Ramaphosa responds to Steenhuisen

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he asked the leader of the second-biggest party in the country’s coalition to pick a replacement for one of its officials whom he fired from his executive as a deputy minister. 

The Democratic Alliance is “entitled to a deputy minister as agreed,” Ramaphosa said in an emailed statement Friday outlining his decision to remove the DA’s Andrew Whitfield as deputy trade, industry and competition minister. 

Ramaphosa said he had informed DA leader John Steenhuisen that he planned to dismiss Whitfield prior to doing so. 

The rand reversed earlier declines against the dollar, gaining 0.3% to 17.77 by 1:57 p.m. in Johannesburg. 

After the president announced his decision to fire Whitfield, the DA chief issued a 48-hour ultimatum for him to also dismiss a number of ministers who are members of Ramaphosa’s African National Congress, which it said were implicated in corruption. 

The president established a so-called government of national unity a year ago after elections failed to produce an outright winner.

While agreed to focus on growing the economy and safeguarding the constitution, the ANC and DA have clashed over key laws and the budget, straining the administration’s stability. 

Ramaphosa on Friday said that there are “no reasonable grounds for Mr. Steenhuisen and the Democratic Alliance to issue ultimatums and threats when the president exercises his constitutional prerogative and responsibility.”