Nomvula Mokonyane to withdraw her name from ANC MP list

Outgoing environmental affairs minister Nomvula Mokonyane will not be sworn in as an MP as scheduled on Wednesday.

TimesLIVE has learnt that Mokonyane declined the offer to take up a seat in the National Assembly just hours before chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng presides over the swearing-in of MPs.

At around 9.15am, ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said he was still verifying the information about Mokonyane's future.

But sources close to the party were adamant that Mokonyane, who did not attend the party's first caucus meeting on Tuesday, was not coming back. The ANC's national executive committee had designated Mokonyane to become the National Assembly's chair responsible for portfolio committees.

Former president Jacob Zuma appointed Mokonyane into his cabinet in 2014 as minister of water and sanitation. She was one of the two ministers that the president appointed despite them not being MPs.

The constitution makes provision for a president to appoint two non-MPs into his executive.

Ramaphosa moved her to communications in February 2018 and shuffled her again to environmental affairs nine months later.

Mokonyane has been implicated in allegations of state capture by Angelo Agrizzi, former COO of African Global Operations, formerly known as Bosasa.