The ANC and its national government of unity (GNU) will probably, but erroneously, claim victory from the communications shambles around the visit by the foreign minister of Ukraine.
But the reality is that the debacle has exposed a fundamental weakness in the government’s communications machinery and, potentially, the GNU’s ways of working.
On Sunday night, Leon Schreiber, the home affairs minister from the DA, took to X to announce a waiver allowing diplomats and government officials from Ukraine to travel visa-free to SA. This would help assist important peace talks around the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Within minutes of the social media post, the presidency’s spokesperson posted a message suggesting that Schreiber had jumped the gun as the president had not signed a “minute” (read: talks had not been finalised).
On Wednesday, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula gloated that the party’s deployee, President Cyril Ramaphosa, would not sell out the party — likely a true observation — as Ramaphosa is just a party functionary.
Ukraine’s foreign minister left Pretoria without this agreement signed as talks around the visa-free agreement are continuing. This is not a train smash. Nor will this hobble peace diplomacy. However, it is a disturbing embarrassment and advertisement of the GNU.
A week ago, Ramaphosa sold the 100-day-old GNU to his Brics partners as a panacea to SA’s socioeconomic problems at a Kazan summit (hosted by Vladimir Putin) of Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the UAE. He characterised his host as SA’s ally. This prompted a strong rebuttal by his agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, the leader of the DA, that Russia was not the GNU’s ally.
Steenhuisen has maintained this position, as with the DA’s other differing positions on the Middle East conflict, National Health Insurance and the Basic Education Amendment Act.
On the surface, the unseemly public spat between GNU ministers, a month after the act’s controversial signing, shows signs of fissure in the shared governance arrangement. But it cannot — and will not — torpedo the arrangement. The existential risk remains inside Ramaphosa’s ANC: whether he can survive to see it through to 2029 when its life formally ends.
The spats will always be there. For now, they show tensions between the GNU ministers. Fundamentally, however, they expose the weakness of the government’s communications machinery.
Over time, the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), the body which is supposed to co-ordinate governmentwide communications, has been depleted and become ineffectual. It operated for years without a CEO until Phumla Williams was grudgingly confirmed as CEO after years of acting in the position.
In the past few years, there has been more confusion in this important function. Under Nelson Mandela’s and Thabo Mbeki’s administrations, the CEO of the GCIS, housed in the presidency, also served as the head of the policy co-ordination and advisory services. He also served as the government’s, not the president’s spokesperson.
This has changed under Ramaphosa. The head of the GCIS doesn’t speak for the government. Vincent Magwenya, the president’s embattled spokesperson, is not the head of the GCIS or, significantly, chief government spokesperson, though he takes all the bullets.
The government spokesperson is Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the minister in the presidency for intelligence, with no communications expertise. Odd. The GCIS needs to be appropriately capacitated to lead (again).
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