Mbalula’s appointment gets mixed reactions from analysts

Although President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of his choice to replace Blade Nzimande with Fikile Mbalula as transport minister has received some optimism, some have questioned whether he will stay long enough to fulfil any changes within the department, contrary to what his predecessors have done.

This comes after the president’s announcement of his new “trimmed-down” cabinet on Wednesday after spending most of the day consulting with his stakeholders in the ANC on the suitable choices for future ministers.

Howard Dembovsky said he doubted anything in the transport sector would change even if he was a “completely reasonable and sensible” minister.

“Was his performance as a police minister good?'” he asked rhetorically.

“What saddens me is that transport is one of the most important portfolios and we’ve been through a stream of ministers in the department of transport. It seems like it’s a place where you just send somebody because there is too little regard to the transport department as an important department. But without transport there would be no economy, it is one of the most important!”

However, he said he could not think of any politician from the top of his head that would make a good transport minister because none of the ministers before Mbalula were transport specialists.

“It’s a very complex department and a lot of things fall under it but we have not yet had a minister who is a transport specialist. The most successful transport departments in the world are run by transport specialists, for example, in Singapore where they took a terrible situation and turned it around completely,” said Dembovsky.

However, political analyst Andre Duvenage felt differently, saying: “Who has background in any of the portfolios? The position usually requires people who are committed and not associated with corruption.”

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) CEO Wayne Duvenage who was “cautiously optimistic” about Mbalula’s appointment said he was the seventh person taking the same position in the last decade and he hoped “he will stay long enough to grasp the complexity of the department and engage with civil society”.

“We are cautiously optimistic though because there are a lot of issues in the transport sector and those before him failed. But Fikile is active and we need someone who can engage with everyone on the issues and resolve them. Although he does not come from a transport background, he does have the right attitude and approach.

“We hope that he will bring along longevity, do the work and not pay lip service. I am more confident in him than I was in (his predecessor) Blade Nzimande who did nothing.”

Duvenage said although Mbalula was a “compromise”, considering all the applicable criteria and other ministers chosen, he did have the right political credentials to be a suitable choice for Ramaphosa.

He said: “We all know he is a Ramaphosa loyalist, he was a strong supporter of Zuma before and then moved over to the Ramaphosa camp. He falls under the younger group of politicians and he’s proven to be unproblematic for Ramaphosa. He also performed relatively well at his job as the elections head and so now is payback time. The department of transport is important, but they have put him in a department that is not as sensitive as departments like local governance or finance, it’s a safe position.”

jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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