EDITORIAL | Why does Cyril keep Mthethwa in his cabinet?

One of the things taught to drug and alcohol users when they try to restart their lives after rehabilitation is to urgently cut ties with their old lives. This includes breaking away from friendships that are harmful, avoiding haunts where they previously encountered drugs and alcohol, and creating a new schedule that will remove you from your past.

If President Cyril Ramaphosa had employed a similar strategy when formulating his cabinet, he might have been spared the embarrassment that holds the political hat in the department of arts and culture. Nathi Mthethwa, one of the most prominent hangovers from the Zuma administration, leads a department seemingly in chaos.

He’s the same minister who during the Zuma years helped brand Nkandla a national key point and tried unsuccessfully to sell the story to South Africans.

Mthethwa has spent much of the week trying to sell another questionable story, this time regarding a R22m “monumental flag” project. The only thing monumental in the story thus far has been Mthethwa’s inability to adequately gauge the mood of the nation. But the real problem here is not Mthethwa. He was allowed to lie to the nation unchecked during the Nkandla scandal along with others peddling the tale of a fire pool (read swimming pool) allegedly created as a security feature.

The only thing monumental in the story thus far has been Mthethwa’s inability to adequately gauge the mood of the nation.

In addition to this Mthethwa has repeatedly been criticised, with reason, by members of the sports and arts communities. Both have complained about his department’s management of funding, lack of engagement with those it serves and an apparent disregard for their plight during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And despite this, Ramaphosa has retained the man widely known as the “minister of grieving”. Under the guise of unity, the Ramaphosa administration has retained dead wood in his cabinet, including a minister who can neither adequately explain his department’s social cohesion plans nor engage effectively with those the department serves.

Mthethwa’s department has a vital mandate: funding scholarships for artists and sportspeople and providing funding to numerous projects and centres associated with the arts. Most of these projects have been severely affected during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For example, in 2017/18 the number of people “actively participating in organised sport and active recreation events per year” was 399,435, but the 2020/21 year had 7,400. .

In 2017/18, 5,296 athletes were supported by sports academies. In 2020/21 that number was down to 1,850. The number of “community conversations and dialogues” implemented to foster social interacting decreased from 33 in 2017/18 to eight then nine and eventually 10 in the 2020/21 financial year. From 352 artists placed in schools in 2017/19, the number steadily declined to less than a third of that in 2020/21 at just 100.

These statistics are indicative of some of the questions being asked by the public about Mthethwa and his department. Mthethwa, along with his director-general and other staff, should be marshalling his department’s resources to get back to the levels of support they once given sportspeople and artists.

The question that should be asked directly of Ramaphosa, who has kept him employed despite a questionable record and a poor understanding of the needs of the arts and sporting community, is why? Is it because of unity or is it an unspoken addition to the chaos that lives in the party he leads — a political entity that doesn’t allow itself to remove those who are clearly bringing it down?