Women's minister under fire

Women's Minister Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya is treading on thin ice and faces a revolt from her political peers over her shambolic department.

More than a year after President Jacob Zuma established the department of women, children, youth and people with disabilities, there is fierce criticism of its minister and even calls for her head.

In recent months she has fired or seconded at least seven senior managers and allegedly failed to deliver progress reports when asked. She has been in and out of hospital, leaving managers to head important meetings.

Mayende-Sibiya has failed to fill critical posts, only recently advertising 30 vacancies for senior managers.

This, insiders say, is being done ahead of the ANC national general council, at which she will have to present a report.

ANC Women's League president Angie Motshekga said this week: "We have raised our concerns with her. She consults other women and our views are rejected. She has different views."

Motshekga said Mayende-Sibiya has never asked for the league's help, despite it offering last year to assist her in getting her new ministry off the ground.

The league, of which Mayende-Sibiya is a member, has not raised the issue with the ANC top brass "yet". "All the engagements with her have been personal this far," said Motshekga.

However, the minister's spokesman, Sibani Mngadi, denied that the department was in chaos or that the minister's leadership was being questioned.

In recent months, Mayende-Sibiya has fired or removed some of her most senior managers - most of whom were allegedly critical of her lack of leadership.

"She clearly doesn't understand what she's supposed to do to get the department fully functional," a staff member in the Presidency said. On the eve of Women's Day, she axed her political adviser, advocate Nomazotsho Memani-Balani, citing "continuous absenteeism".

But three sources told The Times it was because Memani-Balani confronted her on several occasions with allegations about her non-performance and questionable leadership.

"Nomazotsha told her to her face that she was failing as a minister and that she should just ask to be released," said a ministry employee.

Memani-Balani declined to comment, saying she was challenging her dismissal.

Her dismissal came three months after Mayende-Sibiya fired a five-member task team headed by Dr Ellen Kornegay, highly regarded in the government as a strategist.

Kornegay and her team were called in in September to "bring the department into shape" and draft an operational plan, organogram and budgets.

But in May, Mayende-Sibiya summoned them to the Union Buildings and told them they should leave at once.

Kornegay declined to comment.

But an insider said: "The minister just doesn't understand and I think the task team was pressuring her to make things happen fast. They frustrated her."

In November, she booted out her acting director-general, Vuyi Nxasana, after relations between the two broke down to the extent where she refused to speak to her.

Now portfolio committee members who oversee her department are "fed up" with her. She has not turned up to address them on several occasions.

DA spokesman on the ministry Denise Robinson said they were concerned that the minister never consulted them.

The committee would discuss asking Zuma to remove her.