Staying put: Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is under pressure from some political parties to resign over the VAT drama and the national budget. (Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Cyril Ramaphosa is apparently making way for Thembi Nkadimeng to take over as cooperative governance minister, replacing Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
This is according to insiders as Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel was sworn in as an MP on Monday morning.
Sources told the Mail & Guardian that Ramaphosa has already put forward Nkadimeng’s name to the ANC’s top brass. She is currently the deputy minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
Insiders with intimate knowledge of the negotiations said Patel’s last-minute swearing in as an MP was intended to make way for Nkadimeng, who is also not a member of parliament. The president can only appoint two non-parliamentarians to his cabinet.
The two insiders, who are high-ranking ANC members, told the M&G that although Dlamini Zuma was likely to be moved from her portfolio, Ramaphosa would not remove her from his cabinet.
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. (Photo by Luiz Rampelotto/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Dlamini Zuma might instead be appointed as the minister of public administration, a position that has been vacant for close to a year.
ANC insiders believe Nkadimeng has the skills to replace Dlamini Zuma. A third ANC national executive committee (NEC) member who spoke to the M&G said Nkadimeng had a wealth of experience that she would bring to the role.
“You need someone that understands local government. There hasn’t been any minister before who understands local government like she does. She knows the length and breath of this country,” they said.
Nkadimeng was appointed to Ramaphosa’s executive in August 2021. She was previously the mayor of Polokwane and served in that position from 2014 until her appointment as deputy minister. Before that she was president of the South African Local Government Association.
With the announcement of the energy state of disaster, the cooperative governance minister will have a close relationship with the new minister of electricity, the ANC leaders said.
“We need to fix the local government, potholes and spending infrastructure. Local government must go to the minister of electricity to say you must put transformers in municipalities and locations to mitigate load-shedding. This ministry must have someone who knows the ins and outs of local government,” the NEC member said.
When Ramaphosa announced a national state of disaster in response to the unrelenting power crunch during his State of the Nation address, he said he was appointing a minister of electricity in the presidency to focus exclusively on ending load-shedding.
The M&G has it on good authority that Ramaphosa has placed his infrastructure czar, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, as the top candidate for the electricity ministry.
Finance Minister Enoch Godogwana, who was sworn in as an MP last week, is believed to have been making way for the electricity minister.
Other cabinet ministers whom the party insiders are speculating might be on the way out include Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Public Works Minister Patricia de Lille. The ANC leaders said Ramaphosa would be “foolish” to retain De Lille, leader of the Good Party which has sided with the opposition at local government level.
They said if she was ousted, this would create room for one of the three ANC officials recently sworn in as MPs. In February, former KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala, former Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau and ANC second deputy secretary Maropeni Ramokgopa were said to be destined for cabinet positions.
Another open cabinet post that will need to be filled is that of former cabinet minister Fikile Mbalula who resigned last week because he was elected secretary general of the ANC.
The three ANC officials could be destined to fill those positions. The M&G previously wrote that Ramokgopa, who was Ramaphosa’s international relations adviser, was the leading contender to replace Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele.
There is still murmur among ANC leaders that Gungubele, who led the charge for Ramokgopa to become the faction’s choice for deputy secretary general, is on the chopping block or will be moved to another ministry.
Ramokgoba’s position as Ramaphosa’s adviser also makes her the most eligible to head up the international relations ministry.
Although Gungubele is a loyal ally of Ramaphosa, his actions — along with some other ANC leaders — annoyed the party president in the lead up to the ANC elective conference at Nasrec in December, insiders said.
Meanwhile ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile is said to be ready to take an office at the Union Building’s west wing offices. Those close to Mashatile have been frustrated by Ramaphosa’s delay in appointing him as his deputy in government. Ramaphosa has been rumoured to have made moves against appointing Mashatile to the post.
In February, the presidency confirmed that Ramaphosa had requested that deputy president David Mabuza remain in his position until the modalities of his departure and transition had been finalised. This was after Mabuza made public during a family funeral that he was ready to leave office.
The insiders say Ramaphosa has shown his incompetence as a leader by delaying the cabinet reshuffle since he was reelected as ANC president in December. They say both Ramaphosa and his advisers have made shortsighted blunders in the past two months.
One of the leaders said part of Ramaphosa’s plan was to bring in David Makhura but this floundered over failure to place the former Gauteng premier on the province to national list.
Makhura has now been deployed to Luthuli House as the head of political education.
Ramaphosa’s reshuffle will probably draw the line in a battle for control for the future of the ANC. Although the party has five years to prepare for its next elective conference, there is already talk of who will take over from Ramaphosa.
This could happen sooner rather than later, should Ramaphosa be found wanting by state agencies investigating the Phala Phala scandal.
The controversy brought Ramaphosa to the brink of resignation last year after a panel headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo concluded that he had a case to answer on four charges contained in an impeachment motion tabled by the African Transformation Movement (ATM), and recommended that he faced an impeachment inquiry.
The report was eventually rejected by the National Assembly after ANC MPs closed ranks around the president. But the ATM has filed court papers asking that the vote be set aside because the speaker acted “irrationally” when the speaker refused an opposition request for a secret ballot.
The charges in the impeachment motion echoed those the two-seat opposition party formulated in its complaint to the public protector.
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