Naledi Pandor’s non-valediction ahead of Ramaphosa’s critical Cabinet announcement

Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor addressed her staff this week to thank them for their loyal service and to urge them to “be as  professional and as welcoming to the new minister...as you were to me.”

Pandor recorded the video message to her staff on 18 June, which she said was the last day of the sixth administration “and therefore the last day of my five-year term”.

Her message has been interpreted by some as valedictory, as President Ramaphosa prepares to announce his new Cabinet any day now.  But it wasn’t a farewell, her spokesperson insisted.

“I would be happy if you can help dispel this myth that Minister Pandor is retiring,” said Lunga Ngqengelele. “The message was meant to thank the staff and heads of missions for the work done under the sixth administration.

“Of course, as the political head, Dr Pandor doesn’t know if she will be appointed as the Minister or not (as that is up to the President)…but she has said on many occasions that she is available to serve.”

So Pandor was just being punctilious, it seems. If Ramaphosa reappoints her to her present position, she will be a “new” minister in the sense of serving a new administration, the seventh. In fact Pandor pointed out to her staff a few important tasks which remained to be completed by the seventh administration — and noted, perhaps significantly, that “seven is my lucky number.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: Despite rumours to the contrary, Naledi Pandor wants to remain foreign minister, insiders say

The main goal was for the department to get a clean audit, she said, adding that with the new financial controls introduced during her tenure during the sixth administration, that should be possible.

Pandor also noted that other important tasks of the seventh administration would be to complete the organisational restructuring of the department and fully implement the Foreign Service Act which aims to increase the professionalisation of Dirco.

Pandor praised the country’s diplomats for helping Ramaphosa meet his goals of boosting foreign investment into South Africa. She said they had also done well in representing South Africa in international organisations, especially during the country’s two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2019 and 2020.

And she praised them for supporting Ramaphosa when he chaired the African Union in 2020, and focussed on mobilising the continent to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Pandor said her department had also done well in protecting South Africans during the pandemic, an apparent reference to the department’s efforts to return South Africans stranded abroad by the global shutdown of international flights.

Pandor also urged her diplomats and officials to try hard to get one or two South Africans elected to the African Union Commission, to emulate the country’s success at the International Court of Justice — a reference to her government taking Israel to that World Court on charges of committing genocide in Gaza. That mission has dominated her work this year but she referred to it only briefly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4G55-Rcb34

So, given her listing of the accomplishments of the sixth administration and her reminder of the important tasks it had begun that needed to be completed during the “lucky” seventh administration, perhaps Pandor’s message, far from being a farewell, should have been regarded instead as a job re-application. DM