Presidential hopeful Lindiwe Sisulu says she will not comment on the findings by an independent expert panel that President Cyril Ramaphosa has a case to answer to on the Phala Phala farm robbery.

“The minister will not comment on the report up until it's discussed in the NEC [national executive committee] meeting. However, her stance on what she had said before about the president has not changed,” her spokesperson Mphumzi Zuzile said on Thursday. 

In October, the tourism minister told the SABC that the Phala Phala scandal called for Ramaphosa to step aside in line with the ANC’s “step-aside” resolution. At the time, Sisulu was due to put Phala Phala on the agenda for the party’s next NEC meeting and said there should be a discussion.

She was quoted as having said: “I am uncomfortable with the way it is applied and I would propose as we go into the next conference anybody who we feel has serious allegations against them should step aside.

“For instance, the Phala Phala issue for me would call for that until all of us are quite certain that there is nothing wrong, nothing illegal about that. But for as long as it keeps hanging on the president, it keeps hanging on everyone else, it is not fair to us. It is not fair to the president either.”

Meanwhile, ANC member Carl Niehaus said the findings of the report were “courageous and damning”.

“I believe that Ramaphosa must now do the morally and correct things and fall on his own sword,” he said.

“There will be a very strong call for him to resign. There were people in the past who were defending him who are now reaching the point where they can’t do it any more. So the balance of power in the ANC NEC is shifting and there is a real chance that he is instructed by the NEC to step down.”

It is understood that some who are anti-Ramaphosa feel vindicated by the damning findings.

A source, who asked not to be named, said: “The people on the renewal campaign are already saying that he is the victim in the whole thing. You might have a situation where they might band around the guy like they did with Jacob Zuma, in that they might take a stance to protect him, as many of them are already doing.

“So his known lieutenants will protect him, while some will call for his resignation. If he decides to resign, a lot is at stake.”

Earlier, former ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini said she wanted “compromised” Ramaphosa to resign.

“He must not step aside — he must resign. He has compromised himself, he has compromised the ANC and the country,” she said.

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