Blame game: Clashes between ministers in the security cluster involve, from left, Ayanda Dlodlo, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Bheki Cele. (David Harrison/M&G)
President Cyril Ramaphosa is unlikely to reshuffle his cabinet anytime soon, even though calls are mounting for him to axe some of his ministers after last week’s wave of violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Those believed to be in the firing line include Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
Mkhize is on special leave and has not been involved in dealing with the unrest, but Ramaphosa is sitting on a report by the Special Investigating Unit, which recommended that “executive action” be taken against the party heavyweight for his alleged involvement in the controversial Digital Vibes health services contract worth about R150-million.
The decision to remove the three ministers is unlikely to happen without the approval of the party’s top officials, ANC sources said.
The acting minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said on Wednesday that the death toll from last week’s wanton looting and violence has risen to 300.
Sources in the governing party say the calls for him to act against ministers said to be at the heart of the government’s lax response to the unrest are valid, but his hands are tied.
Party insiders say Ramaphosa will need the backing of the ANC’s deputy president, David Mabuza, and, by extension, its treasurer general, Paul Mashatile, to remove the three.
Mabuza has been in Russia since for health reasons.
ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte is unlikely to approve the removal of the two women, sources said.
Duarte, along with Dlodlo and Mapisa-Nqakula, were part of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s faction at the 2017 ANC Nasrec conference and have remained loyal allies.
Party insiders say that Ramaphosa will probably opt to shift Dlodlo to a less prominent position.
If he removes Mapisa-Nqakula, Ramaphosa could face further revolt in the 2022 party elective conference, one insider said.
This situation is taking place while the cabinet’s security cluster is fighting an internal battle over who should take responsibility for not quelling the recent unrest, which initially started off as a protest against former president Jacob Zuma’s jailing for contempt of court, before descending into what some initially described as common criminality.
The Mail & Guardian previously reported that the cabinet disagreed on whether the recent violence and looting should be labelled as an insurrection or a crime wave.
According to two well-placed ANC national executive committee (NEC) sources, some members advised Ramaphosa against labelling the recent unrest an insurrection.
The sources said Dlodlo and Mapisa-Nqakula were some of the leaders who disagreed with the label, while Dlodlo’s deputy, Zizi Kodwa, and the head of domestic intelligence branch, Mahlodi Muofhe, agreed with Ramaphosa’s view.
Addressing parliament’s joint standing committee on defence on Sunday evening, Mapisa-Nqakula said the arson and looting were signs of a counter-revolution taking the form of criminality and thuggery.
“There is no coup here; there is no insurrection here,” she told parliament.
Although Mapisa-Nqakula made a U-turn on Wednesday, saying that she had confined her characterisation of the unrest to a counter-revolution, the ANC leaders say she, along with some of her allies in the NEC, do not believe that the recent events were an insurrection but an insurgency.
Party leaders say communication between Ramaphosa and the two security ministers has been non-existent. They say Ramaphosa has been receiving intelligence reports from Muofhe.
The blame game between Dlodlo and Police Minister Bheki Cele has further boosted calls in the governing party for Dlodlo to get the chop, according to party insiders.
Dlodlo is fighting for her place in cabinet after Cele claimed during a meeting of the joint standing committee on defence and the portfolio committee on police that she had not given him any intelligence on the recent unrest.
This is despite Dlodlo’s prior statement that she had given her client, the police, the necessary intelligence.
Cele said: “It is you, the minister, who would have given the product to me. The minister of [state security] could not give the product directly to the other DG [director general]. It would have come to me, and I would have given it to the national commissioner. I want to repeat here that I have never seen that product.”
The to and fro between the ministers is said to have frustrated Ramaphosa.
One party insider said the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng ANC leadership have also called for Ramaphosa to manage his ministers who are “making the situation worse”.
An ANC leader in KwaZulu-Natal said the provincial executive committee was in agreement with Dlodlo and Mapisa-Nqakula’s characterisation of the recent events — that it was not an insurrection or coup — but also believed that it was irresponsible to communicate a message that differed with that of the president.
“What [provincial secretary Mdumiseni] Ntuli did this week with the minister of defence was irresponsible. It puts us in a dangerous place. There is already this narrative that government has been incompetent in its response. We can’t be seen to be contradicting the president’s message. But also what makes this situation worse is the security cluster.
“These instigators are watching and we have already heard that they are planning more attacks. We can’t [be seen] to be unable to manage our affairs. These mixed messages and the blame game put us at a very dangerous position,” the provincial leader said.
Ntuli has been chastised by the provincial officials after he recently stated during an interview with television news channel Newzroom Afrika that calling the unrest an attempted insurrection was an exaggeration, sources said.
Gauteng ANC secretary Jacob Khawe said the unrest was a reaction long suppressed by hunger and poverty that found a way to rise under the Zuma name.
He said the unrest was an act of criminality.
He also said that the slow response to the looting and arson by intelligence demonstrated an incoherence in the State Security Agency and the police.
“We then put it to them to build and restore a proper intelligence system of our country.”
Khawe said the speed at which the government responded to the violence demonstrates the weakness of the government’s leadership.
“The reality is that in separation of the state and the party, we have a government that now prefers to sit in a planning meeting rather than be on the street and doing things,” he said.
“A critical lesson is that we have learnt what we know and we have demonstrated that we don’t have the speed and the capacity,” Khawe said. The political vision is not interpreted, performed and implemented by the political administration, so there is a crisis.”
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