Ramaphosa defends decision to suspend Peters over her state capture involvement
President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his decision at his last Q&A, where MPs questioned him for not firing the small business development deputy minister.
President Cyril Ramaphosa replied to oral questions from Members of the National Assembly at the Good Hope Chamber in Parliament, Cape Town on 19 March 2024. Picture: @GovernmentZA/X
CAPE TOWN - President Cyril Ramaphosa said that his decision to suspend and not fire deputy minister Dipuo Peters for her state capture involvement was a fitting sanction.
He also said the decision to suspend Peters for a month without pay was his alone.
Ramaphosa defended his decision at his last Q&A, where MPs questioned him for not firing the small business development deputy minister.
Peters' state capture breaches are that she dismissed the PRASA board three months before the end of its term, allegedly to prevent the findings of a probe into billions in irregular expenditure.
President Ramaphosa’s decision to suspend Peters followed Parliament’s ethics committee’s finding that Peters had breached the Code of Ethical Conduct in her former portfolio as minister of transport.
Freedom Front Plus leader, Pieter Groenewald, asked Ramaphosa why he suspended Peters for only one month instead of removing her from office.
"In my views, the sanctions imposed on her was commensurate with the breaches this House found her to have committed over and above the sanctions imposed by this House."
Ramaphosa said the decision ended with him ultimately.
"Right or wrong, but in the end 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."
Ramaphosa said other implicated people had not been sanctioned yet and this would be informed by outcomes of processes undertaken by other law enforcement agencies.