Once again, President Cyril Ramaphosa is finding himself caught up in a wrangle between his ANC and the DA over controversial clauses to the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (Bela). Some of these appear to have been self-inflicted wounds.
In October, Ramaphosa signed into law the act but suspended the implementation of two clauses which deal, respectively, with schools’ language and admissions policies. In effect, these sections empower regional education authorities to review the decisions of school governing bodies and schools’ management.
He gave three months for the parties to find each other on these proposed changes.
It emerged last week that the basic education department — which is headed by a DA minister Siviwe Gwarube — has reached an agreement with Solidarity on the two contentious clauses. The agreement was apparently reached at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) with either the knowledge or participation of a delegation from the presidency.
Gwarube, who boycotted the public signing of the Bela law but still kept her job, is due to recommend that Ramaphosa accedes to the Nedlac agreement. Solidarity asserts that failure to assent would make Ramaphosa’s actions irrational, unlawful and unconstitutional.
Ramaphosa’s allies are seething; they want him to implement the original Bela he signed in October without changes.
The presidency has since back-pedalled on this arrangement. It has said the delegation, supposedly from his office, had no mandate to negotiate. This signals that he will not be approving the changes on Friday.
Panyaza Lesufi, Gauteng’s premier, made it clear on Monday that diluting the Bela law, which is seen as a pillar of education transformation, would be tantamount to betrayal of the revolution.
From the little that is known, the changes agreed last week are language fudges aimed at getting them over the line.
But the whole thing is problematic on so many levels.
First, Nedlac has been rendered irrelevant by all its partners. The government is happy to engage in parallel forums such as its partnership with business, which excludes both labour and community constituencies.
Second, as a consequence, Nedlac has hardly produced any significant deliverables in the past few years. It was supposed to midwife Ramaphosa’s social compact and it failed.
Third, if it was the forum where the deal was brokered, why were labour and civil society left out of the talks?
And fourth, then there is the role of the so-called clearing house led by Paul Mashatile, Ramaphosa’s deputy, to resolve sticking points within the government of national unity. Surely, the Bela differences ought to have been fed into it for a structured process to resolve them. This structure seemingly will only see the latest Bela version on Thursday.
It is hard to believe that Ramaphosa knew nothing of the talks. It is also unlikely that Gwarube lacked the presence of mind to give him a heads-up. In fact, Helen Zille, the DA federal chair, appeared much closer to the details of what was agreed.
By all accounts, a deal between two stakeholders (not parties) lacks legitimacy.
Ramaphosa has two choices: first, ask Mashatile to restart an inclusive process; and second, approach the courts to stop the agreement. Sadly, both options make him seem out of touch, weak and ill-informed.
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