A FAMOUS GROUSE
THE immediate reaction to Cyril Ramaphosa’s new Cabinet was one of astonishment. Blade Nzimande is alive? How could they tell? Here at the Slaughtered Lamb (“Finest Ales & Pies”) we were under the impression that life support was unplugged back in August last year.
Alas not. For here he is, much like Boris Karloff in The Mummy, trailing old bandages as he assumes office as the minister of the newly-formed Department of Science, Technology and Innovation.
That said, and on the plus side, it had become painfully obvious to all and sundry that Nzimande was not up to scratch in his old job, perhaps by dint of being in a coma, and Squirrel found it necessary to relieve him of his higher eduction duties.
This has freed up Blade to devote more attention to downloading apps on his smartphone as the altogether more switched on Nobuhle Nkabane takes over as higher education minister in her new, fit-for-purpose department.
There came shocked awe, too, at the sheer size of the new cabinet. “Gargantuan” is perhaps too ineffectual a description of this bloated monster. Its unveiling by Squirrel on Sunday reminded us of the time, back in September 2012, when Jacob Zuma, Squirrel’s predecessor and now arch-enemy, rose in Parliament to answer a question concerning trade union representation in wage negotiations.
What followed was widely derided as one of the more idiotic of many such utterances in which Convict Number One revealed a fundamental failure to understand the basic tenets of constitutional democracy:
“You have more rights because you’re a majority; you have less rights because you’re a minority. That’s how democracy works … You can’t have a union of half-a-dozen people [and say] because they've declared it a union, you must have the same rights. In a democratic situation, it is the majority that prevail. I can’t change the rules because you want to make a particular point. You can’t then say, smaller unions must then be compared to the bigger unions in the same way.”
One way, then, to shore up ruling party “majoritarianism” in a government of national unity is to stuff the executive with yet more friendly officials and departments. The number of ministers now stands at 32, up from 30, with 43 deputy ministers, up from 36. This expansion, we’ve been told, is necessary to accommodate opposition parties in the GNU.
This super-bloating also serves to “balance the different forces in the ANC”, as Ferial Haffajee put it in Daily Maverick. This is a bit like taking a sackful of feral cats and placing them in a bigger sack in the hope that they stop scratching the hell out of each other. A short-term solution, in other words, and very short at that.
The Cabinet positions allocated to opposition parties clearly do not reflect the the election results. The Democratic Alliance has six positions, the Inkatha Freedom Party two, and the Patriotic Alliance, the Pan African Congress, the Good party and Freedom Front Plus one apiece. This amounts to 16 per cent of a Cabinet controlled by a party with just 40 per cent support from the electorate.
This “inequality”, for want of a term, is largely the reason behind the current deadlock in the Gauteng provincial government. The ANC narrowly emerged as victors here with almost 35 per cent support. The DA, meanwhile, cracked more than 27 per cent, the EFF almost 13 per cent, and uMkhonto we Sizwe nearly ten per cent.
Despite its pitiful showing at the polls, the ANC believes it should dominate the provincial government and, according to Gauteng DA leader Solly Msimanga, wants to keep eight of the ten PGU portfolios for itself. It has offered the DA two MEC positions and two portfolio chair positions. This, Msimanga told News24, was not “the true reflection of what the voters have said to us”. The PGU, he added, could not exist without the inclusion of other political parties.
It is a great pity, then, that the Gauteng premier, the bigoted Panyaza Lesufi, is not able to take a leaf from Squirrel’s book and just invent some new provincial portfolios to ensure a more representative majoritarianism. A department dealing exclusively with changes to road names, for example. Or one to regulate township car washers. Admittedly, this would require some time and imagination on Lesufi’s part, but the sooner it’s done, the sooner he can get back to dicking about with woo-woo and alternative medicine and bullying Afrikaans schools.
