report card
NELSON MANDELA
President
Grade: A
Few people in recorded history have been the subject of such high expectations; still fewer have matched them; Mandela has exceeded them. We knew of his fortitude before he left jail; we have since experienced his extraordinary reserves of goodwill, his sense of fun and the depth of his maturity. As others’ prisoner, he very nearly decided the date of his own release; as president, he has wisely chosen the moment of his going. Any other nation would consider itself privileged to have his equal as its leader. His last full year in power provides us with an occasion again to consider his achievement in bringing and holding our fractious land together. A few ill-considered comments, such as his jibe about “Mickey Mouse” opposition parties, do not detract substantially from his record.
Prognosis: A long and happy eventide with Graa, his children and grandchildren, spent mainly in Qunu and Mozambique, and the enduring love of a grateful people.
THABO MBEKI
Deputy President
Grade: B
Doing the top job without being the top person can’t be easy, even if the boss is as supportive as Mandela has been. Yet the government, administration and African National Congress have evinced ever more of Mbeki’s imprimatur over the year. He has moved placemen into key positions: Tito Mboweni to the Reserve Bank, Bulelani Ngcuka to top national prosecutor and Jacob Zuma and other Friends of Thabo (FOTs) into a committee to help him (rather than the ANC’s unco-operative conference) control which other ANC leader gets what job.
He has faced down the infantile tendency in the South African Communist Party with help from Mandela; absorbed criticism of his growth, employment and redistribution strategy with the help of Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel; and kept the SACP and unions on board for the election campaign through Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin’s skills at the presidential Jobs Summit.
He has held a steady course in difficult circumstances. There have, however, been some unnecessary bumps along the way. He, Mandela and Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo managed to be out of the country when our forces intervened in Lesotho – our first post-apartheid cross-border adventure. A week later, he looked stupid when he prematurely announced a peace agreement between Lesotho’s warring factions. And there have been a number of strange judgment calls, such as his office’s attacks on the head of the Institute for the Advancement of Democracy in South Africa, Wilmot James, and the Heath special investigative unit for its pursuit of Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma.
Prognosis: What sort of president he makes is likely to depend on whether or not he develops an inner confidence he has hitherto lacked.
KADER ASMAL
Minister of Water
Affairs and Forestry
Grade: B
A hard worker, he is prepared to take unpopular decisions, like telling 30 000 squatters in the Dukuduku forest in KwaZulu-Natal to get out. His department’s Working for Water programme is on track, although it is criticised for providing short-term, not enduring, solutions. The worst thing he has done this year is to give up his 60-a-day cigarette habit. It may be a good idea in the long term, but it has made him ratty.
Prognosis: Available to continue next year, but he has cancer. Otherwise we would have no hesitation in recommending him for, say, foreign affairs. Nonetheless, he may enjoy the challenge of a bigger department – a number of which could do with him.
SIBUSISO BENGU
Minister of Education
Grade: F
Poor old Bengu. Almost every new policy departure has seemed to flounder. Voluntary severance packages, besides costing a fortune, merely lost our education system many of our best teachers. A cash shortage stymied the introduction of Curriculum 2005. Formerly disadvantaged schools remain significantly disadvantaged. And what schoolgoer can any longer be expected to believe a promise that textbooks are on their way?
Prognosis: Why was it left to him to announce his retirement? And so late? We are pleased to relaunch last year’s “Draft Mamphela Ramphele” campaign. This vital ministry needs a vital person like the University of Cape Town’s vice-chancellor.
MANGOSUTHU
BUTHELEZI
Minister of Home
Affairs
Grade: D
Buthelezi has seemed happiest not as a minister but as acting president ordering foreign invasions while Mandela and Mbeki are away. He has not coped better with his more mundane ministerial tasks than he did on Lesotho. His department’s handling of bar-coded identity documents has been abysmal; his attention to the needs of the Independent Electoral Commission (which falls under his vote) has been inadequate; and South Africa still lacks an immigration strategy that would stabilise immigrant populations and reduce xenophobia.
Prognosis: Promotion is probable, but this will owe everything to the need the ANC identifies to keep the Inkatha Freedom Party sweet. There is mention of the deputy presidency for Buthelezi after the election – in which case expect emigration to climb.
NKOSAZANA
DLAMINI-ZUMA
Minister of Health
Grade: C
She has done what any fair-minded person would have done: spent more on basic health care for those most deprived of it. But because her budget is limited she has spent (relatively) less where services are already satisfactory. This has exposed her to sometimes justified but vicious criticism. She has, however, responded defiantly, always trying to add to the number and power of her enemies. She has dared pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, and medical aids, to oppose her, and they have obliged with legal actions. But on her own and South Africa’s biggest challenge, the rate of HIV/ Aids infection, she has yet to show that she can muster the urgency and resources to make a difference.
