Ramaphosa missed a chance to clean up, says DA on Cabinet reshuffle

Thursday night’s Cabinet reshuffle was an opportunity for President Cyril Ramaphosa to demonstrate a real commitment to accountability, said the Democratic Alliance following Ramaphosa’s administration’s restructuring.

The party said that Ramaphosa missed an opportunity to clean up as some of the “most compromised and worst performing ministers managed to hold onto their jobs.”

“Cabinet reshuffle contains one small positive in the departure of Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, and then a whole lot of the same, just dressed up in a different portfolio’s robes,” the party said.

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“Above all, this announcement confirms what we’ve known all along, there is only so much shuffling and reshuffling you can do with this limited pool of cadres. The list of non-performing ministers far exceeds those who do their jobs, and so what was required tonight was more clean-out and less shuffle.”

While it welcomed Mkhize’s resignation, it questioned other ministers’ retention including Bheki Cele, Ayanda Dlodlo, Gwede Mantashe and David mahlobo, to mention a few.

It said that Thursday night was Ramaphosa’s chance to “fire both Police Minister Bheki Cele and State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo for their catastrophic failure to foresee, prevent and respond to the unrest and looting three weeks ago. The fact that Minister Cele stays in his post and Minister Dlodlo is simply shuffled off to Public Service shows that we are yet to see any accountability in the Executive.”

“Similarly it is puzzling how Minister David Mahlobo has managed to hold on to his job given the damning revelations at the Zondo Commission. Another Minister that should have been shuffled right out of cabinet is Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, and replaced with one who actually believes in renewable energy,” the DA said in a statement.

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It said that Ramaphosa should have used the opportunity to implement lifestyle audits for the entire Executive in the light of the mounting corruption scandals that have plagued his administration.

The party said that it was high time Ramaphosa realised that Cabinet reshuffles alone were not enough to fix the fundamental underlying problem of his government, “which is a seeming unwillingness to adopt any meaningful economic reforms.”

“The only kind of cabinet reshuffle that can fix this is the kind where the new ministers not only support real reforms, but are also give a mandate to implement such reforms,” the DA said.