The Presidency has reminded the public that the President of the Republic uses his prerogative when appointing members to the national executive – and does not need to provide reasons.
Legal, yes. But there’s no worse public relations disaster than making controversial decisions and not giving out information. It is decisions such as these that alienate the executive, and the people it serves.
On Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma axed controversial Communications Minister Dina Pule, Human Settlement’s Minister Tokyo Sexwale
and Cooperative Governance Minister Richard Baloyi. In the absence of acceptable reasons from Zuma, South Africans are left without choice but to speculate.
Pule left the country’s migration to Digital Terrestrial Television still pending, and leadership problems at the SABC are well documented. Her planned interference in the corporate governance and management of Telkom, and suggestion that government developed a turn-around strategy for the utility, did not earn her friends. All government needed to do was to appoint a strong board it could trust – but this never materialised. The ANC cannot have liked the alleged jobs for Pule’s boyfriend and her friends: a scandal that refused to go away during her tenure.
As for Sexwale, housing remains a challenge across the country, but he has such a strong ANC DNA no one could have predicted his axing. But there could be more to it.
The millionaire businessman was tipped as a future ANC leader when he returned to politics a few years ago. However, the ANC’s Mangaung conference possibly put an end to his political career, together with that of Deputy President Kgalema Mothlanthe.With Cyril Ramaphosa becoming ANC Deputy President and heir to the Presidency, Sexwale did not have much of a future: he will be at retirement age when Ramaphosa completes his two terms as president after Zuma.
Poor Baloyi: he was awful and indecisive when Sasolburg residents took to the streets to protest against municipal borders’ re-demarcation, and he was also in the news for wasting public money when his department purchased a BMW X5 3.0d for R712 400 and a Mercedes Benz E350 CDI for R666 849. Service delivery in municipalities remains in shambles.
Ben Martins hadn’t been Transport Minister long enough to have messed up, but the delay in implementing e-tolling possibly cost him his job. His replacement, Dipuo Peters, is a hard-working politician, but she will be up against the anti- e-toll machine in Gauteng. Peters will either have to bulldoze her way ANC-style and switch on the e-toll gantries – or face Zuma’s big boot too.
