Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola, has confirmed that South Africa will not hand over the G20 presidency to the United States embassy representative, Marc Dillard. The handover event is set to take place on Sunday at Nasrec Expo Centre.
This comes after US President Donald Trump failed to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg. Trump said he would not attend the G20 summit due to the widely discredited claim that there was a genocide of white farmers in South Africa.
The US government sent its chargé d’affaires for the handover ceremony. However, South Africa believes it was downgrading its participation by assigning a representative from its embassy to lead its delegation.
G20 presidency handover ceremony
Lamola said South Africa plans to hand the presidency of the G20 over to the US next week at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) offices in Pretoria.
Lamola briefed the media on the sidelines of the summit on Saturday.
“We did not deny anyone access, the United States is a member of the G20, and if they want to be represented, they can still send anyone at the right level. It’s the leaders’ summit and the right level is head of state. It’s a special envoy appointed by the president of that country. It could be a minister,” he said.
The Presidential Spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, also emphasised that it is a breach of protocol for President Cyril Ramaphosa to handover to a junior embassy official.
“It is a position of principle. America chose to boycott the summit. That is their choice, and it’s their prerogative to do so. But what cannot happen is a breach of protocol being forced,” Magwenya said.
The minister revealed that the US had communicated with the country regarding the G20 presidency handover, but the US communicated their decision to send a chargé d’affaires very late, which South Africa deemed unacceptable.
“The handover must happen at a head-of-state level or at least a minister who is properly designated by the president of the USA. So now that they have assigned a chargé, we have said Dirco is the equivalent official of the chargé. Hence, we welcome the fact that they will now receive it. We will do it at the Dirco offices any time from Monday,” Lamola said.
He clarified that this is not in accordance with protocol for a chargé d’affaires to participate in the handover ceremony at the summit, as the ceremony would only allow President Cyril Ramaphosa to hand over to the US President Donald Trump, who refused to attend the ceremony.
Lamola said the arrangements will be made on an appropriate date when the US can hold a ceremony to receive the presidency.
