Ramaphosa’s Cabinet must go: 5 Reasons for the DA’s Motion of No Confidence in Ayanda Dlodlo
29 March 2022
Ayanda Dlodlo has been a disaster for the South African public service. As Minister of Public Service and Administration, she has overseen the implosion of service delivery through her refusal to confront the ANC policy of cadre deployment. And instead of reducing the public sector wage bill to help South Africa avoid a debt crisis, she granted illegally a R30.2 billion salary increase to keep the wheels of ANC patronage turning.
Ayanda Dlodlo has chosen ANC cadres over the people of South Africa. She must go!
Illegal multi-billion salary increases to public servants– On 28 February 2022, the Constitutional upheld an earlier Labour Court ruling that Cabinet’s decision to funnel an additional R30.2 billion into the pockets of public servants and the thousands of ANC cadres “deployed” to capture the state was “invalid, unlawful and unenforceable.” In the process, the highest court in the land also upheld the Labour Court ruling that President Ramaphosa’s government violated sections 213 and 215 of the Constitution when it granted the illegal increase. Ayanda Dlodlo was the Minister of Public Service and Administration who oversaw the illegal deal and who was reappointed to the same position by Ramaphosa in August 2021.
State intelligence failure leading to July 2021 riots– The failure of the security cluster in containing the July 2021 riots in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal was in part a consequence of state security shortcomings – for which Ayanda Dlodlo was responsible as the then Minister of State Security at the time. Minister Dlodlo is on record having said that she handed an intelligence report to law enforcement warning of possible unrest action days before it started, and Minister Cele is on record denying that he ever had sight of such a report. This discrepancy has never been cleared up.
Reluctance to act against public servants who stole the R350 grant- Almost a year since the DA first brought to light the fact that public servants had unlawfully applied for and/or received the SRD grant, Ayanda Dlodlo has chosen to distance the Department of Public Service and Administration from holding implicated parties to account, opting instead to dump the responsibility on individual departments. Ever since Dlodlo took this decision, it has become increasingly clear that these disciplinary cases have not been concluded within the 90 day period prescribed by the Public Service Regulations of 2016.
Refusal to end cadre deployment and lifestyle audit failure– After the DA exposed the minutes of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee minutes - which confirmed that this policy is the foundation of state capture - Minister Dlodlo refused to take a stand against cadre deployment. Under her watch, cadre deployment and state capture continue unabated. Four years since Ramaphosa first promised lifestyle audits for Cabinet Ministers, Dlodlo has also not only failed to deliver on this promise but even described them as "less urgent."
Failed to reduce the public sector wage bill- Just days after President Ramaphosa told South Africans that “it is the private sector, rather than the government, that creates jobs”, Ayanda Dlodlo awarded a R450 million salary increase to millionaire managers in the Public Service. This salary increase, following a R30 billion salary increase for lower levels of the public service in 2021, dealt the death blow to years of empty promises by Ramaphosa’s government that it would freeze the public sector wage bill to avert a full-blown debt crisis. The salary increase was nothing less than an insult to more than 10 million unemployed South Africans.
Issued by Leon Schreiber, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 29 March 2022
