I don’t know why GCIS's viability should have been of concern during elections as that is the IEC's territory.
In between elections, what needs streamlining is a desired seamless process and operational efficiency between government departments and the GCIS in the communication of cabinet decisions, as should have been expected even before the establishment of the government of national unity (‘GNU’)..
Government departments have their respective spokespersons. In cabinet, government departments are represented by their respective ministers each briefed with watching over issues pertaining to their respective portfolios.
Upon a decision being arrived at in cabinet, there are potentially three relevant people as talking heads: the GCIS, the minister concerned, and the spokesperson of the department to which the cabinet decision has relevance or impact.
This is where seamlessness is desired as to which relevant communications person is best positioned to relay the government’s message in as unambiguous a fashion as possible.
This desired seamless approach predates the ‘GNU’.
The GCIS’s focus should be on the business objectives of government.
In the post-May 29 scenario, enters the ‘GNU’. Here, constituent parts of the ‘GNU’ are most eager to retain a distinct identity and voice typifying approaches to political contest.
In light of this and the advent of the ‘GNU’ there clearly needs to be communications protocols put in place as a levelling authority that can be respected by constituents of the ‘GNU’ by definition of their collective understanding of what the current configuration of government implies for viable communication strategy implementation.
The GCIS’s focus should be on the business objectives of government. Due care should be given that inputs in this regard (in the furtherance of government objectives), whether arising from within ‘the whole of government’ or external consultants — some of whom are driven by self-preservation — should not steer the focus off government objectives.
Self-preservation-driven external inputs are notably never motivated to go out of business — in the start and end project sense — in terms of delivering lasting solutions as terminal points of their engagement. Self-preservation-driven inputs are more inclined to servicing the problems rather than eradicating them. In so doing such inputs delight in retaining their presence on the strength of the perpetual feature of the problems they were enlisted to solve.
Sunday Times writers Kgothatso Madisa and Lizeka Tandwa’s joint focus on the GCIS has leant more on vacancy and lack of permanent presence of a desired resource person(s) and did not problematise what the GCIS is fundamentally about or ought to be about pre- and post-May 29 and with or without advent of the ‘GNU’.
To problematise means to treat something as a problem that needs to be examined or solved. It can also mean to question the status of something that is considered unproblematic, or to throw doubt on the core understanding of something that is taken as established truth.
This is where I would have wished Madisa and Tandwa’s joint take on GCIS also should have gone.
Consistency in putting the ‘GNU’ in quotes is because of the apparent corporate mainstream media line to cast good or bad the actors within the political sphere contingent upon their adversarial or cordial relationship/position with the notion of the ‘GNU’.
And these positions tend to hinge on the presence or absence of the DA.
Oupa Ngwenya, corporate strategist, writer and freelance journalist
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