Cyril’s ‘new broom’ another ‘cadre deployment’ expansion?

There were many who reacted negatively to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s claim – in his State of the Nation Address – that “things are being done”.

That’s understandable, because the ANC is, in its critics’ eyes, the party which is long on promises and short on delivery.

The fact that Ramaphosa did list a number of concrete achievements in the speech – things which have happened despite the trauma of the Covid pandemic – was largely dismissed by the commentariat.

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What was apparent was that the president was not lying down – he was taking the fight to his enemies and giving himself a positive report card as a way of a pre-emptive attack.

However, there was still plenty of the old school hot air: we will do this and we will implement that.

One commentator did point out correctly the gap between dream and reality in relation to youth unemployment.

We must be the only country in the world, he mused, which implements so many youth employment programmes, yet sees such spiralling youth joblessness.

Buoyed by the Zondo commission’s revelations of the depth of the rot in the ANC and government, the president made the expected commitment to tackling corruption.

But almost missed was the indication that he is wielding his executive powers to start reforming our bloated and often inept government bureaucracy.

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His announcement of the establishment of commissions and agencies to tackle crisis areas is seen by experts as an admission that the current bureaucracy is rotten and corrupt.

In this view, Ramaphosa is using the new bodies as a way of circumventing the incompetence and inertia in much of the civil service.

Sadly, though, only time will tell whether this is Ramaphosa’s “new broom” or yet another way to expand “cadre deployment”, which has already done so much damage to the country

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