Lindiwe Sisulu to resign as MP after being axed from cabinet

Former tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu has notified the ANC parliamentary caucus of her intention to resign as an MP.

Sisulu was left out of the executive for the first since 1994 when President Cyril Ramaphosa removed her as a cabinet member in his reshuffle last week.

TimesLIVE can reveal Sisulu was meant to submit her resignation to the office of the ANC chief whip in the national assembly Pemmy Majodina on Monday.

Confirming her intention to resign, Majodina said Sisulu had informed her she should not be redeployed anywhere following her axing by Ramaphosa.

Most of her colleagues who were fired by Ramaphosa have been redeployed to parliament to join portfolio committees. These include former ministers Maite Nkoane-Mashabane and Nathi Mthethwa and former deputy ministers Thembi Siweya and Phumulo Masualle.

“I contacted all members who were relieved from cabinet to allocate them committees but comrade Lindi Sisulu said I must not allocate her a portfolio committee because she was resigning and I will get her resignation letter on March 13 2023,” said Majodina.

“I’ve not received the letter. I reminded her this morning.”

Sisulu’s resignation from parliament means she gets to cash out a huge pension payout that she would lose had she opted to remain an MP, with the benefit known as a loss-of-office gratuity. In terms of this benefit, Sisulu receives at least R4m in loss of employment benefits paid to ministers and MPs on loss of office.

She had been in the executive since 1996 under late former president Nelson Mandela and was reappointed by all his successors including Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and Ramaphosa during his first term.

Sisulu has led several ministries including tourism, international relations, human settlements, water and sanitation, defence, public service and administration, housing, human settlements and intelligence.

It was not established what Sisulu will be doing after her resignations but she remains a member of the ANC national executive committee to which she was elected at last year’s party conference. It was also not clear what caused the delay in her resignation after failed attempts to get comment from her aides.

Sisulu was axed from Ramaphosa’s cabinet in what is seen as payback for her continuous attacks on his style of leadership ahead of the conference last year.

She questioned his leadership and accused him of portraying dictatorship tendencies when MPs were instructed to vote against adopting the section 89 panel report into the Phala Phala scandal.

She also accused Ramaphosa of hanging her out to dry after removing her as international relations minister for implementing an ANC conference resolution to downgrade South Africa’s embassy in Israel to a ­liaison office.

Speaking to the SABC last year, Sisulu said she felt “punished” by the decision to reshuffle her for implementing the governing party’s decisions and had expected Ramaphosa to come to her defence when the Jewish community complained about the decision to downgrade the embassy but she was “left dangling alone”.

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