Ramaphosa removes corruption accused Thembi Simelane from justice portfolio but retains her in cabinet

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday removed corruption accused justice minister Thembi Simelane from the portfolio in a min-reshuffle of his cabinet, redeploying her in the human settlements portfolio.

Simelane will be swapped with Mmamoloko Kubayi, one of the president’s staunchest allies in the ANC national executive committee, with immediate effect.

Simelane is accused of receiving a R500 000 “loan” from Gundo Wealth Solutions, which facilitated unlawful investments by the Polokwane local municipality in the now-defunct VBS Mutual Bank in 2016, while she was mayor of the city.

The president has been under increasing pressure to act against Simelane and remove her from the portfolio, under which the National Prosecuting Authority falls, over the conflict of interest raised by this.

She is also at the centre of a series of investigations by News24, which have accused Simelane of living far beyond her means during her time as mayor of Polokwane, which has recovered the R349 million illegally invested in VBS.

Simelane has not been criminally charged.

In a statement released on Tuesday night, the president said he made the changes to his executive  “to ensure the effectiveness of cabinet in delivering its mandate” in accordance with his powers in terms of section 91 (2) of the Constitution.

Ramaphosa said he had also decided to move the deputy minister of mineral and petroleum resources, Phumzile Mgcina, to the employment and labour portfolio. The deputy minister of employment and labour, Judith Menadzinga-Tshabalala, will now take on Mgcina’s role as Minister Gwede Mantashe’s deputy.

The president’s redeployment of Simelane is clearly a response to the mounting pressure to remove her from the justice ministry over the accusations of corruption against her, but he has come under fire for not dropping her completely from his executive.

The Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on justice and constitutional development, Glynnis Breytenbach, said the decision to retain Simelane in the cabinet was “short-sighted and disrespectful to South Africa. Simelane does not belong in cabinet. 

“While the president has finally addressed the untenable conflict of interest of having a minister of justice accused of corruption, his decision to simply move her somewhere else does not address the underlying issue. She stands accused of corruption and is subject to investigations,” she said.

Breytenbach said human settlements was a vital department which “must be led by a credible individual”.

“The indecisiveness of the president, who has explicitly committed to fighting corruption, is especially shocking and quite blatantly insincere. Our country deserves better.”

She called on the president to immediately remove Simelane from the cabinet “in the interests of our Republic.”

In September, Simelane told parliament’s justice portfolio committee that the loan, which she took to buy a coffee shop in Sandton, had been repaid in three tranches and that the money the municipality had invested in VBS had been recovered before the bank went bust.