‘It is the president who decides’: Ramaphosa defends Dipuo Peters’s one month suspension

President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended his sanction against Small Business Development Deputy Minister Dipuo Peters amid criticism from political parties.

Two weeks ago, Ramaphosa resolved to suspend Peters after Parliament’s Ethics Committee found that she had breached the code of ethical conduct during her tenure as minister of transport between 2013 and 2017.

But opposition parties have questioned why Peters was only suspended for one month instead of being removed from office.

Dipuo Peters sanction

Addressing the National Assembly during his oral reply session on Tuesday, Ramaphosa responded to a question by Freedom Front Plus (FF+) leader Pieter Groenewald who wanted to know why the president had not fired Peters in line with good governance and his fight against corruption.

According to Groenewald, this would have happened in most democracies when a minister undermined public trust.

“In my view, the sanction imposed on her was commensurate with the breaches this house found her to have committed over and above the sanctions imposed by this house,” the president replied.

ALSO READ: Dipuo Peters would be fired in an ethical democracy

Ramaphosa pointed out that the decision on Peters’s sanction lied with him.

“Parliament having taken action, it informed me that indeed further action needed to be taken and that is precisely the action that I took and decided. In the end, one can say right or wrong, but I’m the one who took the action and based on a number of factors, including what Parliament decided because in the end, it is the president who decides,” he told MPs.

Peters’s one-month suspension without pay became effective on 28 February.

The National Assembly accepted the Ethics Committee’s recommendation to suspend Peters from all parliamentary business for one term.

Her urgent application to the Western Cape High Court to stop Parliament from implementing her suspension was dismissed.

State capture

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa indicated that government has “decisively” responded to the recommendations made in the State Capture Commission’s report.

“These recommendations are currently receiving attention from a number of law enforcement agencies and other bodies.”

The president dismissed claims that nothing was being done about state capture.

“That is a lie,” he said, adding that action would be taken when law enforcement agencies complete their work.

“Where there is any form of evidence that would speak to the issues I was addressing, yes action will be taken because we have to take action based on facts, on real information and without that we would just be speculating,” the president continued.

READ MORE: State capture: R57bn yet to be recouped

Ramaphosa further pointed out that billions in stolen funds have been recovered by the authorities.

“I mean real billions. The follow-through from a tax point of view has also been taking place and billions have been paid in taxes from those who were dodging payment of taxes.

“Contracts that were not supposed to be entered into have been cancelled and I can count that it amounted to R86 billion at some stage, which is a substantial.

“Asset forfeiture has also been a part of this whole process where, well, over R64 billion worth of assets have been forfeited to the state. So all these things speak to what has been done and this is not a fable.”

Watch the plenary below:

On arrests, Ramaphosa highlighted some implicated people had not been sanctioned yet and this would be informed by outcomes of processes undertaken by other law enforcement agencies.

“Other current members of the executive implicated by the state capture commission have not been charged or found wanting in terms of ethical breaches by anybody or entity at this stage.

“Any actions that I take in respect to members of the executive about whom the commission made findings will be informed by the outcomes of the processes undertaken by relevant entities.”