Prognosis: Could spend a lot of time in court in the new year. A close FOT, she has also been mooted as a possible deputy president. She says, however, that she wants to see her health reforms through.
ALEC ERWIN
Minister of Trade
and Industry
Grade: A
Erwin has excelled. Using his legendary negotiating skills, he gave Mbeki what he wanted from the Jobs Summit: apparent unity of purpose between business, labour and the government on headline-catching job-creation plans which did not disturb macro-economic policy. He has also pushed through legislation with profound effects on competitions and trade policy. Spatial development initiatives like the Maputo corridor have attracted big-bucks investors and could dent unemployment. The year ended without a trade deal with the European Union, but this was because of European protectionism, rather than South African shortcomings.
Prognosis: His star should rise. Kingmakers abroad have also noted his talents and there has been talk of an international posting to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva. Let us hope Mbeki keeps him where his talents are most needed.
GERALDINE
FRASER-MOLEKETI
Minister of Welfare
and Population
Development
Grade: C
She has got her policies and her legislation right, but her department’s on-the-ground implementation is woeful. Her ministry blames the provinces for this; the provinces blame the national government; and many of our most vulnerable people suffer as a result, particularly in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. Thousands of people are removed from benefit lists annually without reason or explanation. Those who deal with Fraser-Moleketi regularly say she has difficulty listening, particularly when others are saying what she would rather not hear. This may explain why, in three years at welfare, she has been through three director generals. In fairness to her, however, she inherited a disaster of a department from her National Party predecessor.
Prognosis: She must show she can make welfare work before she is moved to bigger things.
DEREK HANEKOM
Minister of
Land Affairs
and Agriculture
Grade: B
He deserves credit for hard work in one of the trickiest portfolios. On the one hand are conservative, relatively wealthy white farmers; on the other, millions of land-hungry peasants. Progress in land reform is far short of the ANC’s 1994 promises. He needs to be judged on the three major thrusts: redistribution, restitution and tenure reform. The pace of redistribution picked up this year. A bold review of restitution identified big obstacles, but this brought him into conflict with former chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane. And promises of tenure reform for millions living in former trust lands have yet to materialise. A master of the media moment, he is happiest with his sleeves rolled up getting to grips with community issues.
Prognosis: The fact that he is pigmentally challenged and is said by some to be too sympathetic to white farmers may count against him in Mbeki’s Cabinet.
PALLO JORDAN
Minister of
Environmental Affairs
and Tourism
Grade: D
Jordan is often invisible when controversy arises. And what stances he takes are often so obscure that they don’t take matters further. Some important measures were generated by his department this year – including the environmental management Bill and the Green Paper on coastal management. His deputy, Peter Mokaba, is usually the one who must get his hands dirty. Mokaba will chair the new Tourism Forum, a government/business initiative to market and fund tourism development; and when the Tuli elephant debacle threatened our tourist image, Mokaba had to check the premises of the animal dealer involved.
Prognosis: Unlikely to remain in Cabinet after the election. Jordan is best suited to an environment where he can do the maximum amount of thought with the minimum amount of effort and absolutely no exertion.
PENUELL MADUNA
Minister of Minerals
and Energy
Grade: E
Apart from a few well-meaning policy drafts, Maduna has had little impact. He has not built up a credible department, nor has he found himself knowledgeable advisers. Instead, he has become embroiled in a series of embarrassments, most connected with the Central Energy Fund (CEF). Top of the list was his strange fight with Auditor General Henri Kluever. His suggestion that Kluever was party to the theft of R170-million of oil prompted a probe by the public protector, which is still ongoing even though Maduna retracted shortly after the inquiry began. He also made a pig’s ear of sacking state oil chief Kobus van Zyl, and botched the Emanuel Shaw II saga, ignoring an inquiry he himself ordered into a R3- million contract awarded to the former Liberian finance minister. The inquiry said he should axe Shaw, who has since decamped to Liberia, and Don Mkhwanazi, the former head of the CEF who later quit.
Prognosis: Would do well as official starter of the annual three-legged camel derby in Oman.
MAC MAHARAJ
Minister of Transport
Grade: A
He has been our best Cabinet member. He developed a strong team at transport, initially around Director General Khetso Gordhan. It set realisable objectives and met them. Even the sourest of species, traffic cops, have a good word for him – as do many users of the transport network. An unimportant breakfast briefing by Maharaj will draw a throng of senior journalists nursing hangovers for the rare sight of a Cabinet minister wholly on top of his brief. He has hived off or privatised systems where this has promised advantages to the fiscus or consumers. And we now think about our transport infrastructure – as we should – within a regional context.
Prognosis: He says he will retire from the Cabinet after the election. Can the offer of a substantial portfolio or special task tempt him back?
