Whole GNU may end up as less than sum of its parts

It is to be hoped that the government of national unity (GNU) shows more sense of urgency in getting down to its work than did our president in his discourteous treatment of the nation by making it wait almost an hour on Sunday night for his announcement of his Cabinet.

While Cyril Ramaphosa does have the burdens of state resting upon his shoulders, such tardiness emphasises the belief among many in our elite political class – from all the parties – that their time is more important than that of ours, the people who elected them.

And, if this GNU is going to have the proverbial snowball’s hope in hell of succeeding, then its members must never forget who their customers are.

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Ramaphosa has, in trying to keep everybody in the polyglot group of parties happy, inevitably had to increase the size of the Cabinet, which now runs to 75 ministers and deputies.

Many hands, as we have seen in the South African context, do not necessarily make the work lighter (or faster)… and all the while, the taxpayer will have to fork out hundreds of millions annually for this display of political unity.

It is interesting, though, that parties who have been outspoken in the past about the bloat in government structures – such as the DA – seemed to have accepted the massive new Cabinet without a murmur.

There were positives, though, to the restructuring of the ministerial portfolios, along with the negatives you would have come to expect with ANC cadre deployment.

It is good that the singularly useless department of public enterprises – which did nothing under Pravin Gordhan except allow state-owned enterprises to get worse and cost more government money – has been disbanded and incorporated into the Presidency.

Less good is the fact that ANC stalwart Gwede Mantashe still has control over minerals and petroleum while Blade Nzimande still hangs around.

The DA’s new ministers – John Steenhuisen in agriculture, Leon Schreiber in home affairs, Siviwe Gwarube in basic education, Dean McPherson in public works, Dion George in forestry, Solly Malatsi in communications – will now have to put up or shut up when it comes to showing progress in turning around those portfolios.

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It will be interesting to watch them, mainly because they have a point to prove. While some people have mocked Angie Motshekga – previously basic education minister – for being given the defence portfolio, she is ably backed up by former military man General Bantu Holomisa, making him one of the first politicians to help run the department who actually has military experience.

As it was predicted, the ANC has retained the critical departments that are related to security and the economy.

But at least now it will not be able to exercise untrammelled power over those because it will be watched like a hawk by its partners.

It will be in the area of economic policy – and specifically how to deal with unemployment and how to redistribute land – that the real strains and tensions will surface. If those are not dealt with, then the GNU might become like the Holy Roman Empire – which was once described as not holy, not Roman and not an empire.

Our GNU could end up as not a government, not national and certainly not united.