JOHANNESBURG, Sept 16 (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been booked off from public engagements due to ill health on the advice of his medical team, his office said on Wednesday.
• Ramaphosa, 73, returned to South Africa on Monday after attending the BRICS leaders’ summit in India and was advised to rest and recover, his office said in a statement.
• The statement said Ramaphosa had asked cabinet ministers to represent him at scheduled public events where possible, without saying how long his absence might last.
• South Africa’s deputy president, Paul Mashatile, is also resting on the advice of his doctors after a medical procedure.
• Foreign affairs minister Ronald Lamola will lead South Africa’s delegation to this year’s United Nations General Assembly in Ramaphosa’s absence, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported.
• Lamola will arrive in the U.S. at a time of renewed diplomatic tensions after the U.S. imposed visa restrictions on some South Africans over what it called race-based discrimination.
• U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has made false claims that South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority is being persecuted.
• South Africa rejects that, saying there is no evidence of discrimination against whites and that it has a right to put in place policies to address the legacy of centuries of racial injustice.
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov;Editing by Alexander Winning and Bate Felix)
