Steenhuisen's challenge to Ramaphosa: A look at the DA's role in the GNU

IOL News

2 days ago

DA leader John Steenhuisen says the DA would vote against budgets of the departments that are led by ministers that are allegedly corrupt.
Image: Henk Kruger / Independent Newspapers
Without the DA, the government will continue to function as the ANC will invite other parties, which are represented in parliament, to join the Government of National Unity (GNU).
In anticipation that the DA might quit, political analyst Tessa Dooms said even if the DA were to leave the 10-party GNU, the ANC would bring in eight other parties to replace it.
Addressing the press briefing in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon, it became clear that DA leader John Steenhuisen had no intention to announce the party's departure from the GNU.
'If the ANC wants to kick the DA out for fighting against corruption, well, so be it,' said Steenhuisen.
The DA had on Thursday reacted harshly to President Cyril Ramaphosa removing its MP, Andrew Whitfield, as the Trade, Industry and Competition deputy minister on Wednesday. In a statement, Steenhuisen threatened the GNU.
He called on Ramaphosa to replace Whitfield with a capable DA MP, who can continue to deliver and service the department.
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However, Steenhuisen announced that the party would no longer participate in the National Dialogue, which Ramaphosa launched to unite the country after last year's national elections.
Steenhuisen challenged Ramaphosa to prove that he was not acting in bias against Whitfied by also removing ANC's Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane, Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, and Water and Sanitation deputy minister David Mahlobo whom he accused of underperforming and corruption.
While the DA will remain in the GNU, Steenhuisen said it would protest against corruption by voting against the budget votes of the departments that are led by alleged corrupt ministers.
'The second and critical step that the DA is taking is to vote against upcoming departmental budget votes for the departments headed by Simelane, Nkabane, and other ANC accused ministers.
'We will keep voting against those budget votes until those ministers are removed,' said Steenhuisen.
'As long as ANC members implicated in corruption remain as members of the executive, the DA will not support the departmental budget,' Steenhuisen said.
He called on the ANC to urgently change the way it engages with its coalition partners and also fight corruption and grow the economy.
'We are demanding that the dialogue should not proceed until President Ramaphosa fires ANC corrupt individuals in the national executive.
Political analysts had already predicted that the DA would not leave the GNU as it was enjoying some powers.
Dooms said Ramaphosa fired Whitfield, knowing that the DA was powerless to break the GNU.
'It is very unlikely that the DA would leave because the opportunity to have as many ministerial roles, positions and power right now is one that they are not ready to give up.
'Or, they can say that they won't vote with the ANC in parliament,' said Dooms.
University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) political analyst, Sakhile Hadebe, was also of the view that the GNU was something that could not be easily collapsed.
'The survival of GNU can be threatened by something huge [that] I can't imagine right now, not firing disobedient Dep Ministers.
'DA enjoys sizable power in that GNU, they are not just helping the ANC to govern,' he said.
Another UKZN political analyst, Zakhele Ndlovu's concern was not concerned about how long the GNU would last.
'We should be worried that the inability of the GNU to forge cooperation comes at a significant cost,' he said.
Ndlovu said the GNU's resilience has gone through a lot of tests and survived disagreements on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, the National Health Insurance Act, the Expropriation Act, and the budget impasse in its first year.
'It appears that GNU partners are still learning the art of cooperation, compromise, negotiation, and accountability, to name a few,' said Ndlovu.
The DA's spokesperson Willie Aucump said that if the decision to fire Whitfield was not protested, it would set a bad precedent for ANC, using Ramaphosa to fire its members from the cabinet for minor offences.
Ramaphosa fired Whitfield for breaching the Ministerial Handbook by taking a trip to the United States of America on behalf of the DA without the president's approval.
Ahead of the trip early this year, Whitfield wrote to Ramaphosa on February 12 requesting approval, but Ramaphosa did not respond to the request, leading to him leaving the country unauthorised and apologising on his return.
'What if next week the ANC becomes fed up with Dr. Leon Schreiber being minister of Home Affairs, Siviwe Gwarube being minister of Basic Education, and the president then gets instructions from his party to fire them?
'We cannot have ministers working with an axe behind their necks that they might be fired by the president anytime,' said Aucamp.
He said that although the constitution empowers the president to hire and fire ministers and deputies at will without having to explain, there was another decision that he should take into consideration when he makes decisions, 'because the ANC is not governing alone anymore.'
'They are a minority party, and they have partners within this NGU that he needs to consult with as he has to respect the Statement of Intent that his party signed when the GNU was formed,' he said.
He said the fact that the president ignored Steenhuisen's request for permission to communicate with his party before Whitfield was fired showed that Ramaphosa was undermining the GNU partnership.
The DA believes that the underlying reason for Whitfied was that he was opposed to certain lucrative tenders, including the lottery contract, which was worth R7 billion, being awarded to politically connected people.
The DA believed that Ramaphosa deliberately ignored Whitfield's letter requesting permission.
'Ten days went by without getting a reply from the president, and on every single one of those 10 days, Whitfield followed up with the office of the president and the president and he did not get a reply.
'If the president did not want him to go, why didn't the president just write him a letter saying, 'I do not grant you permission to travel overseas?'
'Why does the president ignore a request letter from a member of the executive? The deputy minister did what he was supposed to do.
'One would have expected the office of the president to be more efficient and reply to the deputy minister,' said Aucamp.
When asked why Ramaphosa failed to grant or deny the traveling permission, his spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said, 'That's not the issue.'
'He did not have permission to travel, period. If the President felt his trip was a government priority, he would have responded in the affirmative.
'It doesn't hold that just because you did not get a response in the time you expected it, then you can go against the rule,' said Magwenya.
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