked away from Tuesday’s parliamentary session where the ANC, the majority party in the National Assembly voted against continuing with the impeachment process, Sisulu said the saga started at last week’s NEC meeting where she, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Zweli Mkhize were aggrieved with how national chairperson Gwede Mantashe had dealt with the matter.
The NEC had declared that ANC MPs should not vote in favour of the Section 89 independent panel report and Mantashe at the weekend told a national newspaper that any ANC MP who went against party guidelines would be expelled from the party.
“His sole purpose was to protect President Cyril at all costs. We wanted to make sure that when it gets to Parliament, that it is a free vote, unfettered by anybody. We wanted to give our own views on the matter but the decision was taken that it would be an open vote and along party lines. We were beside ourselves with shock.”
Sisulu said it was a manufactured decision, discussed outside of the NEC and imposed on them for a particular reason.
“We were informed that anyone who does not toe the party line would be out of a job. We were vigorously opposed to the manner in which the matter was being managed, and it was managed.
“It got so heated, we were very worried about the exchange between Zweli Mkhize and Mantashe.”