- John Steenhuisen says Geordin Hill-Lewis gave his head to a baying mob of hyenas.
- Steenhuisen reveals he was promised the job of agriculture minister if he didn’t seek re-election as DA leader.
- Steenhuisen says Tony Leon’s PR firm lobbies DA ministers on behalf of clients, including Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Former DA leader John Steenhuisen told his successor Geordin Hill-Lewis that sacking him as agriculture minister was like “giving my head to the baying mob” of hyenas.
In an exclusive interview with News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson after his controversial removal by the DA last week, Steenhuisen:
- Confirmed Hill-Lewis promised him he would remain as agriculture minister in exchange for not running against him for the DA leadership in April;
- Warned the DA that appeasing what he calls the AfriMAGA mob will send a signal to black, coloured and Indian voters that the party is not interested in them;
- Lashed out at Tony Leon, his political mentor and former DA leader, for “relentlessly” driving negative foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) publicity against him, and
- Accused Leon’s public relations firm of using its proximity to DA leaders to set up meetings between DA ministers in the government of national unity and his clients, including Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Steenhuisen was removed from the Cabinet by Hill-Lewis last week. The new DA leader demoted him to deputy minister of trade and industry. President Cyril Ramaphosa is yet to give effect to the DA’s Cabinet changes.
In a wide-ranging interview with News24, Steenhuisen said he was “deeply disappointed” with Hill-Lewis for removing him from Cabinet.
“But I think my disappointment lies more at a personal level than at a professional level. Obviously, the leader of the party chooses who he appoints and disappoints, and I’ve always respected that… But I think in this instance, for me, the personal issue is that a word was given and a word was broken.”
READ | ‘AfriMAGA’ celebrates Steenhuisen’s exit as Hill-Lewis moves to do damage control to DA brand
Steenhuisen confirmed what DA sources had told News24: he was promised his Cabinet position would be kept if he didn’t run against Hill-Lewis.
“The deal was that I would stand down as leader, but that I would remain on as minister of agriculture, at least until I’ve been able to reach my target of vaccinating 80% of the cattle, given the fact that one of the reasons I stepped down was to focus full-time on the fight against FMD.
“I duly stood down, and now I’ve been removed from that particular fight with much progress having been made and obviously a long way still to go, but I really wanted to see that through… one of the reasons that I stood down was so that I could focus all of my attention on FMD and winning this war.”
The AfriMAGA mob
Steenhuisen says AfriForum, Sakeliga and the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) “have been running a concerted campaign against me since I became the minister of agriculture”, even though they do not represent organised agriculture. He insists he had the confidence of the majority of organised agriculture.
Steenhuisen received support from Grain SA chairperson Richard Krige this week, who, in an apparent reference to SAAI and its chairperson Theo de Jager, wrote: “It is about ensuring that agricultural priorities are not dictated by unelected or self-appointed spokespeople who generate attention on social media without participating in the representative structures, technical processes and sustained work required to achieve results.”
Krige criticised the decision to remove Steenhuisen without consulting agricultural organisations. “Did the political leadership respond primarily to the narrative gaining traction online and on social media? I do not know the answer. That is precisely the problem.”
Steenhuisen warned Hill-Lewis that removing him from agriculture was “putting blood in the water”.
“I told him we must be very careful that we stick by our own people and that we back them in difficult circumstances and that if thinking that giving my head to the baying mob was going to appease them or somehow assuage their hunger for blood, it was only going to encourage it.
“I think I used the analogy about how hyenas hunt. They narrow somebody out of the herd, and they focus relentlessly on them, and they bring them down. But this now puts blood in the water.”
He was concerned that the next targets would be Leon Schreiber on digital IDs in home affairs and Siviwe Gwarube on the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act.
Steenhuisen’s philosophy was not to “hang your people out in the field”.
“You circle the wagons, and you get behind them and give them the support they need to get through a difficult time, and I would really have appreciated a little bit more support than I got in terms of this fight.”
Steenhuisen lashed out at Tony Leon, his political mentor, for “relentlessly” driving negative FMD publicity against him.
Leon lobbies against Steenhuisen
Steenhuisen told News24 he was shocked to learn that Leon’s Resolve Communications was the driving force behind FMD Response SA, a lobby group critical of the government’s response to the outbreak.
Leon is the chairperson of Resolve, and Paul Boughey, the DA’s former chief executive, is the CEO.
“I was quite shocked when I found out that Resolve was doing this (PR for FMD Response), given the fact that Resolve themselves had regularly approached me as a minister to meet with their clients to try and assist their clients with issues and problems or policy changes that they would like to see,” said Steenhuisen.
“I had obviously interacted with Resolve on a number of occasions, and to then see them driving this narrative and complaint, particularly when the godfather of my daughter (Leon) chairs the company and Paul Boughey, the former CEO of the DA, is CEO of the company, was quite surprising to me.”
Steenhuisen says Leon never reached out to him privately to discuss his handling of FMD.
On its website, Resolve says it “specialises in setting the news agenda in top-tier print, radio, television, online and social media. We don’t just make the news, we make a difference.”
READ | Steenhuisen hits back at ‘Afri-MAGA’ groups, accuses SAAI of exploiting FMD crisis
Boughey told News24 Resolve was approached “in an entirely unsolicited manner” by FMD Response in April.
