Talks on cabinet reshuffle anticipated changing his cabinet and firing ministers without consulting other leaders of the ruling alliance. Both the SACP and Cosatu had banned Zuma from their gatherings and called for his removal by the time he was succeed

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa is today expected to meet ANC officials to discuss an imminent cabinet reshuffle.

Ramaphosa and the top six are also expected to consult ANC alliance partners – Cosatu and the SACP – about his planned changes to the cabinet before announcing them as part of strengthening fractured ties within the tripartite alliance.

The two organisations have continuously slammed former president Jacob Zuma for unilaterally president on Thursday last week.

Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen are all set to face the

chop when Ramaphosa executes the clean-up he promised during his first State of the Nation Address.

Zwane is implicated in the Free State Vrede dairy farm corruption allegations, where the Gupta family and their allies illegally syphoned about R220 million from the agriculture department, with R30m used to foot the bill for the Gupta family wedding in 2013.

This was before Zwane was controversially appointed to Parliament and quickly appointed by Zuma to head mineral resources, where he allegedly assisted the Gupta family to loot Eskom.

Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan is now tipped to head the public enterprises ministry, where he will be charged with ensuring the rescue of state-owned companies, which have been ailing due to mismanagement, bad governance and looting.

A senior NEC leader said officials would have to deliberate on the changes and inform alliance partners early this week.

“Some of these changes are obvious, but would have to be properly canvassed to ensure that, going forward, we are not distracted by complaints of consultations, as was recently the case.

“There is already general consensus that there would not be a better pick than comrade Pravin if we want to effectively clean the rot that the president alluded to in the Sona,” said the leader.

On Friday, Ramaphosa said he would make tough decisions to restore the health of SOEs, some of which have been a target for state capture-linked corruption.

In his speech, Ramaphosa revealed that Gigaba went as far as suggesting that he targets the South African Revenue Service to restore its credibility, a move that could see Sars commissioner and Zuma ally Tom Moyane booted out.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga warned that Ramaphosa would be entrenching factions by totally throwing out ministers with potential, like Gigaba.

“He is between arock and a hard place to be honest because you have important portfolios like finance and public enterprises where you really need these changes, but a lot of people supporting him are having unreasonable expectations.

“You can’t just wake up and clean up, if you remember the outcome of Nasrec (ANC national conference). So you cannot get rid of people like (Malusi) Gigaba. You can move him to a less significant portfolio but not throw him out completely.”

Cosatu and SACP declined to comment on the pending reshuffle, as they were still awaiting consultation by the ruling party’s leadership.