TREVOR MANUEL
Minister of Finance
Grade: B
Manuel exemplifies the argument that you don’t need to be a good economist to be a good minister of finance. You must be willing to take advice from experts, make difficult decisions, stick by them and mobilise political support for them. He has done all of these. If the state of the economy were the only criterion, Manuel would score an F. Recession looms, jobs are being shed and rates are high. But he has maintained intelligent equanimity amid serious international turbulence. South Africa has been less affected by it than most other emerging markets as a result.
Prognosis: Every national leader needs a finance minister with balls – if only so that the hapless fellow can take the rap for what goes wrong with the economy rather than passing the blame upwards. Manuel plays that role well for Mbeki.
MEMBATHISI MDLADLANA
Minister of Labour
Grade: C
Nobody knows how Mdladlana succeeded Mboweni when the latter went to the Reserve Bank. Among the more credible theories is that his regular fulminations against the unions – despite his union background – impressed Mbeki. Supported by a strong team around Director General Sipho Pityana – a team built by Mboweni – Mdladlana had an easier time steering through employment equity legislation than he would otherwise have had. Although many in business criticise labour market rigidities, like the unions they generally speak highly of the Department of Labour.
Prognosis: Mdladlana is likely to be shepherded after the election to make way at labour for Mbhazima (formerly Sam) Shilowa, an FOT who is swopping the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s hammer and anvil for politics’ greasy poll.
JOE MODISE
Minister of Defence
Grade: C
Modise has been more fortunate than Minister off Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi. The military retained a bedrock discipline and professionalism which the police had lost by 1994. He has also had a very good deputy in Ronnie Kasrils. These factors have helped ensure that successive annual defence budget cutbacks, and incidents like the resignation of General Georg Meiring, have not caused the South African National Defence Force to unravel. Morale is now improving as the forces await expensive new toys. With a more effective parliamentary opposition, Modise might have had to resign over operational failures in Lesotho. He has now announced he is not available after the election.
Prognosis: Retirement, in which he should write a book on how not to run a guerrilla war – a field in which he is expert.
VALLI MOOSA
Minister of
Constitutional
Development and
Provincial Affairs
Grade: B
Also known as the minister of natty suits. Many in the government regard the degree of autonomy given the provinces and some other levels of local government as a huge waste of money – even before account is taken of maladministration and corruption. Moosa has tried, largely successfully, to disguise this. He has made real progress in restructuring local government – despite strong objections from opposition parties this year – and in developing desperately needed skills and administrative capacity there.
Prognosis: A real talent for the future.
SANKI MTHEMBI-
MAHANYELE
Minister of Housing
Grade: F
Why is she still in Cabinet? She has shown she cannot deliver in one of our key delivery ministries. Her award of a massive housing contract to a close friend and her sacking of her former director general, Billy Cobbett, continue to haunt the public perception of her.
Prognosis: A coup on the gravy train would do nicely, thank you very much.
LIONEL MTSHALI
Minister of Arts,
Culture, Science
and Technology
Grade: E
Mtshali emerged briefly this year from otherwise welcome obscurity to have a public row with his departing director general Roger Jardine. Insiders speak of a deterioration in relations in the department since Mtshali took over from his IFPcolleague, Ben Ngubane, now premier of KwaZulu-Natal, and suggest an exodus of ANC-aligned officials. Jardine’s departure also deprived the department of an innovative science policy-maker. Cultural activityis the third fastest growing economic sector internationally and could be a big employer. Mtshali is not the person to develop that potential.
Prognosis: Whether or not he keeps this portfolio will depend on what patronage Mbeki has to pass Buthelezi’s way to keep the IFP sweet. Otherwise, we nominate Mtshali as ambassador to Belarus.
SIDNEY MUFAMADI
Minister of Safety
and Security
Grade: F
Mufamadi has overseen the collapse of the criminal justice system and our arrival as one of the world’s most dangerous destinations. A police force member is three times more likely to commit an offence than the rest of us. Mufamadi inherited one of the world’s most dishonest and brutal police forces, but he has shown he can’t instil duty and propriety in our police. He is held in low esteem by legal professionals specialising in criminal matters. It has often been said this portfolio needed someone of Maharaj’s calibre.
Prognosis: Word is that Mufamadi, an FOT, will be promoted to minister of foreign affairs. This would have the advantage of visiting the consequences of his ineptitude on foreigners rather than us. Please don’t let Mbeki make him deputy president.
JAY NAIDOO
Minister of Posts,
Telecommunications
and Broadcasting
Grade: C
Also known as the minister of funny suits. Naidoo doesn’t score well on broadcasting because of ill-conceived legislation to privatise the SABC partially and because he has presided over the disappointing denuding of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. He has run a more interventionist ministry than his predecessor, the sedentary Jordan. New legislation will make Naidoo the sole shareholder of what remains of the SABC. It will also change the broadcaster’s shape – the implications of which have not been thought through. But Naidoo scores well for huge improvements in the postal service.
