Outlier: The embattled public works department’s minister, Patricia de Lille, is the only non-ANC member in the cabinet, and certainly no stranger to controversy. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
NEWS ANALYSIS
Depending on who you speak to, surviving the civil service in South Africa could be comparable to being the last person standing on Survivor.
The once-popular reality television series places a group of people together on a marooned island with limited resources, which they are required to share. They then engage in a battle of wits and brawn as they compete in challenges where the winner could score anything from immunity from being voted out of the game to useful items such as lighters or even a meal, or similar.
In the civil service, the most dedicated South Africans should succeed. But often the wily and work-shy outlast the rest
Being in possession of an object as basic as a lighter, live chickens in a pen, or even plus-one access to a chocolate fountain on a yacht for the day could make you useful to someone who previously saw you as a liability.
Theorists of the game always thought, because of the environment to which the group is confined, it would be the fittest, hardest-working and those who could guarantee wins in most challenges who would remain in the game until the end.
In the civil service, one could be forgiven for thinking the most dedicated, hardworking and patriotic South Africans would succeed. But more often than not, it is the wily, work-shy, politically connected individuals who outlast the rest and push out honest and hardworking civil servants.
The department of public works and infrastructure right now provides the best analogy of just how toxic and unstable the game of Survivor can be.
Since last May when the new minister, Patricia de Lille — the only non-ANC cabinet member — took office, the department has moved from one crisis to another. And it cannot get more unstable than right now with a suspended director general, advocate Sam Vukela, fighting to save his job, an acting director general with a cloud over his head and a minister accused of meddling in the day-to-day running of the department.
Top billing: De Lille vs Vukela
Vukela was suspended by De Lille in July after two reports — on state funeral expenditure corruption and irregular appointments of senior staff in the department — recommended action against him. In his application, he made a counter-accusation that the minister acted against him because he resisted unlawful instructions from her.
Or is it a three-way?
Caught, quite literally, in the middle of this fight is the current acting director general Imtiaz Fazel — another senior official with a cloud over his head. This is because, as the Mail & Guardian reported last week, Fazel was on the brink of suspension himself after Vukela learnt he had allegedly changed the recommendations against a director in the director general’s office who was found to have accepted allowances she was not entitled to. De Lille was informed of the allegations in November, but has seemingly not acted to establish their veracity.
The publication of the article incensed Fazel, who insists that he has fought corruption throughout his civil career and thus would never be complicit in it. He says as the deputy director general responsible for risk and investigations, he was authorised, as part of the investigation process into the overpayment, to make changes to the report — even though the actual investigator did not agree. Fazel denies that his changes, as someone who did not do the actual investigation, need to be recorded and based on a legal authority.
What makes matters worse for Fazel is that De Lille, when given an opportunity to, does not clarify whether she thinks there is or isn’t a case against him. All she says is that Vukela had the authority to act against Fazel if he wished.
This sort of response intimates that Fazel indeed has a case to answer.
Speculators point to the fact that Fazel, though appointed by De Lille, makes damning findings against her office in the internal investigation of the Beitbridge border fence fiasco, and is also investigating farm leases De Lille approved outside of process. This could be a reason for De Lille’s aloofness.
Others speculate that De Lille could be keeping quiet simply because she doesn’t want to be seen to be choosing sides.
Whatever the reason, she seems not to be taking decisions in the face of serious allegations that have been brought to her attention — which is the same reason she cited for suspending Vukela.
Yet another fight
De Lille’s failure to look into these allegations are also affecting Manthekeleng Monama, the director who was paid the allowance.
Monama finds herself in a bind because the report implicating her was allegedly altered, and the matter is not being put to bed. She is frustrated because she has not even been given a copy of the report even though she is directly affected.
“Although I indicated as early as 5 February 2019 that I would like the investigation to be conducted and finalised as soon as possible [it has not been]. I believe that the report has ignored the statement that I provided to the investigators… There are factual inaccuracies that emanate from the wrong premise the investigators relied on. I therefore take exception to the value judgment by the report on my character,” she said.
Should President Ramaphosa have acted?
While the politics play out at the department, it is worth pointing out that prior to the last general elections, the previous public works minister, Thulas Nxesi, went to none other than his boss Cyril Ramaphosa for permission to act against the director general when he clashed with him. It is also worth noting that Nxesi was at loggerheads with Vukela — again to the detriment of the department overall — over the same reasons for which De Lille eventually suspended him.
Ramaphosa sat on the decision until well after the Nxesi’s departure, thus contributing to the malaise we see today. In a sense, the root of the current instability at public works, which seems to have reached up to the highest office in the department, can be traced directly to the president’s office.
Prior to that, Vukela was dismissed in 2013 for his involvement in a R500-million police leasing deal, but was reinstated in 2017 after he won an unfair dismissal case at the bargaining council.
Given the number of traps De Lille herself has already fallen into during her short tenure thus far, and given recent history, Sam Vukela seems again to be outwitting, outplaying and outlasting his foes to be the last survivor standing at the end.
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