Trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel is the weakest link in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “reconfigured” economic cluster, and should have been axed along with the others. The cluster hasn’t been strengthened, and the same unimaginative, unscientific and regressive “economic growth and regulatory” thinking will persist.
I may be perceived as harsh to suggest Patel should have been axed, or at least reassigned. His critics have tended to ask him “to do more/better” but never quite get around to asking for him to be removed altogether. Here’s why: as politicians go Patel is an affable guy, even if the bar for likeability is rather low in SA. And that is the most compelling reason Patel has been able to remain below the radar of the political commentariat — to pass muster you merely need not be corrupt and be able to string together comforting but vacuous platitudes to be considered competent enough for high office.
Patel has done a good job of remaining out of controversy within the ANC, despite its rampant factionalism; just visible enough to remain relevant to an ANC top six that seeks to find the balancing point between sanitisation and optics on the one hand and patronage on the other. Patel was never delegated by former ANC caucus leader Jackson Mthembu to speak at any of the nine no-confidence debates during the Jacob Zuma era. He is not someone journalists think of calling when they want a view on the ANC’s internecine politics. So he is not thought of as a Zuma sympathiser, for instance, despite being a consistent fixture in Zuma’s economic cluster and now Ramaphosa’s.
Patel is not a person who comes to mind when the average voter thinks about the weaknesses of cabinet, because his department is not one the average citizen is engaged with. It’s easy for the average citizen to conceptualise, say, Fikile Mbalula’s political petulance — they only need to wait for a train that doesn't arrive or look at their e-toll bill for evidence. Similarly, the average citizen needs only to be reminded about the dropout rate, illiteracy and the terrible state of school infrastructure to know that Angie Motshekga has been doing a less-than-mediocre job as basic education minister. The same is the case for Bheki Cele and SA’s endemic crime.
The failure of economic regulation and growth is not as conspicuous as a defunct school or broken train, or the ubiquity of crime and corrupt police officers. Patel’s failure is thus less obvious. But it’s time we lift the veil and ask a crucial question: what is Patel’s track record on economic development and trade and industry regulation? Is he someone investors and businesses can look to for positive signals of economic growth thinking, policy consistency and policy development towards a stable economy and reliable trade and industry environment? As importantly, can businesses in SA rely on Patel to engage with them openly, honestly and be dependable when the going gets tough? The answer is an incontrovertible no.
Perhaps the most trite evidence of Patel’s failure is the lack of economic growth. We often forget that while his ministry is called trade, industry & competition, Ramaphosa merged Patel’s old portfolio — economic development — with the former department of trade & industry. Yet few South Africans would be able to tell you what they know about Patel’s economic growth programme. We often erroneously place that expectation on the finance minister, whose primary task is actually to split the pie, when Patel’s primary key performance indicator is to grow the pie.
His inefficacy has been highlighted most over the past few months, when he was most needed. He was conspicuous by his absence when environment minister Barbara Creecy sank energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s multibillion rand Karpowership emergency energy deal over regulatory issues. Patel was also away from the centre of the resolve when businesses needed emergency intervention in unblocking the N3 during the week of unrest in July, and remained absent until much later, when government officials were on the ground trying to “quell” the situation. The DA even facetiously put out a missing person alert for Patel.
More telling of Patel’s tendency to throttle rather than boost business came when SAB approached the Western Cape High Court for a remedy against the Covid-induced alcohol sales ban. Dealing with an industry value chain that supports more than 1-million people in employment, Patel simply folded his hands and in effect told the industry, through court papers, that they were just a bunch of cry babies. From those court papers it was clear that Patel has been largely inaccessible to the alcohol industry. They were on their own.
Ramaphosa missed an opportunity to truly anchor his economic cluster in a pro-growth slant when he retained Patel in his recent cabinet reshuffle. We are past the stage of asking Patel to “do more”; SA needs a new growth lieutenant in the economic cluster.
• Dickson, a former communications adviser to the home affairs ministry, is a political analyst, policy and political risk consultant and radio broadcaster.
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