THIS CABINET RESHUFFLE IS FUNDAMENTALLY (THOUGH NOT WHOLLY) ABOUT STRATEGIC ALLIANCE BUILDING RATHER THAN ABOUT SERVICE DELIVERY.
It is tempting to praise the president. Criticising him, after all, is all too easy and tiring (though necessary and apt). But, I am going to withhold praise about the cabinet reshuffle. Some of the cabinet reshuffle can, yes, be articulated in terms of the government's stated committment to service delivery. On the whole, however, that is not the overarching theme spanning the changing cabinet landscape.
First, if the reshuffle was genuinely about service delivery, then there would have been more of a focus on ministries that speak most directly to service delivery, such as the ministry responsible for cooperative governance and traditional affairs. Yet, despite the so-called service delivery protests, and local governments' systemic underperformance, Sicelo Shiceka is safe. What does that say about Zuma's commitment to service delivery, especially with less than a year to go before local government elections are upon us?
One might argue, desperately, that the lack of capacity at local government is larger than one individual, and so firing the minister might not help. But that defence, of course, generalises across many ministries - problems within state-owned enterprises, too, are larger than minister Barbara Hogan, so how would one justify firing her but not, say, Sicelo Shiceka? The answer is simple: the reshuffle speaks to internal ANC- and alliance-politics rather than service delivery commitment as such. One Barbara Hogan is a nuisance than need not be tolerated; Sicelo Shiceka has greater support within the party.
Second, again, if this reshuffle is fundamentally about service delivery, why was minister of public service and administration, Richard Baloyi, not axed either? South Africa is a country with a strong trade union presence in the body politic. This requires a minister in this portfolio who has demonstrated capacity to lead complex debate between labour, business and government. Yet, during the crippling recent public service strike, minister Baloyi proved useless. With the president abroad, it was particularly important for the minister to demonstrate an ability to work effectively at that most sensitive of intersections between labour, business and government. He simply was not up to the job.
Again, a desperate defence is possible: one might say that minister Baloyi could not act 'unilaterally'. He was simply the one to execute a collective cabinet response to the public servants' strike, and so untill a Zuma-led cabinet decision was made, he could do little or nothing in his singular capacity as 'minister'.