‘Purpose not to embarrass individuals’: Ministers’ performance reviews won’t be made public – Presidency

The performance assessments of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ministers will not be disclosed to the public to avoid the information being used against his Cabinet members, according to Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.

There have been calls from the opposition for Ramaphosa to publicly release the outcomes of the performance reviews relating to his ministers.

The Minister in the Presidency responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation, Maropene Ramokgopa, previously indicated that the reviews were conducted between April and July this year.

‘Political statement’

Answering questions from reporters in a media briefing on Wednesday, Magwenya confirmed that Ramaphosa had two or three rounds of engagements with his ministers.

“There [are] ongoing performance assessments that’s taking place with respect to how ministers are driving those priority areas, and more importantly, how those are being implemented in departments and addressing capacity shortages where there may be,” the Presidency spokesperson said.

Magwenya indicated that there wasn’t an obligation to make the assessments public, hence the rejection of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application filed by the Democratic Alliance (DA).

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“That’s why that PAIA application was denied. The purpose of the exercise is to be as constructive as possible. Unfortunately, the DA will seek out that information to make a political statement, either against the administration or against a particular minister and that is not the goal of the president.”

“The president’s goal with this exercise is to ensure that government continues to operate as efficiently as possible and that the priorities he has outlined to the public are implemented as speedily as possible,” he explained.

‘Play politics’

The Presidency spokesperson said Ramaphosa would not “play politics as the opposition parties would prefer to do.”

“You will know that ministers do account publicly on their performance when they go to Parliament, and Parliament is quite transparent with those engagements. We don’t have an issue of accountability by the executive being absent from the public domain; no, it is not.”

“It is out there in full view for everybody to see; annual reports get published regularly; portfolio committee hearings are held; and you have seen how our Parliament is robust in holding ministers to account.

“What you have with these performance assessments are discussions between an employer and his employees in terms of assessing progress on the priorities that have been outlined,” Magwenya continued.

READ MORE: ‘A lot of things will happen’, says Ramaphosa about ‘underperforming’ ministers

While he understood there was an expectation for the assessments to be made public, Magwenya once again highlighted that the purpose of the reviews was to be constructive rather than “hang a particular individual and say this [minister] has not delivered to this.”

“Where there’s not been delivery or the pace of delivery has been slow, the president then seeks out mitigation steps to see how that delivery will be accelerated.

“So yes, the president declared, in public, that this is what he would do. As he should do, like any employer, he should hold his employees to account in terms of what they said they would deliver as a scope of delivery in this regard. There is no contradiction there.

“What I am trying to say to you is that, from the president’s point of view, the purpose is not to embarrass anybody or hang people to dry out in public. The purpose is to be constructive and find ways to immediately intervene where there are gaps.”

Watch the briefing below:

Magwenya added that the president was not running away from public accountability.

“He is the first one to say, ‘The buck stops with me’. He is the first one to admit where there have been missteps and he will continue to hold his ministers accountable.

“But I think we should allow him that chance to do that in a constructive manner and to do that in a manner that confined of that employer-employee relationship and the institutions of our democracy to hold the executive accountable, including the president.”