“Our role was to help them communicate their legitimate concerns clearly and responsibly on a matter of genuine national importance. FMD Response engaged at all times on the matter in a non-personal and non-litigious manner, and always with a view to finding solutions for public and private sector cooperation to help combat this devastating disease.”
He said there was nothing “surprising or improper” about Resolve’s previous engagements with Steenhuisen on behalf of clients.
“The FMD response was a matter of public policy, properly addressed in the public domain and through official correspondence to Mr Steenhuisen. If Mr Steenhuisen is suggesting that a private approach from Tony Leon would have been appropriate, he cannot simultaneously argue that the firm facilitating meetings on behalf of clients is improper. Mr Steenhuisen cannot have it both ways.
“We would also hope he is not suggesting that his handling of the FMD crisis would have been any different had he received a private call from Tony, rather than the official approach he received from the affected farmers themselves,” said Boughey.
An email from Steenhuisen’s chief of staff, Jana le Roux, about a meeting request from FMD Response’s Andrew Morphew, was one of the final controversies that led to Steenhuisen’s removal. In the mail to colleagues, Le Roux wrote, “attached just received for some amusement”.
A deputy director-general in the department inadvertently sent the email to Morphew, who farms in Karkloof in KwaZulu-Natal. Le Roux’s explanation of her message was that Morphew’s cattle were one of the first farms to be vaccinated.
Morphew told News24 that Steenhuisen visited his farm, took photographs, held a press briefing, and left. “There was no engagement before, and there has been none since, including as a result of the letter FMD Response wrote to him asking to meet. I would not describe that as a relationship. I would describe it as the precise problem we are trying to solve: a government that is willing to be photographed with farmers, but not to engage with them on getting the FMD strategy right.”
Morphew says they approached Resolve to help farmers communicate about the disease’s biology.
“In particular, we have been at pains to explain, respectfully, to both government and the public why the current approach – vaccinating only 80% of cattle by December – will not beat the disease. Our message is simple: to beat FMD, you need to vaccinate close to 100% of cattle within six to eight weeks, with booster doses, to create simultaneous immunity and stop the spread.”
Morphew said he shared Le Roux’s email with his neighbour, the former journalist William Saunderson-Meyer, who distributed it on social media. “The real issue here is not that the email was shared, but what it revealed.”
Lobbying for Starlink
On Resolve’s lobbying efforts, Steenhuisen revealed that DA ministers, “notably Solly Malatsi (minister of communications and technology) on Starlink,” were contacted to meet with their clients.
“I know they’ve tried to get ministers to meet with various of their clients. Redisa is one of their clients, and they had reached out to former (environmental) minister Dion George and the current minister, Willie Aucamp, to try and get him to meet with them. Obviously, it’s difficult because often in these instances it would not be appropriate given the fact that Willie is currently involved in a court case.”
Steenhuisen says he met with Resolve clients, including a chicken import company and Starlink.
“The meeting (with Starlink) was set up and ostensibly really just turned into a complaint session that Solly (Malatsi) wasn’t moving fast enough and the like. So I then raised within my caucus the unhappiness around what I thought was behaviour that would, if we didn’t check it, end up being problematic at some stage.”
Malatsi has been pushing for Starlink to be exempt from the 30% BEE equity ownership requirement for telecoms licences and to participate in an equity-equivalent programme. Icasa has refused this proposal and said Malatsi would first have to amend the Electronic Communications Act.
READ | No law change, no Starlink: Icasa rejects Malatsi’s BEE plan
Malatsi told News24 he was “constantly approached or lobbied by numerous stakeholders on different matters”. This was “normal, and indeed an essential, part of being in government”.
He said Resolve had queried the status of the equity-equivalent policy direction.
“I always make decisions without fear or favour, guided by the Constitution, the law and the mandate I have from the voters.”
Boughey said: “Connecting investors and businesses with the relevant parts of government is a core, legitimate part of public affairs, and it is squarely in the national interest. We engage government openly and on the merits. We advocate; we do not, and cannot, direct the decisions of independent ministers.”
Steenhuisen says he didn’t prohibit DA ministers from meeting Resolve’s clients but left it up to them to decide.
“There was a push again for me to meet with one of the clients, and I got my office just to write back and say, ‘thank you very much, we’re aware of the problem, we’re addressing it, and we’re going to do what we can to resolve it, but it’s not necessary for us to meet’.
“I imagine this is the type of lobbying that goes on in government, and I have no doubt there’s nothing illegal about it, but there is a relationship issue given the proximity of some of the players in the company with their proximity to the DA, which did raise some concerns. And it goes back some time to when we were in opposition as well. There’s been a lot of push by clients in the tobacco lobby and others to meet with DA MPs and the like.”
But Boughey says he and Leon hold no public office, public funds or decision-making power.
“Our principals’ past affiliations are a matter of public record – there is nothing hidden. We help clients communicate the merits of their case so that it reaches the right public decision-makers, regardless of political affiliation, and the final decisions rest entirely with independent public representatives.”
Boughey says Resolve holds itself to “high ethical standards”, and a public exchange with Steenhuisen would not serve anyone.
