President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reshuffled cabinet is simply too large, which makes it impossible to make decisions quickly, co-ordinate the disparate actions of government and increase efficiency in service delivery to end blackouts and unlock bottlenecks in the ailing economy.
The oversized cabinet will slow decision-making, hamper intergovernmental co-ordination, and increase inefficiency — and will continue the state of paralysis at the heart of government.
In 2019, Ramaphosa inherited a cabinet of 36 from Jacob Zuma, reduced it to 28, and in his latest reshuffle added two ministries.
There are simply too many ministries, and too many deputies ministers, and too many senior managers in individual departments with duplicated functions. In addition, all the ministers and deputy ministers have political advisers, functionaries and personnel which make up an additional public service operating parallel to the main public service and duplicating political decisions even more.
The same phenomenon can be seen in broader public services, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and public agencies when governments appoint large boards and larger executive teams to run them, rather than focus on getting smaller but better teams. Cabinets of about 16 members are more appropriate for an economy the size of South Africa's. Similarly, SOEs and agencies should ideally not have more than eight board members — beyond that makes for cumbersome decision-making.
In developing countries which made giant economic leaps, either from mass poverty, such as Singapore, or civil war (South Korea) or defeat in war (Japan), often had relatively small cabinets during the great growth spurts: ranging from nine to 20 people. Singapore’s first postcolonial cabinet had nine members, and both Japan and South Korea during the peak of their rapid economic growth phases had a maximum of 20 cabinet members.
Such successful developing-country governments concentrated on quality rather than quantity, getting the best available talent appointed as executives. These successful countries often also tried, within reason, to appoint individuals with competencies to match the departments they oversaw.
In contrast, developing and African countries which have stagnated since the end of colonialism have often had oversized cabinets which served more to reward party seniority, struggle credentials and loyalty.
In contrast, developing and African countries which have stagnated since the end of colonialism have often had oversized cabinets which served more to reward party seniority, struggle credentials and loyalty
South African presidents may appoint two non-MPs as ministers. The president missed the opportunity to appoint seasoned industry experts outside the ANC patronage system to critical cabinet positions — which would also have secured him a vote of confidence from the public.
In future, parliament should consider increasing the number of non-MPs that may be appointed to cabinet, to say half of the cabinet — to allow presidents to choose from the widest pool of talent available, which in most cases is not in politics or parliament but in business, civil society and the professions.
The problem is that the president's response to failure at executive level appears to be to appoint more people to execute rather than firing the incompetent individuals. This adds new layers of decision-making, which lowers efficiency rather than improving it.
The president clearly created a new electricity minister to essentially bypass mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan — who have both overseen Eskom. The dual reporting between Mantashe and Gordhan caused duplication, undermined co-ordination and slowed decision-making. An electricity minister now makes it three-way reporting for Eskom, which will likely worsen the situation and cause paralysis rather than quick responses. For another, it will be difficult for Ramokgopa to stamp his authority on Mantashe, the ANC’s national chair and Ramokgopa’s senior in the party.
The changes made by the president were not linked to the country’s critical challenges that needed to be addressed. They were meant to balance the different interest groups and factions in the ANC — bringing in leaders who were elected to the national executive committee at the ANC’s December 2022 national elective conference, while retaining key supporters and keeping powerful opponents in the executive as part of ensuring party “unity”.
To do so, the president consulted widely across the ANC factions, structures and among the alliance partners — the reason for the long delay before he announced the reshuffle. As shown before, though, securing ANC unity does not only undermine public service delivery, it goes against the wider public interests of South Africans and undermines the tackling of critical challenges.
Ramaphosa’s reshuffle, which was highly anticipated, provided the president with his last opportunity to inspire public confidence and stave off an electoral loss in next year’s general election.
In the end, the reshuffle disappointed. If the ANC loses the election, party leaders and members will likely look back at the reshuffle as the missed opportunity that could have been used to inject new energy, ideas and talent into the executive and restore confidence in government.
William Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