Prognosis: His biggest task next year will be overseeing the granting of two new cellular telephone licences. After the election, there is talk of a diplomatic posting, probably to Canada, his wife’s home.
ALFRED NZO
Minister of Foreign
Affairs
Grade: F
If anyone has squandered our post-1994 moral capital, it’s Nzo. While protesting support for human rights, we have honoured tyrants like former Indonesian president Suharto. Our justifications have been as dubious the old friends of apartheid’s. Our foreign policy has been incoherent, one week saying we will abide strictly by international law, the next intervening in Lesotho without legal justification or clear purpose. While seeking a negotiated settlement in Angola, we joined our Southern African Development Community partners in outlawing dialogue with Unita leader Jonas Savimbi. Foreign policy professionals despair, and the rest of us thank heavens for the little lustre given our foreign policy by Mandela and Mbeki.
Prognosis: Nzo has been threatening to leave politics since the 1980s – he used to warn fellow exiles he might buy himself a plot of land, get a three- legged pot and stare into the middle distance. May he hold neither them nor us in suspense any longer.
DULLAH OMAR
Minister of Justice
Grade: C
Omar has failed to transform and revitalise South Africa’s courts, although his heart is in the right place. He has been handicapped by a weak department, some members of which may have frustrated his plans. But some of his new appointments have been questionable – including a number from his former law practice.
Legal professionals fear administration of the courts, suffering an exodus of experienced staff, is going down the tubes. He has discouraged systematic mentoring of new appointees to the Bench, claiming “mentoring can be very patronising”. In the past four years, Omar has not shied away from controversy, including generous support for Allan Boesak and an attack on Judge Willem Heath for gunning for Zuma over the Sarafina II scandal.
Prognosis: Could be encouraged back to private practice if he can’t deliver on good intentions.
JEFF RADEBE
Minister of
Public Works
Grade: B
A quiet trooper in the Cabinet, who just gets on with his job as a sort of maintenance manager for every godforsaken government property around the country. He has tried to make his department a source of contracts for emerging businesses and jobs for the unemployed. He is in charge of carrying forward the employment creation projects decided on at the presidential Jobs Summit. He also plays a Mr Fixit role for Mbeki in ANC/SACP relations.
Prognosis: Why not give him one of the bigger delivery ministries?
STELLA SIGCAU
Minister of State
Enterprise
Grade: F
Another person of whom one asks: why is she in Cabinet? If her royal Xhosa lineage is the only explanation, a spot of republican fundamentalism may be in order. Many opportunities for successful privatisation – her brief – have been squandered over the past five years. Privatisation could, among other things, already have markedly reduced our accumulated national debt and, by reducing it, led to a fall in the cost of borrowing (interest rates) for the rest of us. What privatisation has occurred has done so despite, not because of, her.
Prognosis: Unlikely to survive Mbeki’s knife, nor should she.
BEN SKOSANA
Minister of
Correctional Services
Grade: D
Skosana has one major advantage over his predecessor, Sipo Mzimela: he does not, as far as we know, want to bury prisoners in mine shafts or truss them up in skyscrapers. He has been in his post for less than six months – too short a time to make any impact, although there is no indication he has tried to. There is no shortage of challenges. Correctional policy is a mess, and our prisons are brutal, corrupt and corrupting places. Given that so many of our leaders have spent time “inside”, one would expect more care to be taken in correcting our correctional services.
Prognosis: His position depends on the terms of an Mbeki/Buthelezi deal after the election.
ZOLA SKWEYIYA
Minister of Public
Service and
Administration
Grade: C
Skweyiya ended the year on a disappointing note when he side-stepped the issue of retrenchments in our still bloated civil service – perhaps on the orders of his political masters six months before an election. Thousands of supernumeries will now be “redeployed” within the service rather than being sent off to earn a living. When will he grasp this nettle? Ever? Is this government capable of doing so? Skweyiya has, however, helped oversee often successful transformation in the civil service. He has also been direct in dealing with shortcomings in provincial government and has placed a code of conduct before civil servants.
Prognosis: This portfolio needs someone with fire in his or her belly willing to blow it up other people’s backsides. Skweyiya is not that person. He should be floated into less demanding Cabinet waters.
STEVE TSHWETE
Minister of Sport
and Recreation
Grade: E (but only because
Bafana Bafana beat Egypt)
Tshwete is arguably South African sport’s worst enemy. Rather than galvanising the sporting disciplines or seeking to reconcile opposing bodies, he has caused yet more chaos. The understandable urge to have more representative South African sports teams has been crudely expressed in legislation which comes close to allowing the government to select teams and imprison administrators who don’t comply.
Prognosis: The sports ministry, among the most inept in the government, should be scrapped – as suggested by the Presidential Review Commission. Tshwete could accompany Maduna to the Oman camel derby.