President Cyril Ramaphosa is battling with an eye infection that has led him to cancel a TV interview on Tuesday morning.
The Presidency also announced that on Tuesday night, Ramaphosa will attend a farewell dinner held in tribute to Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, who is retiring at the end of August after a judicial career spanning 27 years.
Speaking in an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said sessions organised for Tuesday have been in the works for quite some time, and it is difficult to block an entire day in the president’s schedule for media engagements.
Magwenya said there had been a lot of hard work in organising the day’s events, but it is unfortunate that the president has an eye infection.
“The president is perfectly fine. The eye infection is quite bad and it will not look good on television, to appear with an eye like that. I reaffirm his (Ramaphosa’s) commitment that we will be looking at an alternative date to have the planned media sessions,” said Magwenya.
Asked whether Ramaphosa would still join Zondo’s farewell bash, Magwenya said he would go back to the president to check on him to see how they are going to manage the rest of the day.
He also said Ramaphosa has Cabinet on Wednesday, which he said would be okay for him to continue chairing.
Magwenya further said Ramaphosa has a public signing of the second Presidential Health Compact at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. He said that hopefully the eye infection would have cleared.
He said if he was still not well, he would advise the organisers of the event accordingly.
“We were really hoping that by now the eye would have cleared. He took eye drops this morning, but unfortunately it was not to be in terms of carrying on with the interview,” he said, apologetic.
The Star