Earlier this year President Cyril Ramaphosa approved salary increases for South Africa’s ministers, deputy ministers and MPs. Ministers will now earn about R2.79m a year and ordinary MPs more than R1.3m.
This is a self-serving decision that is a slap in the face to millions of struggling South Africans and overburdened taxpayers. It highlights the problem of the country’s costly and unnecessarily bloated executive.
At a time when the government should be demonstrating its commitment to effective, disciplined governance by tightening the belt and freeing up more resources for critical services, it has chosen to guzzle those resources by maintaining an unnecessarily bloated executive.
It has chosen to increase the pay of millionaire politicians while South Africans continue to battle myriad socioeconomic challenges.
A bloated executive
The country’s executive is unnecessarily large. It comprises several portfolios that serve as little more than an employment agency for politicians and cadres of the dominant political party, wasting hundreds of millions every year without adding real value for South African citizens.
Some of these portfolios include small business development; tourism; science & innovation; and women, youth & persons with disabilities — all of which can and should be abolished, with their functions either ceasing or the private sector stepping in.
Others include electricity & energy, water & sanitation, and transport, which could be fully absorbed into other portfolios, thereby saving hundreds of millions of rand each year.
It goes without saying that an underresourced country such as South Africa, with a limited and shrinking tax base, cannot afford to waste resources on wasteful perks for politicians. Every cent that is directed to the executive must count and contribute real value to governance.
The FMF’s proposal
As part of its Liberty First policy agenda the Free Market Foundation (FMF) has consistently called for a significant reduction in the size of the executive.
The constitution only mandates the existence of the following portfolios: president, deputy president, finance minister, co-operative governance minister, justice minister, defence minister and police minister. While additional portfolios may be required for practical purposes, those that are discretionary should be kept to a minimum.
It is the FMF’s proposal that the executive be reduced from 32 portfolios to 10. If adopted, this proposal would create an executive with the following portfolios: the presidency, finance, defence, justice, home affairs, international relations, public service, public works, co-operative governance and social development.
This proposal does not threaten the provision of public services or the enjoyment of constitutional rights. Rather, it creates the conditions for fiscally disciplined governance that prioritises cost efficiency and effectiveness over wasteful, patronage-driven politics that disregard the plight of ordinary South Africans.
The portfolios of electricity & energy, water & sanitation and transport should be absorbed into public works, which would also include aspects of the agriculture, land reform and rural development portfolios, as well as forestry, fisheries & the environment. The presidency would administer the office of deputy president. Defence would incorporate the apparatuses now under state security.
Home affairs would encompass both police and correctional services, eliminating the standalone departments of police and of correctional services. International relations would incorporate aspects of the trade, industry & competition portfolio, particularly those relating to international trade, with the existing department of trade, industry & competition being dissolved.
Public service would include the existing portfolio of planning, monitoring & evaluation. Under social development the departments of basic education, higher education, health and human settlements would be dissolved, with the new department administering a comprehensive voucher programme that would pay for the basic education, healthcare and housing needs of indigent citizens.
Similarly, the department of labour & employment would be dissolved, with its necessary regulatory functions absorbed by social development, along with relevant aspects of the forestry, fisheries & environment portfolio.
Easing the tax burden
Any remaining functions of the dissolved portfolios that are essential to the government’s constitutional obligations — such as aspects of agriculture, land reform, rural development and labour & employment — would be transferred to provincial and municipal governments.
This proposal does not threaten the provision of public services or the enjoyment of constitutional rights. Rather, it creates the conditions for fiscally disciplined governance that prioritises cost efficiency and effectiveness over wasteful, patronage-driven politics that disregard the plight of ordinary South Africans.
It also creates the conditions for a reduced tax burden, enabling overburdened citizens and businesses to retain more disposable income that can be deployed productively into an ailing economy.
A leaner, more focused executive is necessary for governance that prioritises cost efficiency, delivers essential services effectively and supports productive economic activity.
• Zulu is a policy officer at the Free Market Foundation.
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