Reshuffle ‘nanny Cabinet’, fire non-performing ministers and stop ‘mega-Presidency’, Scopa chairperson tells Ramaphosa

“Every time your ministers don’t perform, instead of firing them you protect them by taking things into the Presidency. Be decisive, Mr President. Fire them! Don’t have a nanny Cabinet... If they are not working, fire them.” 

Looking at President Cyril Ramaphosa during Day Two of the Sona Parliamentary debate on Wednesday, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) chairperson, IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa, didn’t mince his words. 

“It seems to us you have no confidence in your own ministers,” he said before setting out how most, if not all functions currently located in the Presidency should actually be in departments.

The Presidential Employment Stimulus should be in the National Youth Development Agency and the labour ministry. The Presidential Climate Commission should be in Environmental Affairs. Mineral Resources and Energy should run the National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom) alongside the Just Energy Transition, while infrastructure should be in Public Works and the presidential red tape reduction unit at Small Business Development. 

Instead, all are in the Presidency, said Hlengwa, who at Scopa must deal with financial fudging at best and, at worst, abuse of authority, money and procurement. 

“You are overstretching yourself and your ministers are sitting at home doing nothing,” said Hlengwa.  

His comments came in the wake of the 9 February State of the National Address (Sona) in which Ramaphosa stepped off the traditional Sona outline of the government’s programme for the year. 

“We are not presenting new plans, nor are we outlining here the full programme of government,” the President had said, raising four issues: rolling blackouts, joblessness, poverty, and crime and corruption. 

And Sona 2023 seemed more about what the Ramaphosa Presidency does, rather than his administration. Three ministers were cited — not by name — as “minister of finance”, “minister of public enterprises” and “minister of cooperative government”.  

On the rolling blackouts, Ramaphosa announced the forthcoming appointment of an electricity minister in his Presidency, and a National State of Disaster to accelerate the plans he and Necom had established in the Presidency already in July 2022.

Ramaphosa spoke about the Presidential Climate Commission and the Just Energy Transition and its funding that all are in the Presidency, as is the joint initiative with National Treasury on structural reforms, Operation Vulindlela, and the red tape reduction unit which, he said, “has been working with various departments to make it easier to do business”.  

He spoke of investment in South Africa — R367-billion pledged at the most recent pledging meet — which is also a function located in the Presidency, right from the start in 2018 when Ramaphosa said he wanted to raise $100-billion over the next five years.

Ramaphosa presented a list of various bridges to be built — a Sona tradition — but without any reference to specific departments. Infrastructure also is within his Presidency. As commander-in-chief, the President thanked the SANDF for its bridge-building prowess.

On unemployment, Ramaphosa cited achievements of the Presidential Employment Stimulus — including 1.2 million job opportunities — which is in his Presidency. Nothing on the employment and labour ministry or department, or public works programmes like the Public Works Employment Programme that dates back to the Thabo Mbeki administration.

And so the ministers and deputies who spoke in the Sona debate took their lead from their boss to hail his leadership. 

After some ideological non-reductionist hair-splitting over the yet-to-be-appointed electricity minister in the Presidency, aka the electricity availability factor project manager, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said: “If we derail from the identified critical path, we will derail the whole project. That is how serious the President takes this crisis.” 

A concrete announcement