Magashule flew to Cape Town for a caucus meeting last week Wednesday shortly after a meeting with the party's top six, where the list of committee chairs was discussed. This apparently caught Ramaphosa and other party leaders off-guard as there was a lekgotla to be held in Pretoria on Thursday.

According to the report, Ramaphosa was warned on Wednesday by a parliamentary counsellor that Magashule was set to make an announcement on the chairs of portfolio committees and the whippery, despite the list not yet having been endorsed by the party's national leadership as well as alliance partners.

The move was apparently seen as a fight back by the "Magashule faction", after they were left off key ministerial positions. Ramaphosa apparently put a stop to the meeting, while MPs were en route, the publication reported.

When asked about his reasons for travelling to Cape Town a day before the lekgotla, Magashule told Sunday Times that he was there just to consult.

When asked about why the meeting was cancelled abruptly, he said he was not ready to make his presentation.

"I was just consulting because I was not ready. I had to consult the whips."

This is despite a meeting memo reportedly being sent to MPs earlier that week on Tuesday, which had "deployment to portfolio committees and whippery" on its agenda, the publication reported.

The party's chief whip Pemmy Majodina told the Sunday Times the reason that the meeting was cancelled was due to the growing number of resignations by MPs. She reportedly denied cancelling the meeting on Ramaphosa's instruction.

According to the publication, she said the resignations "disorganised the set up" because some of the people who left, had been on the list.

"Therefore we could not go ahead when we were supposed to revisit all that was done in the past. We had to manage that properly" because they could not go to caucus with a "half-cooked list," the publication reported.

According to Sunday Times, Magashule's proposed list would have seen the following MPs taking over chair positions:

• Faith Mutambi – Justice Committee chair
• Mosebenzi Zwane – Transport Committee chair
• Supra Mahumapelo – Co-operative governance chair
• Tandi Mahambehlala – Chair of chairs
• Bongani Bongo – International Relations Committee chair
• Joe Maswanganyi – Public Enterprises Committee chair

A source reportedly told the publication that there had been a fight over who to appoint as head of the justice committee as well as the joint standing committee on intelligence, this was reportedly because the "Magashule faction" feared Ramaphosa may use these arms to "deal with his rivals".

Magashule had reportedly also planned on taking control of the justice committee to protect Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane from possibly being impeached, taking over the finance committee to make sure that the SA Reserve Bank was nationalised and its mandate was changed, as well as to take over the public enterprises committee to frustrate Ramaphosa's Eskom plans, the paper reported.

News24