MARIANNE MERTEN: History rewritten for a show of presidential power

Given that the DA’s Andrew Whitfield was sacked by presidential prerogative four months after his supposed transgression, it might be worth the DA going to court to test whether travelling without express presidential permission based on a cabinet rule and protocol is actually a fireable offence.

In September 2020, then defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula received a presidential reprimand and was docked three months’ salary for allowing non-state actors — ANC party officials — to hitch a lift on a military plane to Zimbabwe. According to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement at the time, the minister’s “error in judgment” was contrary to good governance and meant she “failed to adhere to legal prescripts warranting care in use of state resources”.

It amounts to historical revisionism to claim Whitfield’s sacking follows a precedent set by former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Both of their actions were far from uncontroversial, as is Ramaphosa’s today — the DA believes its deputy minister was sacked for asking uncomfortable questions about the controversial new multibillion-rand Lotto deal.

Strictly speaking, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela resigned as deputy arts, culture, science & technology minister at a media briefing on April 17 1995, a day before her by-the-book dismissal became effective. She had taken her initial March 27 1995 dismissal to court, which overturned it because of Mandela’s failure to consult his government of national unity (GNU) partners, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and NP leader FW de Klerk. That’s why Ramaphosa had a chat with DA leader John Steenhuisen before sacking Whitfield.

Mandela didn’t say precisely why he sacked Madikizela-Mandela, only that the decision was “taken both in the interest of good government and to ensure the highest standards of discipline among leading officials in the government of national unity”.

Nothing about travel.

Domestic and international news reports at the time referred to “controversies” and Madikizela-Mandela’s criticism of the ANC government for failing the people. In February 1995 she had to officially apologise for comments she made at the funeral of Soweto warrant officer Jabulani Xaba, who was killed by white police colleagues.

In the background lurked a trip to West Africa. Mandela Foundation online documents set out how then deputy president Mbeki had told Madikizela-Mandela not to travel, but she wrote to Mandela insisting it was important to go as initially agreed, and then just went.

Then on August 11 2007, Mbeki fired deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. Travel featured — an HIV/Aids seminar in Madrid the deputy minister eventually did not attend. But crucially, the presidential pink slip released after widespread public outcry also raised the deputy health minister’s “inability to work as part of a collective”.

Madlala-Routledge spearheaded SA’s HIV/Aids antiretroviral treatment strategy amid Mbeki’s Aids denialism and health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s garlic, lemon and beetroot remedy. A Lancet medical journal editorial asked whether Mbeki had served SA’s interests by firing “this much respected deputy health minister, and the possibility that this act could signal government’s backtracking on a national Aids treatment strategy”.

So, citing these precedents is inappropriate at best, in bad faith at worst. But the Whitfield debacle does raise pertinent questions over the capacity, willingness and effectiveness of a president who, for the past seven years, has centralised power in the Union Buildings. Whether due to inability, unwillingness or incompetence, paralysis and delay bedevils governance across the board.

Presidential travel request approvals are the least of our worries. Ramaphosa seems unable to co-ordinate signing a new law with proclaiming its starting date, leaving legislation in limbo — on the statute book, but not in force, like the National Health Insurance Act, the expropriation law and others. Yet unlike approving travel requests, this is a president’s constitutional duty.

• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.