Two entirely contradictory narratives are vying for primacy in the curious case of Dion George, South Africa’s forestry, fisheries and environment minister until his unceremonious late-night axing this week.
Late on Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he would be replacing George with the DA’s Willie Aucamp, after party leader John Steenhuisen had taken the unprecedented step of asking that his own deployee be recalled.
Steenhuisen, who is also the minister of agriculture, gave only a vague and unsatisfactory explanation for why he wanted George sacked, fuelling a number of wildly divergent theories.
The first is that a pro-hunting lobby pushed for George to be fired over new measures to crack down on canned lion hunting and abalone poaching. It is a view given credence by the fact that his replacement, Aucamp, is a game farmer seen as sympathetic to the industry.
The second explanation is that George was a “monster” who terrorised staff.
So where does the truth lie?
The explanation around the hunting lobby is underpinned by correspondence between George and Steenhuisen, which reveals a standoff over George’s proposal to list abalone as a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) later this month.
In mid-October, Steenhuisen asked George to “defer” this proposal as he was worried that such a move could have serious consequences for South Africa’s legally-farmed abalone sector, which generates about R1bn in export revenue every year.
George, however, wasn’t to be deterred, and told Steenhuisen that deferring the proposal would damage South Africa’s dwindling abalone stocks. Anyway, he said, the idea was to combat the illegal trade in abalone poaching – not thwart the legal industry.
What irked George is that the opposition to imposing new curbs on illegal abalone trade was framed in the context of the implications for trade, rather than what is happening to wild abalone stocks. While he said he “valued collaboration” with Steenhuisen’s department of agriculture, it had a different mandate to the forestry, fisheries and environment department – and this distinction should be “respected”.
This wasn’t the only point of friction. George had also been pushing for new curbs to canned lion hunting, which have now been codified in new legislation on threatened or protected species, which aims to “ban new captive lion breeding facilities”.
An article in Daily Maverick said George is “being taken down by the wildlife breeders”, with his demotion being the “the culmination of a campaign by powerful private wildlife interests”.
The article said Aucamp is “publicly aligned with the wildlife-breeding and hunting industry”, and would now be expected to adjudicate policies impacting the game-breeding industry.
The canned hunting ban shouldn’t be controversial. In 2023, the DA passed a party resolution calling for “an immediate halt to the sale of captive lion derivatives”, to the “hunting of captive bred lions”, and to “tourist interactions with captive lions”.
‘Character assassination’
So that’s the one side of it. The other side, propounded in Business Day this week under the headline “The Real Story Behind Dion George’s Sacking” without any comment from George, is that he was a terror to work with.
One anonymous “insider” claimed a pattern of “psychological mistreatment”, which drove some employees to tears. George apparently referred to some staff as “weak minded”.
Another anonymous “cabinet colleague” said George “refused to abide by DA decisions” and “undermined the cabinet’s mandate”.
Evidently, this is what the DA would prefer people believe. On Wednesday, Steenhuisen said he wanted to “set the record straight”, but made only vague insinuations that George wasn’t capable enough.
Given that the DA only holds 12 positions in cabinet, said Steenuisen, it is “imperative that these roles are occupied by the most capable individuals”, adding that “collegiality is crucial”. It is important “for each and every public official to work to an agreed agenda”.
It is well known that George did indeed clash with several of his staff, leading to some leaving. Nonetheless, one DA insider described this view as simply “character assassination” to compensate for the fact that he actually didn’t do a bad job.
Officially, the reason for sacking George is “non-performance”.
Yet this week George pointed out that the G20 committee he chaired on climate was one of the few panels that actually achieved a “declaration” – essentially, an agreement from all countries – on air quality and environmental crimes, including wildlife trafficking.
“For the US to even show up for the climate meetings was a phenomenal feat in itself, but the fact that they then agreed to these environmental declarations is a huge success too,” he tells Currency. In this context, the notion that he failed to perform seems dubious. Yet, another former member of the party said that while George’s department may have hit some home runs, this may have have been “despite him”.
‘Serving with purpose’
Either way, his exit comes at an awkward time. In recent days, George has been leading South Africa’s delegation to the COP30 talks in Belém, Brazil, where he chaired various panels. This week, before his sacking, George sent a message to those who asked, saying he would “continue to do my work” leading the COP30 delegation.
“I will not be distracted. My focus remains on delivery and results. Leadership is about serving with purpose, not reacting to noise,” he said.
Yet without clarity, the theories about what led to his ousting appear to be just as contradictory as the reporting on it. And this in-fighting is something that the DA’s coalition partner, the ANC, will look to leverage ahead of next year’s municipal elections.
The public is just as confused. “The truth is that Dion George is trying to protect our wildlife; he was trying to abolish canned lion hunting,” said one person in response to an article, right above another comment that “there is nothing wrong with demoting underperforming members”.
There is a vast gulf between these two explanations, and the DA has chosen not to try and meaningfully bridge it. This illustrates how politicians are now able to act in the shadows without real explanation, and simply bet on the news cycle moving on.
A more realistic answer may be that George did indeed rub up many in his party the wrong way in how he sought to implement the hunting curbs. The standoff with Steenhuisen over abalone indicates that George wasn’t about to be told what to do — even by his party’s leader.
What will be deeply revealing, however, is what the DA, and Aucamp, do now on canned hunting, abalone poaching and rhino horn smuggling. This will ultimately show who is captured by whom.
Top image: Former forestry, fisheries and environment minister Dion George. Picture: Gallo Images/Misha Jordaan.
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