JOHANNESBURG, July 1 (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced cabinet changes late on Tuesday, demoting the former leader of his party’s main coalition partner from agriculture minister to deputy trade minister as requested by its new leader.
• Geordin Hill-Lewis took over as Democratic Alliance leader in April and asked Ramaphosa for changes to his party’s representatives in the cabinet two weeks ago.
• The DA is the second-largest party in South Africa’s governing coalition after Ramaphosa’s African National Congress.
• Hill-Lewis asked Ramaphosa to move his predecessor as DA leader, John Steenhuisen, from the agriculture portfolio amid a severe foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
• Ramaphosa appointed the DA’s Willie Aucamp as agriculture minister, as Hill-Lewis had asked. Aucamp previously served as forestry, fisheries and environment minister.
• Ramaphosa also named the ANC’s Dina Pule as minister of social development, filling a vacancy that emerged in May when Sisisi Tolashe was removed following misconduct allegations.
• Pule has not held a cabinet post since 2013, when she was dismissed after media reports that she gave preferential treatment to a company run by her boyfriend. Pule denied wrongdoing at the time, but a parliamentary ethics committee found she had breached the code of conduct for lawmakers and sanctioned her.
• Pule is a senior figure in the ANC Women’s League.
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov;Editing by Alexander Winning, Alexandra Hudson)
