President Cyril Ramaphosa has still not implemented an important mechanism to hold government officials to account, despite promising in his state of the nation address to sign performance agreements with cabinet ministers at the end of February.
The department of planning, monitoring & evaluation (DPME) has said the matter was “deleted” from the annual performance plan because of budget reprioritisation due to Covid-19.
When Ramaphosa announced in February that he would be signing performance agreements with ministers, business and other stakeholders welcomed the move, saying it would help root out malfeasance and maladministration in the public sector.
It was also seen as ushering in a new era of transparency and accountability within Ramaphosa’s executive.
Ramaphosa said that to strengthen the capacity of the state and increase accountability he would be signing performance agreements with all ministers before the end of February. “These agreements ... will be made public so that the people of SA can hold those who they elected into office to account,” the president said at the time.
However, a presentation to parliament by DPME director-general Robert Nkuna on Friday on the retabling of the 2020/2021 revised budget and annual performance plan (APP) targets sought to reverse Ramaphosa’s promise.
In the presentation, under the sub-headline “revision of targets due to Covid-19”, Nkuna states that “signing of performance agreements was suspended. Depend[ing] on the decision of the president”, and that this matter has been “deleted from current APP”.
Presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko said the performance agreements were developed, negotiated and finalised with all ministers in March.
“The outbreak of coronavirus has however necessitated that government programmes and budgets are reprioritised to respond to the current challenge. The agreements will thus have to be revised.”
Public service & administration committee whip Mina Lesoma, who chaired Friday's meeting, said they will write a letter to minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu on Monday to ask that he explain in writing exactly what is happening with the performance agreements.
“The minister is better placed to deal with this matter. We are going to request him to tell us in writing what is the rationale behind this move and what informs it,” said Lesoma.
Mthembu and his spokesperson, Nonceba Mhlauli, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Committee member Leon Schreiber said: “It’s not the first time the president has made a big promise and a few months later it’s broken.”
He said: “It’s quite staggering that the president thinks he can make a promise in February and in July delete it — that’s the word they used. It’s an absolutely outrageous thing; he thinks South Africans are fools.”
DA MP Solly Malatsi said on Sunday that the agreements “have been aborted without any indication of their possible resurrection in the foreseeable future, joining the ever-growing list of President Ramaphosa’s broken promises”.
Malatsi, who also serves as the DA’s national spokesperson, said Ramaphosa’s sole motivation was to “abort holding his comrades accountable” by opting for political expediency to shield his ministers’ performances from public scrutiny.
The DA will be writing to the president to demand “detailed reasons for his reluctance to proceed with the finalisation of these performance agreements”, said Malatsi. “If the president is a man of his word, he must immediately release these performance agreements.”
Nkuna could not be reached for comment. DPME chief of staff Musi Skosana told Business Day on Sunday that the APP of the department had to be changed due to the Covid-19 budget reprioritisation.
“That means the [signing of] performance agreements have had to be changed. Yes, the president had already designated dates for the signing of these agreements, but then Covid-19 came,” said Skosana.
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