LISTEN | DA sponsors no confidence vote for cabinet — but Ramaphosa is safe

The DA has formally tabled a vote of no confidence in President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet.

DA leader John Steenhuisen made the announcement during the debate on Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address (Sona) in parliament on Monday.

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According to Steenhuisen, Ramaphosa’s cabinet has dismally failed to deliver the “reforms” expected of his administration.

Since the president had failed to fire his “deadbeat ministers”, the DA said it was left with no choice but to do what Ramaphosa had failed to do.

If the motion succeeds, the cabinet, except Ramaphosa, would have to be dissolved and a new one put in place.

Steenhuisen said most of the ministers had failed to do their jobs and have long been candidates for sacking. But this was not happening because Ramaphosa had put the ANC ahead of the country.

Steenhuisen singled out the likes of minister Gwede Mantashe, Fikile Mbalula, Lindiwe Sisulu, Bheki Cele, Ayanda Dlodlo, Lindiwe Zulu, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams and Patricia De Lille as being among those who should have been fired long ago.

Cele, Dlodlo and speaker and former minister of defence Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula should have fallen, charged Steenhuisen, immediately after the July 2021 unrest.

“Accountability is something you [Ramaphosa] only talk about because doing something would be firing some of your cabinet and upsetting your comrades,” said Steenhuisen.

“So here is what is going to happen, Mr President, because you are showing that you are a president of talk and not of action. We are going to make it easy for you. Today I have tabled a vote of no confidence, not in you, but in your whole cabinet in terms of sections 102(1) of the constitution.

“If it is not possible for you to do right by the people of South Africa, we will take burden off your hands and let this house [parliament] fire them for you.”

The section in question stipulates that “if the National Assembly, by a vote supported by a majority of its members, passes a motion of no confidence in the cabinet excluding the president, the president must reconstitute the cabinet”.

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