By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider

The Government of National Unity (GNU) is seemingly on the brink of collapse as threats from the Democratic Alliance (DA) have edged this possibility following the dismissal of DA MP, Andrew Whitfield from his post as Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition last week.

DA leader John Steenhuisen believes that President Cyril Ramaphosa “concocted” a reason for Whitfields termination who was fired for travelling to the United States without the authorization of the President. This has also led Steenhuisen to believe that there is hypocrisy in the President’s decision to remove Whitfield as there are several other ministers who are compromised by corruption within Ramaphosa’s cabinet who are also members of the ANC and Ramaphosa has not taken severe action against them as he has with DA member Andrew Whitfield.

This has opened up the possibility that Ramaphosa is taking bias against members of the DA who are within this coalition government. “At no stage leading up to this letter that I received or up until this evening have I received any formal explanation as to what the reason may be.” said Andrew Whitfield in an interview with Face the Nation where he expressed that the only reason he received from the presidency was to cite Section 93(1) of the Constitution which gives the president the prerogative to dismiss and appoint members of the executive

Whitfield claims that he had followed protocol by sending a formal request 10 days before his departure to the United States which is a requirement as stated in the ministerial handbook. Even after countless attempts at following up this request he had not received a response from the President.

 “I decided to abide by the request of my party to travel abroad under the circumstances where no response was received. I simply took silence as consent.” said Whifield in the interview. “Perhaps that was an error in judgement on my part, but at the same time, I don’t think the sanction, which appears quite dramatic, was proportionate.” added Whitfield

African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has expressed that Ramaphosa has declined to travel because of the possibility of the DA announcing their departure from the Government of National Unity, saying that they are taking their threats very seriously as they have already withdrawn from the National Dialogue which was dismissed as a waste of time.