President Cyril Ramaphosa has suspended Small Business Development deputy minister Dipuo Peters this morning. This follows a sanction adopted by Parliament's Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests against Peters.

The Committee found that Peters had breached the Code of Ethical Conduct in her former portfolio as Transport Minister under former President Jacob Zuma's administration. "Consequently, Ms Peters was sanctioned and suspended for one term. The suspension, which will be without pay, became effective on 28 February 2024 and will end on 28 March 2024," said the President.

Towards the end of last year, Peters was suspended from her portfolio in all parliamentary debates and sittings, committee meetings, functions, and operations for the last remaining months of the sixth Parliament. She served as Transport Minister during former President Jacob Zuma's term where a lot of maladministration was uncovered. Some of the complaints against Peters during her time as Transport Minister include her using Prasa buses for ANC events in 2014 and 2015 without ensuring payment from the party. She failed to appoint a group CEO for Prasa and attempted to stop investigations into R14 million in irregular expenditure which was launched by the Prasa board, led by Popo Molefe. However, the High Court ruled her attempts as an irrational, unreasonable and unlawful. Peters failed to investigate various corruption allegations.