Ministers from the ANC are said to have turned on their deputy president Paul Mashatile during a heated cabinet meeting this week, accusing him of supporting a DA minister over the controversial SABC bill.
This is according to several sources in the cabinet who told the Sunday Times this week that ministers from the ANC clashed with Mashatile over his decision to present communications minister Solly Malatsi’s rationale behind his withdrawal of the SABC bill.
Mashatile made the presentation to cabinet on Wednesday in his capacity as leader of government business in parliament.
Malatsi submitted his reasons to Mashatile after a meeting the two held with National Assembly speaker Thoko Didiza a fortnight ago to break the protracted stalemate over the SABC bill that started in November last year.
They were saying Paul [Mashatile] was completely out of order to have just agreed with Solly [Malatsi] to pull this thing without consulting anyone because this bill is a bill of cabinet, not of the department
— Source in cabinet
Didiza is yet to gazette Malatsi’s withdrawal of the bill, in terms of the law, due to the standoff.
Malatsi stunned parliament in November when he withdrew the SABC bill while it was being processed by parliament’s communications portfolio committee, arguing it did not address the funding model of the public broadcaster, and that it gave him too much power over the appointment of the SABC board, among others.
But this angered several members of the cabinet as the bill had been approved and submitted to parliament by former communications minister Mondli Gungubele from the ANC, who is now Malatsi’s deputy.
Insiders say Mashatile came under fire from ANC colleagues after presenting Malatsi’s reasons for withdrawing the SABC Bill, who viewed this as the deputy president supporting the DA minister.
The sources said several ANC ministers accused the deputy president of having struck a deal with Malatsi before consulting the full cabinet. “They were saying Paul [Mashatile] was completely out of order to have just agreed with Solly [Malatsi] to pull this thing without consulting anyone because this bill is a bill of cabinet, not of the department,” a source said.
The ANC ministers insisted that Malatsi, not Mashatile, should have submitted a memo to cabinet and made a presentation at the upcoming meeting of cabinet, which was eventually agreed to.
Mashatile’s spokesperson Mduduzi Mbada said: “The process of a bill is a cabinet process, so when a minister wishes to withdraw a bill they have to come back to cabinet to give reasons [in order] to get cabinet’s approval,.
“As a matter of principle, that’s what a minister must do when they want to withdraw [a bill]. After we knew that’s what he wanted to do [withdraw the bill], we advised him to follow this process to come to cabinet. Cabinet concurred with the leader of government that the process of withdrawing bills starts and ends with cabinet.”
Mbada said he was not in a position to comment on cabinet discussions. “All I can explain is the cabinet process on bills, which is what I shared with you.”
For his part, Malatsi declined to comment in detail, citing the confidentiality of cabinet discussion, and would only confirm formal processes to resolve the impasse. “Discussions of cabinet stay there. There is a process that was initiated by the deputy president with cabinet and that process is ongoing — and that’s all I’m prepared to say on this matter,” he said.
Another person who was at the meeting said the DA’s rejection of the budget last week had hardened the attitude of the GNU ministers from the ANC. “They are now very solidified; some are even opposing for the sake of opposing. They insisted that Malatsi must come back with his own formal presentation.
“Paul [Mashatile] told the meeting that he’s met the minister, along with the speaker. He’s given him his reasons and he’s tabling those before the meeting for guidance and discussion, and [then] all hell broke loose. My understanding is that he just presented, he did not necessarily say allow or don’t allow, but some members of cabinet were unhappy about that.”
Several media industry bodies, such as the SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Media Monitoring Africa, SA National Editors’ Forum, have supported Malatsi’s stance.
The media bodies, among others, pointed some of the defects of the bill in its current form, including that it gave the communications minister three years to develop a new funding model for the SABC.
But labour federation Cosatu is opposed to Malatsi’s withdrawal of the bill..
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