By: Likhaya Ngqezana
Editor of City Press Mondli Makhanya on November 6 published a column that referred to a specific Cabinet meeting and its details. While the details concerning the Umgeni Board dissolution in legal findings of two court cases are in the public domain and was entertained by the Cabinet as an agenda item, Makhanya somehow determined to conflate Cabinet administrative and governing issues with an ANC organisational presidential contest process. His headline “Will Sisulu’s bloodied nose fuel a presidential challenge?” With this byline, Makhanya endeavoured to share the details of a Cabinet meeting, at least from some insider views.
The centre of his article had the current serving Minister of Tourism, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, as suffering a bloodied nose inflicted by her fellow Cabinet members since the Cabinet opted to stand with the decision of the High Court.
Whatever the motivation for the column perhaps remains the right in convictions of the author. One may, however, only speculate on the motivation for such. Perhaps we must ask, was this the first time there was a difference in opinion between Cabinet members? If so, what made this one so unique that it needed Makhanya’s column? Why is Makhanya reading into the meeting agenda item and its outcomes a bloody nose, or was someone told how Sisulu’s stance was dealt with? Is Makhanya a victim of the analysis of the result of the recent election? is he (Makhanya) acknowledging the presence of Sisulu in the public narrative of a contestant for December 2022? Or is it part of his unnatural obsession with Sisulu, desperately seeking her attention again?
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If Makhanya or the Cabinet members that fed him the story had taken the time to appreciate the longevity of Minister Sisulu’s presence in Cabinet and the versatility of the portfolios she had served in, he/they would have known the narrative of her attempting to rule from the grave of a Water and Human Settlements Department, could simply not stand. Throughout her privileged years of having served diverse portfolios in different times under different leadership, we must know if the Minister ever saw a need to discuss Cabinet matters with the public or to evidence and overreach into other departments.
We can understand the Umgeni Water Board case in either cheap politics or principled stances. With a principled stance, I mean Sisulu is a servant of South Africa and its constitution in which the people of South Africa and their interests weigh heavier than anything else.
One’s understanding of the Umgeni Water Board issue is that the Minister at the time dissolved the Board as was her prerogative. The former board members took the dissolution of the Board to the High Court, and the High Court ruled in their favour citing ‘irrationality’ and ‘legality’ challenges as primary reasons. The Minister then determined to appeal the findings of the High Court, which is constitutionally provided for as an everyday practice. Unfortunately, the appeal transpired when she had shifted from Water and Human Settlements to Tourism.
This act on her part to exercise such right constitutes a principled one. Understanding it in this sense leaves no space for sensationalising. Cognisant of such principled position, had I been the Minister, I would express discomfort and grave reservations that Cabinet meetings through this incident appear no more protected by the dictates its members as privileged have sworn allegiance.
Furthermore, this article presents another challenge, namely a forced narrative engineered in the conflation of Cabinet administrative matters and ANC presidential campaigning that we all know are mutually exclusive. Makhanya makes this conflation in ease of comfort, less in the astuteness of appreciation that Cabinet meetings, like all other meetings at times, detail opposing views in which positions can be adopted. One may ask why Makhanya prefers this meeting specifically to engage the issue of ANC future contests. Ordinarily, the judiciary, which details another arm of the State, will show flawed legal advice and proffer how to remedy such. It is not an automatic order that the courts dictate the decisions of another arm of the State.
In its recent engaging of the Umgeni Water Board High-Court ruling that details its decision, Cabinet decided to abide by the court’s ruling and thus, in my assessment, did so less in pursuit of transparency and justice but perhaps in choice subservience allowing the court to dictate to the executive on its decisions. That is the issue that legal and constitutional minds must engage. Did Cabinet with this decision render it subservient to court rulings as a principle or in a sense of political convenience? I am no jurist, so I do not know the answer, yet I have reason to suspect that there are grounds for a claim that the executive as an arm of State allowed judicial overreach.
Perhaps the last concern Makhanya’s column exposes, namely the lack of protection of Cabinet members. We can comfortably accept that meetings generally evidence at times natural disagreement as is permitted in the specific platform devoid of any malicious or hostile intentions. Makhanya warrants helping us appreciate why this particular meeting out of hundreds needed to adopt a claim of a ‘bloody nose’ as served by an apparent ‘mob’ of fellow Cabinet members on one of its own. Makhanya also has to help us with his decision to confuse Cabinet administrative issues with ANC elections for a future president in replacing the incumbent. I am less wise about how he makes these links.
Perhaps more disconcerting is that no Cabinet secretary or the president issued any rebuke to its members and Makhanya for this leak. Is this because factionalism a living reality dictates Cabinet in functional reality.
In my understanding Cabinet necessitates a safe space where contrarian views, sensitive information, and critical issues are engaged with the central interest of SA and its constitution, not factional gerrymandering. Hence, we must advocate for its administrative and governance dimensions to be at all times protected. Equally so, all its members must be assured in the protection of a safe space informed by equality and fairness as fundamental tenets.
Lastly, it is a given that Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, in 2017, was one of seven candidates who accepted nominations from legitimate ANC structures to contest for the presidency of the 54th African National Congress elective conference. Meaning her 2017 acceptance of a nomination from ANC structures as permissible by the organisation is a historical fact and matter of public knowledge. Therefore, it can be deduced when such opportunity in the future registers again that she, like all others, in humility, will answer that call in that same tradition.
Maybe Cabinet members who volunteered the information to Makhanya are the ones with a bloody nose because they exposed how factional they are in being willing to contaminate an institution that must concern itself with fixing SA. If Makhanya was himself not factional, he would as led by his journalistic ethos seek to demystify the perception that the 54th ANC Conference was stolen as publicly stated by Tokyo Sexwale.
Likhaya Ngqezana (Former Water and Sanitation NRTT Deputy Chair, under Minister Sisulu)
