And the first impression is that it seems to be huge. Thirty four ministers (Thabo Mbeki had twenty eight) and an additional twenty seven deputy ministers, plus the President and Deputy President. Sixty three highly paid people in total. This seems to be too large a number. Will they fit into the meeting venue?

The USA has fifteen cabinet members plus an additional seven co-opted members who do not head up their own departments, but rather external agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of the Vice President. Brazil has twenty three cabinet members (plus an additional nine cabinet level appointees, including head of the central bank and Chief of Staff). The UK has twenty three (plus half-a-dozen others).

Second impression is that their is a lot of ‘reward for support’ going on. Blade Nzimande, Ebrahim Patel and Fikile Mbalula all represent constituencies that played a large part in Zuma’s elevation to power. The old question is whether or not these three ministers (and others) are ‘fit-for-purpose’. Or is this another case where personal loyalty is more important than the good of the nation?

Third, why was Barbara Hogan moved from the Health Ministry? Is party disloyalty more important than efficiency of the health services? On the other hand, Aaron Motsoaledi and Molefi Sefularo are unknown quantities and unknown to most South Africans. Are they doctors? What qualifies them ahead of Barbara Hogan? Let’s give them time.

Fourth, Manual’s move into the Presidency and the creation of the National Planning Commission seems, on the surface, to be a way of appeasing the business community and the international world. But does it really? It smacks a little of communist style central planning bureaus.

Fifth, what is Pieter Mulder doing in the cabinet? Is this some pre-planning for the next election and a way of drawing the Afrikaner into the ANC fold? Or is it, cynically, a ruse that is to cover accelerated land reform that will require an insider to quell the angry farmers?

Sixth. Tokyo Sexwale. If he can bring a business overview and implementation focus to the provision of housing, he will have added tremendously to the ANC’s commitment to the electorate. The downside is that he does have large business holdings and even if he remains absolutely peachy clean, the sense of impropriety is only an whisper away. Will he resign his chairmanship of his own corporation so their can be no conflicts of interest?

Seventh and last: are the Education, Education, Energy and Mineral ministries going to result in the splitting of the respective departments? And the resultant creation of new top-level positions within the new departments? If so, they need to be very much more efficient than present. All this extra cost in a time of austerity is not going to go down well with the electorate.

Jacob Zuma, as is his nature, has tried to appease everyone with his appointments. The reality is that a large number of the ministers are new in the job, or have new and different responsibilities. We need to wait a while to see what they actually produce.

Tags: aaron motsoaledi, barbara hogan, blade nzimande, cabinet, ebrahim patel, fikile mbalula, jacob zuma, molefi sefularo, pieter mulder, tokyo sexwale, trevor manuel

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.