Marion Edmunds
Skilled officials from the Department of Public Enterprises — including its chief accounting officer, Professor Sipho Shabalala — are abandoning their minister, Stella Sigcau.
Sigcau’s representative, Wandile Zote, confirmed this week that Shabalala, public enterprises deputy director general, had resigned and would leave at the end of the month, in what appears to be a mass exodus of senior personnel.
Shabalala refused to comment this week, saying he wished to leave without politicising his departure. However, sources in the department say he has fought a low-level but bitter battle against Sigcau for the past three years.
Areas of conflict are believed to have included her dictatorial management style, her lack of leadership in government, her relationship with specially appointed advisors and differing interpretations of transparency and accounting.
Shabalala, known for his by-the-book approach, is believed to have privately complained to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s office about Sigcau’s management style. Mbeki took over the chair of the powerful interministerial Cabinet committee on the restructuring of state assets from Sigcau last year.
Sectoral ministries have exerted more and more control over the restructuring of parastatals which fall under their portfolios, and consequently Sigcau’s area of responsibility has been reduced considerably.
It is also speculated that Sigcau’s humiliation at the African National Congress’s Mafikeng conference — she was the only Cabinet minister who failed to be voted on to the party’s national executive committee — is taking its toll on her credibility within political and public- service circles.
There is a strong lobby to close her ministry down and shift her department to the finance or trade and industry departments, or to Mbeki’s office. When asked whether such moves were in the pipeline, Zote said: “It will be up to President Nelson Mandela. He may or may not agree to such recommendations.”
Other sources from Sigcau’s department say there are no grounds for such a lobby, and that the department is on course, despite the resignations.
“The really serious question is whether Shabalala’s leaving is a sign of government back-tracking on privatisation,” said Jenny Cargill, of Business Maps. “There doesn’t seem to be a clear strategic perspective and areas of doubt have been allowed to grow.”
The minister’s special advisor, Kennedy Memani, quit last month, and is working at Transnet in anticipation of moving into the private sector. Mongezi Mngqibisa, formerly employed as a director for performance evaluation and analysis, also quit in December after two years’ service, and is working in the Department of Communications. “I would not like to comment,” he answered when asked why he had left. “It was a career move.”
His assistant director, Bayanda Mtse, is moving to the Department of Agriculture’s information and technology section in February. Dr Kobus Vorster, the director of restructuring, has taken early retirement and will leave the department in March. Sigcau’s private secretary, Aesta Marie, also resigned over Christmas.
Shabalala is the third director general to leave the ANC government’s service after disagreements with political heads. Sigcau was contacted, but declined to comment.