The various ministers and deputy ministers of our inflated South African Cabinet have recently been the focus of the news again – much as they often have been for the last several years. Sadly, most of that attention is for negative reasons.
The most recent incident saw our rogue president exercise his “presidential prerogative” all over the tentative and fragile economic growth that our increasingly struggling nation was hoping to benefit from this year – the Rand plummeted like a cartoon anvil and international investors started preparing for the near inevitable credit downgrade awaiting South Africa in the wake of the nonsensical replacement of Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas, both internationally trusted figures in finance. Of course, the nation reeled with horror as S&P did an emergency downgrading of South Africa to junk status on Monday, 3 April (they were meant to rate us on 2 June).
I write this to remind us all of the magnitude of the insanity that rests with our bloated cabinet. I’ll start by looking at the private sector: upper management of a company is generally paid a lot more than middle management; middle management is paid a lot more than the average employee. Why? The answer is simple: the higher up in the management hierarchy an employee is, the more responsibility they have. The increase in responsibility is generally paired with an increase in required qualifications and experience, along with an increase in salary.
Consider the previous paragraph’s conclusion: the higher up in the management hierarchy, the more the responsibility, and correspondingly the higher the pay and requirements. Now apply that logic the government – specifically the average minister – and realise how badly dysfunctional our country is. A moment of silence for our future.
Now, on to some specifics, examples and explanations. Firstly, the main issue is that, despite the large salaries paid to the ministers of the Cabinet – over R2.3 million for each minister and R1.9 million for each deputy minster, not including perks like an additional 25% of their salary provided nominally for purchasing or maintaining a car. First year degree tuition, housing, meals and general costs comes out to about R100 000 for 2016 – so each minister’s salary could put 23 students through a full year of study with all costs included. What incredible responsibility lies on the shoulders of our ministers to justify such generous remuneration?
As far as recent events seem to indicate, our ministers have no responsibility whatsoever.
Think about the incredible Sassa mess of 2017. Bathabile Dlamini presided over a department that failed so badly in following a court order, that the court was eventually blackmailed with the lives of poor South Africans into allowing a corrupt relationship between Sassa and CPS (Cash Paymaster Services) to continue on a temporary basis.
An estimated 16 million South Africans rely on social grants to survive – when Sassa, under the supposed supervision of Minister Dlamini, ran the risk of not being able to pay social grants, they endangered the lives of 16 million people. The Holocaust – one of the most reviled acts of hatred and cruelty in the history of mankind – resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews, and is widely considered an event of unspeakable evil. What are we to make of Minister Dlamini placing almost three times as many people at risk of suffering and starvation?
Minister Bathabile Dlamini is still in her post after the most recent Cabinet reshuffle. She has not faced any sort of consequence for her nearly unimaginable failure so far – the only consequence she might yet feel for endangering the lives of almost a third of the citizens of South Africa thanks to her incompetence is having to personally pay R5 million in legal fees. The apparent worst punishment for Dlamini’s unconscionable failure will be two years’ worth of her salary. That is not responsibility – that is a free pass, despite her only defense being that she was not paying enough attention and realised the problem too late (which amounts to an admission of incompetence, in my opinion).
Minister Dlamini may be the best example of all to show that ministers carry no real responsibility, but others are not difficult to find. Fikile Mbalula – known by some as the Twitter Clown for his selfie posts – caused national discontent with his divisive racial policies in such sports as rugby. Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, is now known internationally for her incredibly disappointing inability to even get through a simple interview without going on a rambling tirade about a hole in her head. Nkosinathi Nhleko, the Minister of Police before the #CabinetReshuffle and current Minister of Public Works disgraced the Cabinet with his now infamous “firepool” claim.
Various other ministers have either made costly mistakes, been involved in corrupt or unethical deals, embarrassed South Africa internationally, or otherwise made a mess. Few were held responsible for anything. In counterpoint, Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas were making measurable contributions to the stability of the economy of South Africa – only to be axed on the basis of an “intelligence report” so poorly written and detached from facts that even other top ANC officials decided to speak out about the madness of it.
As if all of that was not bad enough, an ANC official and Zuma confidante told City Press that “Zuma had appointed Malusi Gigaba in this key portfolio because the former ANC Youth League president was a capable minister who had performed in every portfolio he had been given.” The large problem with that is that it shows us that Zuma considers ministers interchangeable – just because Gigaba did fine elsewhere he should do fine in finance, the president figures. No financial knowledge, qualifications or experience needed.
A minister without the appropriate knowledge and experience in their field can never be more than a political figurehead. What company would appoint a Chief Financial Officer with no finance experience, no accounting experience and no economics degree? Gigaba has a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in social policy – fine qualifications, perhaps, and an arguably good political career – but one has to question whether Gigaba, with minimal financial experience, is a better fit for the Finance portfolio than Gordhan, who has a lot of financial/commerce experience (including chairing the World Customs Organisation), honorary doctorates in commerce and law, international recognition, played an important role in the transition out of Apartheid (with CODESA, for example) and had the respect of the Treasury and South Africa in general…
It seems clear that Cabinet positions are assigned for reasons other than specialised knowledge or relevant experience. Indeed, looking at the origin of Cabinet members and other top officials appointed by Zuma, one finds that the Ministers of Justice, Police, State Security, Communication, Public Enterprises, Social Development (the invincible terror Bathabile Dlamini), Correctional Services, Finance, Labour, Higher Education and Home Affairs are all from KZN. Likewise for the SACP head, COSATU president, the National Director of Public Prosecution and the head of the Special Investigative Unit. Odd how Zuma could all but gather the Cabinet in his controversial amphitheater at Nkandla for a neighborhood braai (probably tax-funded).
South Africa has a growing crisis festering in the economy, with almost negligible growth, corruption escalating wildly and now the building catastrophe of the diving Rand, the downgrade to junk status and the resultant volatility of the JSE. We need a full 3% growth to even sustain social grants, but we might be looking at negative growth percentages for this year.
Can we afford the incompetent Cabinet we are stuck with at the moment? Can we pay political opportunists millions upon millions a year to take no responsibility whatsoever? Can we let them mess around and make mistakes with our tax money with no consequences?
I think that, if we do not soon shed both Zuma and this insane tendency to keep around people with big mouths, political aspirations and an excess of incompetence as “Ministers”, we are going to find it impossible to provide grants to the poor for less avoidable reasons – and what do you think 16 million hungry, penniless and disillusioned South Africans will do if they are given no option but to starve or forsake the law?
A scary thought. If you still hope for our nation, help get rid of Zuma and his incompetent Cabinet. It’ll be too late long before the ANC manage to do something about their own devil-in-chief – it’s up to us as South Africans.
As for myself, I will be wearing black, in mourning of my country, until Zuma falls. Join me in this, as part of a #SAinMourning movement.
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