SA will welcome new 'balanced' Cabinet - Ramaphosa
21 May 2019
President Cyril Ramaphosa says he believes the country will welcome his new Cabinet when he announces it within the next week.
Ramaphosa, Deputy President David "DD" Mabuza, and other ANC officials attended the governing party's first Parliamentary caucus sitting on Tuesday since the May 8 elections.
After the conclusion of the caucus meeting, he told journalists that he wasn't too stressed about picking his Cabinet.
"We'll present an outcome I think our country will welcome because it will have a good balance of gender, youth, competence, demographics, regional spread and all that," the president said.
As he exited the Old Assembly Chamber area, Ramaphosa ran into EFF leader Julius Malema, who he greeted and congratulated for the party's good election results.
"You have worked, jealous down," he said to Malema in Sepedi, quoting the common phrase when congratulating an opponent.
'We are not lame ducks'
Meanwhile, the ANC's newly appointed chief whip, Pemmy Majodina, said she was ready to make sure those in the party's caucus were not "lame ducks" heading into the new parliamentary term.
Majodina, who was announced as Jackson Mthembu's replacement on Monday, sat alongside Ramaphosa and Mabuza.
"We are also going to [make] members of the ANC rise to the occasion and rise to the mandate the ANC has given them to be here," she said at a quick media briefing.
"I want to make sure we are not lame ducks, ensure we play our robust oversight on the executives without creating tensions, but in line with the manifesto," she said.
Majodina added that the ANC caucus would now seek to become more familiar with the party's election manifesto so it could gauge plans and time frames.
When asked about her style of leadership, she said it would not be autocratic, but members needed to know there was only one whip.
"People must live by the values of the ANC and make sure we represent our people and that is what we will be expecting from all of them. They must move faster and better. We don't have time to play around," said Majodina.
The ANC enters the sixth Parliament with a reduced majority of 57% and has the difficult task of trying to win over South Africans - a fact that Majodina seems to be aware of. She said the caucus would also work to defend the gains made since the dawn of democracy.
"We [are here] to assure communities out there that the ANC is alive and kicking - is alive here in Parliament," she said.
