Zuma flexes muscle to end turf war
2009-10-25 14:00
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has made the Presidency take the position of a
ministry in his restructuring of government.
Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel now forms part of the
infrastructure cluster. It is a worrying tendency to “seek to put line-function
ministries on the same pedestal as the Presidency”, policy specialist Joel
Netshitenzhe told the ANC’s Gauteng executive committee this month.
The move is seen by analysts as an attempt to quell the turf war
over economic policy that has emerged in his cabinet.
National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel and Economic Development
Minister Ebrahim Patel have been put in separate clusters – infrastructure
development, and economic sectors and employment.
And as a further act of appeasement, neither of them chair the
critical economic and employment cluster. Instead, the task falls to Rural
Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti.
In the newly configured ministerial clusters, both Manuel and Patel
feature in only one. Neither of them chair their respective clusters.
In contrast, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan features in three
clusters: infrastructure development, economic sectors and employment and
governance and administration. The same applies to Cooperative Governance and
Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka. This makes them important ministers
in the newly configured system.
The fact that the Planning Commission had been left out of the
economic sectors and employment cluster was “an indication of who won the
skirmish” over economic policy, according to political analyst Susan Booysen.
Government spokesperson Themba Maseko said the reconfiguration was
“part of the process of improving coordination within government and enhancing
the delivery of services”.
But the cluster system was not particularly effective under the
presidency of Thabo Mbeki. This week, a United Nations development index found
that South Africa had slipped a position in the rankings of human well-being.
The Presidency’s set of indicators published earlier this month found that SA
has now surpassed Brazil as the most unequal society.
Kwandiwe Kondlo, a political analyst based at the Human Sciences
Research Council, said he was concerned that the new administration had been
“preoccupied with structures” since it took over the reins.
“The solution is not creating new structures, but to get the daily
mundane routine of government right. This is so that we can define the
irreducible minimum that government can achieve with the modest means at its
disposal,” he said.
Kondlo said continued restructuring could create the impression
that the country was going in different directions. “We are not allowing systems
to settle and then on the basis of that, reviewing systems.”
- City Press