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Phala Phala: Ramaphosa leaves ANC NEC meeting as SACC calls for ‘soberly’ discussions
The ANC's national executive committee is deliberating on Phala Phala report.
Presidential security at a meeting by the ANC NEC at Nasrec on 2 December 2022. Picture: Neil McCartney
President Cyril Ramaphosa has once again recused himself from an ANC meeting as the ruling party’s leadership discusses his future.
With some ANC members picketing outside the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg, the governing party’s national executive committee (NEC) is currently deliberating on Ramaphosa’s fate amid the Phala Phala scandal.
This follows an independent panel’s finding, in its report, that there was prima facie evidence that the president may have breached the Constitution relating to his handling of the Phala Phala farm robbery.
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Ramaphosa has since left the NEC meeting after he made remarks to the ANC officials.
“The president asked to be recused and the NEC accepted the request. He has thus left the NEC now. As per the party norm when you are subject of discussion, you are recused from the meeting and that’s what has happened with the president,” ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe told the media in a briefing on Monday.
The president had also recused himself from Sunday’s National Working Committee (NWC) meeting, which resolved that ANC members in Parliament should vote against the panel’s report.
The South African Council of Churches (SACC) called on the NEC to conduct Monday’s meeting in a “soberly” state, Jacaranda News reported.
“We are aware of the governing party’s national executive committee meeting today and would urge the party to debate these matters soberly, listening to one another in the national interests, without regarding each other just from a factional viewpoint,” the council said on Monday.
“Furthermore, we need the investigations of the justice system and the parliamentary process to be conducted satisfactorily without undue further delay.”
Secret ballot vote
In other news, National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has declined a request to have the Phala Phala report voted by secret ballot.
The African Transformation Movement (ATM), which filed the Section 89 motion against Ramaphosa, had requested a secret ballot vote last week.
“In her letter to the ATM president, the Speaker said she believes that a closed voting procedure will deprive the citizens of identifying the positions of their representatives across party lines and that this may facilitate the possibility of corruption aimed at influencing members to vote in a manner where they will be shielded from accountability to the people they represent for the exercise of their constitutional duty,” Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said in a statement on Monday.
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“An open and transparent procedure followed by the Assembly to exercise this important decision on the Section 89 independent panel report, can only bring about public trust and confidence in the Assembly and our democratic dispensation.”
A majority of 201 votes is needed when voting takes place in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Mapisa-Nqakula rejected ATM’s request for a secret ballot vote when the party tabled a motion of no confidence against Ramaphosa in March this year.
DA motion
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) submitted its motion seeking to have Parliament dissolved, which could trigger an early election.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Monday that President Cyril Ramaphosa had lost his legitimacy and mandate to continue serving as the leader of the country.
Ramaphosa has faced widespread calls for his resignation even that some of his Cabinet ministers including Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Lindiwe Sisulu have called on the president to step aside over the Phala Phala matter.
The president is expected to take the Section 89 panel’s report on review at the Constitutional Court (ConCourt).
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