By: Steve Motale
Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has noted utterances attributed to Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya in his response to her call on President Cyril Ramaphosa to step aside pending the outcome of the investigation into the Phala Phala scandal.
Magwenya was quoted as saying the Phala Phala farm scandal was under investigation and “you would expect cabinet members to know better that we allow the investigations to be concluded before any pronouncements are made.” Bizarrely, Magwenya further claimed Minister Sisulu’s criticism of President Ramaphosa “is a reflection of her own performance”. Before making such outlandish remarks, Magwenya would do well to familiarise himself with Minister Sisulu’s impeccable track record in all government portfolios she has occupied. Her achievements are way too many to mention in a single media statement. In her current portfolio, the Department of Tourism received an unqualified audit for the 2021/22 financial year, with a significant reduction in irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure, as well as improved accountability and better consequence management.
For someone claiming to speak on behalf of the Head of State to ignore this and chose to be a propagandist to boost his principal’s political fortunes is a scandal of monumental proportions. Minister Sisulu wants to put it on record that her criticism of President Ramaphosa is purely motivated by his poor performance as ANC leader. In fact her criticism is not unique. President Ramaphosa’s three predecessors have publicly expressed disappointment with his performance as president of the ANC and the country.
Thus Minister Sisulu finds it strange that Magwenya, in his capacity as President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, can parachute himself into a political party internal matter. One of the primary reasons Minister Sisulu is contesting President Ramaphosa in the upcoming ANC’s elective conference is precisely this dismal performance by President Ramaphosa as head of the ANC that has seen the party disbanding all its leagues representing an essential aspect of its ongoing existence.
The minister deplores that the ANC, as a party under President Ramaphosa’s leadership, has failed to take the adopted resolutions seriously. Under his leadership, the movement finds itself in the proverbial intensive care unit. It is an administration that has entrenched the non-payment of its staff and also an organisation that has shown itself not to care about the plight of its workers. The myriad of clouds hanging over President Ramaphosa’s head are also not doing the ANC any favours and are inflicting incalculable reputational damage on the movement. The president’s personal challenges, in which Phala-Phala farmgate stands central, have almost irreparably damaged the image of the ANC and cannot be treated as a non-issue. To have a sitting president accused of such horrible crimes does not bode well for the ANC. To make matters worse, the president has refused to take the ANC into confidence on this matter, seeing this as his issue, while the ANC suffers undeniable reputational damage for his actions or inactions.
This ANC elective season affords ANC nominees and contenders the privilege of engaging in ANC leaders’ performance with the organisation’s health and mandate as central. Therefore, Magwenya must explain why he, as a government spokesperson, finds comfort in straying into organisational matters on an ANC election, albeit in his capacity of SA’s presidential spokesperson.
Equally, Magwenya is not the spokesperson for Phala-Phala to dictate whether ANC members can engage in it in the organisational context. To mitigate any further damage to the ANC, Minister Sisulu reiterates her call on Ramaphosa to lead by example and step aside, pending the outcome of investigations into the Phala Phala scandal.
*Steve Motale is Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s spokesperson
