The department of public enterprises will cease to exist in future because state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will fall under their line departments, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in the National Assembly on Thursday.
The plan is a long-term one that will form part of the reconfiguration of government departments announced by the president in the state of the nation address earlier this year. Some departments will be merged, but Ramaphosa has cautioned this will take time.
The department of public enterprises oversees large SOEs such as Eskom, Denel, Transnet and SAA, and there has been support from within the ANC for them to be returned to their departments.
Big changes in the management of SOEs are in the offing on the basis of the report of the presidential SOE council, which recommended creating a centralised, state-owned holding company to hold strategic assets. Legislation is being prepared to establish this holding company, which will standardise governance procedures of SOEs.
Replying to questions by MPs, Ramaphosa defended the expansion of the number of ministers in his recent cabinet reshuffle, saying this was a temporary measure that did not detract from his long-stated commitment to reduce the size of his cabinet.
In the cabinet reshuffle Ramaphosa announced on Monday, he appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as minister of electricity to deal with the electricity crisis and Maropene Ramokgopa minister of planning, monitoring & evaluation to enhance the state’s capability. Both ministers are based in the presidency. They bring the total number of ministers to 30.
Ramaphosa said the appointment of the two new ministers was a temporary measure for the next year or so to deal with specific challenges.
Criticised by IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa for having reiterated his commitment to reducing the size of his cabinet over a number of years (he first expressed this plan when he took office in 2018) without having done anything about it, Ramaphosa noted that when he took office he reduced the size of the cabinet from 34 to 28 and planned to reduce it further in future.
“Watch this space,” Ramaphosa said.
As he said in his state of the nation address, the rationalisation of government departments and entities by the presidency and Treasury would take place over the next three years.
Ramaphosa’s cabinet reshuffle has been criticised for failing to remove deadwood and non-performing ministers, including police minister Bheki Cele, under whose watch a sharp escalation in the crime rate has taken p[lace.
Replying to questions, Ramaphosa said he had confidence in the competence of Cele and the police force. He defended the minister, who he said had raised in the cabinet the skewed ratio between the size of the police force and the size of the population. This had led to an increase in the number of police by 15,000 over the next three years, a financial provision for which was made in the 2023/2024 budget.
Ramaphosa said Cele had been instrumental in setting up specialised police units to focus on targeted areas of crime such as rape and murder of women, illegal mining and murder and robbery.
The issue of the high crime rate featured prominently during the question-and-answer session, with the president expressing confidence in the efficacy of visible policing — which will be strengthened by the addition of more police officers — and of community policing forums, which helped to identify criminals and had shown in the past they could bring down crime.
He emphasised that the escalation in crime and violence was fuelled by extreme poverty, inequality and unemployment, which was beyond the scope of the police.
Ramaphosa rejected the suggestion by DA leader John Steenhuisen that the police function be devolved to provinces, emphasising that in terms of the constitution, policing was a national competence under the control of the national police commissioner.
MPs were intrigued by Ramaphosa’s statement that a leader of one of the Brics countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and China, would be invited to the Brics summit to be hosted by SA in August. He would not say which leader this would be, saying that diplomatic arrangements would be finalised.
Steenhuisen and Hlengwa expressed suspicion that this would be Russian President Vladimir Putin.
SA has consistently failed to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and recently participated in maritime exercises with Russia and China.
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