Organised business raised reservations regarding the new additions within president Cyril Ramaphosa’s reconfigured cabinet where the president expanded the executive by adding a ministry of electricity and ministry of planning, monitoring and evaluation.
Both the ministries will be placed within the presidency and will be headed by the country’s former infrastructure head, Kgosientsho ‘Sputla’ Ramokgopa and ANC’s second deputy secretary-general, Maropene Ramokgopa, respectively.
The new minister of electricity is part of the laundry list of interventions by the government to end load-shedding. He will have “political responsibility, authority and control over all critical aspects of the Energy Action Plan. This will help to deal with the challenge of fragmentation of responsibility across various departments and ministers, which, while appropriate under normal circumstances, is not conducive to a crisis response”, Ramaphosa said on Monday.
The addition of the electricity minister together with the departments of mineral resources and energy, and public enterprises, will mean there will be three ministries managing the electricity sector.
The president said the minister of monitoring and evaluation will focus greater attention on the performance of government.
Business Leadership SA (BLSA), which represent some of SA’s largest listed companies, says it is concerned about the addition of the two ministries “given that the cabinet is already bloated”.
“With resolving the electricity crisis so critical to our economic prospects, BLSA hopes government will be united in implementing the Energy Action Plan, but is concerned this attempt to endow the new electricity minister with overall responsibility may lead to turf wars, which many not be beneficial to smooth progress,” the lobby group said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa did, however, announce measures to rationalise government departments, entities and programmes which would result in fewer ministries in the configuration of government “going into the next administration.”
Business Unity SA (Busa) CEO Cas Coovadia said the organisation would support the newly appointed energy minister despite the group’s previous calls he should not be appointed.
“We were of the view a new minister of electricity should not be appointed, but now that the president has appointed him, we will continue our support to help implement the president’s energy plan as a matter of urgency,” says Busa CEO Cas Coovadia.
“The cabinet will have to demonstrate, with urgency, that ministers will be moving with speed to address the numerous crises we are experiencing in our country. The ministers do not have the luxury of taking their time in getting into their roles, but must move with urgency and implement, implement, implement.”
Trade union labour federation Cosatu said not enough had been done to reduce the size of the cabinet.
“Not enough was done to reduce the size of the cabinet and to realign the government departments to improve their co-operation and levels of efficiency. Postponing this process and shifting to the next administration is not satisfactory,” said Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla.
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