Hanekom takes aim at Zuma family with scathing tweet

Former tourism minister Derek Hanekom has sniped at former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, on Twitter, after she implied that brown envelopes on a table at the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Sunday were filled with cash.

The NEC was meeting to discuss possible coalitions and other matters after the local government elections on 1 November.

Zuma-Sambudla posted a picture on Twitter and captioned it “I wonder how much are [sic] in those envelopes…”

Hanekom, an NEC member, tweeted a rejoinder: “You would wonder, because that is all you and your family understand.”

The picture was taken by Sunday Times political journalist Kgothatso Madisa, who clarified that the brown envelopes contained NEC members’ cellphones.

“Where does she get the money factor from?” he asked on Twitter.

The act of leaving cellphones in brown envelopes is done ostensibly to prevent the surreptitious recording and subsequent leaking of proceedings to the media, which has plagued the party in the past.

In May, the ANC slammed leaked audio recordings from the party’s NEC special meeting deliberations, which thrust the growing tensions within the party into the spotlight.

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No love lost between Hanekom and Zuma family

This is not the first time Hanekom has sparred with a Zuma on social media.

In July 2019, Zuma labelled Hanekom “a known enemy agent” on Twitter, after Hanekom admitted to meeting with then-Economic Freedom Fighters secretary-general Godrich Gardee to discuss ways to remove former president Zuma as head of state.

Hanekom then sued Zuma for R500,000 for defamation following the tweet.

Subsequently, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court ordered the former president to apologise for the tweet, and interdicted him from publishing any statement in the future that inferred or implied Hanekom was an enemy agent or apartheid spy.

Zuma was directed to tweet an apology from his own Twitter account within 24 hours of the judgment.

However, Zuma approached the Constitutional Court to appeal the high court’s ruling and the apex court summarily dismissed his application, and reiterated the high court’s ruling that he delete the defamatory tweet and apologise to Hanekom.

ALSO READ: Jacob Zuma ‘unconditionally’ withdraws and apologises for Hanekom tweet