"The appointment of ministers and deputy ministers is the president's prerogative alone and in view of the correspondence received this morning (Thursday), the president has decided to appoint two new people as deputy ministers," Khumalo said.
IFP leaders, Rev Musa Zondi and Vincent Ngema, sent letters to President Mbeki on Thursday, saying they could not attend the swearing in of deputy ministers before further discussion between the IFP National Council and the African National Congress had reached a "comprehensive" agreement on the nature of their relationship.
Zondi was to have been the deputy minister of Public Works while Ngema was to have been appointed deputy minister of Sports and Recreation.
Khumalo said in the letters to Mbeki that both expressed their "honour" at having been appointed as deputy ministers but that further discussions were needed before they would be sworn in.
It was in this light that the President decided to appoint two new deputy ministers who would be prepared to work and be sworn in, Khumalo said.
At the swearing in ceremony at the Union Buildings, Mbeki said he would later swear in two new appointees in the posts left vacant.
"I will appoint people willing to take the oath and willing to work," he said.
As the president's decision was made known in Pretoria, Zondi was still under the impression he was to be a deputy minister.
"I know nothing. Where does that story come from? Things remain the same," he told Sapa in Cape Town.
New National Party leader and newly appointed Minister of Environment and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, responded to the IFP's decision not to have their candidates sworn in by saying he personally thought it was a "mistake".
"That party thinks it need not accept the hand of co-operation and friendship extended to it," he said, adding that "at the end of the day it's not the government that suffers but the IFP." - Sapa
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