Ramaphosa confirms DA ministers and deputies, gives Dina Pule social development post

Dina Pule, the controversial politician whose string of scandals included accusations of funnelling contracts to her boyfriend and misusing government resources is back, this time as the new minister of social development.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday night announced changes to the Cabinet, all but one in line with what Democratic Alliance leader Geordin Hill-Lewis requested almost two weeks ago — the appointment of Dina Pule as social development minister.

On 17 June, Hill-Lewis asked Cyril Ramaphosa to remove Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen from the Cabinet and demote him to deputy minister of trade, industry and competition.

READ. MORE

Inside Hill-Lewis’s purge — Steenhuisen set to pay the price for rupture with farmers

June 17, 2026

On Tuesday, Ramaphosa confirmed the appointment of Willie Aucamp as the minister of agriculture and David Maynier as minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment.

Steenhuisen, a former DA leader, was demoted to deputy minister of trade, industry and competition, while Ramaphosa confirmed the appointment of Alexandra Abrahams as deputy minister of electricity and energy, Jack Bloom as deputy minister of water and sanitation and Yusuf Cassim as deputy minister of higher education. All these appointments were in line with Hill-Lewis’s request.

Controversial appointment

Pule is a controversial appointment to a ministry that has had a long list of underperforming ministers in a critical department.

The most recent was Sisisi Tolashe, who, after eight months of Daily Maverick investigations exposing governance failures, irregular conduct, brazen dishonesty and abuse of resources by the then minister of social development, was finally fired by Ramaphosa on 14 May.

Pule was minister of communications under Jacob Zuma from October 2011 until she was fired in July 2013. The core scandal centred on her boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa, and the 2012 ICT Indaba, a conference run by her department.

READ MORE

Dishonourable Dina: Down, but not out

August 8, 2013

The key allegations were that Pule used her position to funnel contracts and government resources to Mngqibisa’s company, Khemano. A parliamentary ethics panel found Pule had concealed and denied her relationship with Mngqibisa, and that this concealment allowed him to improperly benefit, with his company receiving R6-million and the department covering his overseas trips and accommodation. The investigation also implicated two deputy directors-general, Themba Phiri and Sam Vilakazi, with the committee recommending all four be criminally charged for misleading Parliament under oath.

Pule was also accused of pushing broader government resources to Mngqibisa, primarily during the ICT Indaba. A separate forensic report later raised allegations that she’d improperly influenced the appointment of the CEO of the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA, with candidates headhunted at premises owned by Mngqibisa’s company and sourced through a recruitment firm owned by his sister.

Parliament’s ethics committee found her guilty in August 2013, imposing the maximum available penalties: a reprimand, a fine equivalent to 30 days’ salary, suspension of privileges for 15 days, and exclusion from debates and committees during that period. She’d already been fired from the Cabinet by Zuma the previous month, in July 2013. After the misconduct finding, she declined to stand for re-election as an MP in 2014.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela issued a report finding that Pule had acted unlawfully and unethically, concluding that she had “persistently” misled investigators and recommending that she apologise and repay public funds spent on Mngqibisa’s travel.

Despite this, her ANC career resumed years later when she was elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee in December 2022, became deputy secretary-general of the ANC Women’s League in July 2023, and returned to the National Assembly after the 2024 general election.

The department that manages South Africa’s entire social protection architecture has been treated by the ANC, for a decade and a half, as a political reward rather than a hugely significant governance responsibility.

Bathabile Dlamini, who held the portfolio from 2010 to 2018, brought the whole system to the brink of destruction. The 2017 social grants crisis, in which the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) payment system came within days of collapse, was the direct product of her negligence.

Susan Shabangu and Lindiwe Zulu followed as ministers in quick succession between 2018 and 2024, with neither managing to repair the damage Dlamini had done nor to add any lasting institutional contribution of their own, presiding over persistent Sassa payment failures and a department that lurched from crisis to crisis.

And then came Tolashe and now Pule. DM

Daily Maverick will offer further analysis on the late-breaking announcement in the coming days.