But back to Squirrel’s new government, and some initial thoughts, hopes and misgivings. The good news, I believe, is that it is that they’re mostly a young bunch who come armed, not with “struggle credentials” or “liberation movement”
crap, but rather some form altruism and similarly praiseworthy ideals. They do however have a lot on their plates.
At 34, for example, the DA’s Siviwe Gwarube is now the youngest basic education minister in the post-apartheid era. It’s a crucial position, and will see her in charge of a department with a R320-billlion budget, the single largest expenditure item in the national budget.
Gwarube has an uphill battle on her hands, from eradicating pit latrines in schools to tackling an education system that has churned out hundreds of thousands of kids without the basic literacy skills needed to be productive members of society.
Another youngster, the DA’s Leon Schreiber, 35, is home affairs minister. This, too, is an important but very troubled portfolio, to say the least, and is in dire need of a swift kick up its arse. Schreiber’s deputy is the former ANC Youth League secretary-general Njabulo Nzuza, a potentially troublesome partner, ideologically speaking.
There has been some optimism concerning the economic and energy portfolios. Enoch Godongwana has kept his job as finance minister, and observers say this is a good thing. His two deputies, the ANC’s David Masondo and the DA’s Ashor Sarupen, are well regarded in finance circles. The DA’s Solly Malatsi is in charge of communications and digital technologies, yet another crucial economic growth portfolio.
Godongwana will be joined in the economic cluster by the ANC’s Parks Tau, as trade, industry and competition minister, and the DA’s Dean Macpherson, the new public works and infrastructure minister. Tau’s two deputies, the ANC’s Zuko Godlimpi and the DA’s Andrew Whitfield, are also considered promising appointments.
There have been a few raised eyebrows at DA leader John Steenhuisen’s appointment as agriculture minister, with some commentators, like News24’s Adriaan Basson, suggesting Steenhuisen may have been of more use in public works or home affairs. But agriculture is an important sector, and the two words to consider here are “food” and “security”. Steenhuisen will also sit on the government’s economic and investment cluster.
And what of FF+ leader Piet Groenewald in charge of correctional services? Not so many medical paroles in future, we predict. That’s put paid to tackling the overcrowded prisons.
So much for the good. Now for the bad and the ugly.
Steenhuisen, and indeed the GNU itself, face a potential problem in the appointment of the PAC’s Mzwanele Nyhontso as land reform minister. Given that the PAC’s support in the election was just 0.29 per cent, not to mention the party’s hostility towards agreements struck between the ANC and the “settler government” of FW de Klerk in the early 1990s, the motive for Nyhotso’s inclusion in the Cabinet does seem rather odd. Expect a less than cosy relationship here.
Gwede Mantashe is still in charge of the mining sector as mineral resources and petroleum minister. He’s lost the energy component of the portfolio, which has been handed over to the ANC’s Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the new electricity and energy minister.
Mantashe denies this is a demotion and argues the move frees him up to continue playing “a key role in engaging the [mining] industry”, a sector where he would have us believe he is held in some esteem. This despite the fact that South Africa now attracts less than 0.8 per cent of global mineral exploration investment, down from more than five per cent in 2005.
Aaron Motsoaledi is back as health minister. Not good news. Ditto former basic minister Angie Motshekga as defence minister. This is an extremely WTF appointment, and must surely be worrying news for those SANDF troops currently being shot to pieces in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The appointment of the PA’s Gayton McKenzie, a former gangster, as minister of sports, arts and culture is another puzzling move. His previous experience of athletic activity may or may not have included time spent as a spectator at wet T-shirt competitions. It’s definitely “watch this space” territory.
As for Patricia de Lille getting the soft tourism portfolio, well, here’s hoping her yapping won’t frighten off the visitors.
Meanwhile…
I’m off to vote again in a few hours. As I write, Private Eye’s “pre-election special issue” arrives in the post. It features the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, outside Downing Street on the cover, with the speech bubble: “It’s not over yet. Goodbye!”
Ag shame, such cruelty.
