Anton Harber talks to Cyril Ramaphosa, the man in charge of rebuilding the ANC
THERE are not many people who could reduce their workforce by 300 people and say it had “worked out marvellously”. Certainly not former trade unionists.
But then there are not many people who would turn down a cabinet post, opting instead to rebuild a political party with severe morale problems, huge debt, overstaffing and looming local government elections.
Cyril Ramaphosa did.
The ANC secretary general is now confident that he is building a lean and mean party structure that will give the ANC the edge in next year’s local government elections. “Reorganisation (of the ANC) is a very difficult task, a daunting one which at some stage I thought would be very traumatic — not only for the people working here but for myself as a trade unionist. “In the end, it has worked out marvellously,” he said in an interview this week.
He had anticipated having to give marching orders to up to 300 loyal cadres who had worked under difficult conditions for poor pay, largely out of dedication to the organisation, and who had missed out on the rush for cushy government jobs. It was widely reported that there was dissatisfaction among the cadres, and a good deal of bitterness at being left off the government gravy train.
In the end, Ramaphosa has had to retrench fewer than 100 people, of whom only about 15 did not volunteer for it.
He was fortunate: the vast bulk of the 300 went into the country’s 10 legislatures or the civil service, notably the security and intelligence forces. Another 80 found jobs elsewhere and took voluntary retrenchment. This left just a handful of people who, Ramaphosa adds, are “fairly young and still hungry for training”.
Ramaphosa has done major surgery on the ANC. About 450 jobs have been reduced to 120. The offices that sprawled across 20 floors of headquarters in Shell House, will now fit into just three, allowing the rest to be rented out. Twelve departments become a streamlined six.
He did it by implosion. Every single job was advertised and every single employee who applied was interviewed afresh. Some were headhunted. So Joe Shabangu, for example, was brought back from parliament to head the organising department. And a finance department head is still being sought.
‘When the president (Mandela) said the other day that the organisation is in tatters he was focusing on the brain drain we have suffered. We used to have fairly senior figures heading certain departments and divisions and we no longer have these people. We believe we now have a core of people who, out of sheer commitment, want to remain in the organisation and make sure it is strong,” he said.
“The whole process has been a renewal.”
And he’s just beginning. Cleaning up headquarters is due for completion by the end of September. Then he starts on the regions: cutting back from the ANC’s current 14 regions into nine, to match the new provinces. These will be trimmed so that they can be entirely funded by levies on the salaries of parliamentarians.
This part of the reorganisation is to be completed by the end of October, when each region will have held a congress to elect new regional leadership.
Then Ramaphosa will put in place a new sub- region and branch structure, by the end of December. For example, kwaZulu/Natal, currently three ANC regions, will become one province with up to 12 sub-regions, further divided into branches.
Spot the hidden agenda? For one thing, the troublesome Harry Gwala will either have to win election for the whole province of kwaZulu/Natal, an unlikely event, or he will be reduced to just one of 12 sub- regional leaders.
Part of the process is to tie each MP to a sub- region. They will then be answerable to that structure, creating a rough parliamentary constituency system.
Reorganisation of this kind does not come without a cost — especially when you are able to boast about retrenchment deals. “The package has been excellent: four months ex gratia payment and two weeks for every year of service, as well as a bonus that people will have received. Quite a number of people went away with half-a-year’s salary. This was good, but it has not been financially painless for us. It has increased our indebtedness, but we thought that was a price we had to pay.”
Ramaphosa won’t answer questions about the size of the ANC’s post-election debt, rumoured to be as much as R35-million. He will only say that he is confident that the ANC will be able — through levies on MPs’ salaries and other contributions — to cover future running costs of its slimmed-down structures.
The process will be completed well in time to fight the local government elections which, coming about a year into the new order, will provide the first major test of the ANC government’s credibility. It is likely to provide a key indicator of the public perception of whether the ANC is delivering on its reconstruction and development promises.
The previous campaign leaders are unavailable: Popo Molefe and Terror Lekota are premiers and Khetso Gordhan is in the civil service. This time the man in charge is Shabangu, one of the guerrillas who blew up Sasol in 1980.
“He’s very disciplined, has an organised way of doing things. He’s a military man — and that’s about what we need,” Ramaphosa said. He will probably have, once again, the backing of advertising agency Hunt Lascaris and American master pollster Stanley Greenberg.
At the moment, Ramaphosa says, 5 000 cadres are being trained for local government election organising, and another 10 000 will be trained during the build-up. Efforts will focus on the two provinces where the ANC was beaten, the Western Cape and kwaZulu/Natal.
There will have to be another complicated selection process for candidates — but the ANC’s lesson in the national election was that this process is a critical part of the early campaigning.
Party organisation is in Rama-phosa’s hands, but implementation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme is not — and that is probably what will decide the elections. “People are going to be tempted to judge the ANC by what it has achieved at a national level, and that is why we obviously are going to want to ensure there is implementation of the RDP.”
There are two departments especially geared to do this: the ANC’s own RDP department, and another dedicated to co- ordination among the 10 legislatures.
And if you think that all of this does not give Ramaphosa enough work, he presides over the constituent assembly that has two years in which to draft a new constitution and which keeps him flitting between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Every one of his suppers last week was eaten in an airplane. “It takes its toll,” he said.
But ask him about his opponents and he’s off, quick as a flash, to score political points against the National Party. Is he concerned about NP leader FW de Klerk’s warning that “red lights are flashing” in the government of national unity? “I think the GNU is working quite well. De Klerk has not acclimatised himself to being number three in the government.”
Is there truth in the allegation that the ANC caucus is unruly? “De Klerk is used to a caucus that operates on the basis of some form of autocracy. Our caucus is based on democratic principles where we are able to persuade one another and the majority view prevails.
“Obviously there are contradictions and there are bound to be tensions that need to be properly managed. But I think a healthy relationship is developing (between the caucus and ANC leadership).”
Ramaphosa points a finger at De Klerk’s own caucus. “When we started off there wasn’t total rejection of the notion of giving the NP certain positions, such as the presidency of the Senate and the deputy chairperson of the constitutional assembly. That was done in the spirit of national unity.
“But that is being chipped away now, it is being eroded by the statements of some Nat MPs. There is a growing feeling in the ANC caucus that, if the NP wants to play this role of an opposition, then we don’t need to be that accommodating.”