Fifteen director generals have left office since June 2, but Khulekani Sitole, correctional services director general, is one who has miraculously escaped the chop. Howard Barrell, Barry Streek and Wally Mbhele report
The Cabinet has been responsible for the wholesale clear-out of the top level of the civil service in the five months since the election. Since then 15 director generals have been or are being replaced.
This week’s announcement of the departure of six director generals is being seen as further evidence of Cabinet ministers’ assertion of the right to hand-pick their top civil servants.
Observers believe the changes are linked to President Thabo Mbeki’s warning to Cabinet members that they and their departments must deliver and be seen to do so, or they risk losing their jobs.
Since the election on June 2, the director generals of the departments of arts, culture, science and technology; education; environmental affairs and tourism; foreign affairs; home affairs; intelligence; land affairs; public enterprises; public works; safety and security; sport and recreation; trade and industry; transport; welfare and population development; and in the Office of the President, have been or are being replaced.
In addition, Pierre Steyn has not yet been replaced at the Department of Defence.
In at least three of the seven changes this week, the key factor is believed to have been the desire of ministers appointed to new portfolios to get rid of their predecessors’ choices as director general and instal their own nominees. Luci Abrahams at welfare, her partner Patrick Fitzgerald at environment and tourism, and Geoff Budlender at land affairs are all understood to have been sacrificed on this basis.
According to a senior government official who spoke to the Mail & Guardian on condition of anonymity this week: “There has to be a relationship of mutual confidence and complete trust between a minister and a director general. Where that doesn’t exist – sometimes merely for reasons of personal chemistry – it is usually the director general who goes.”
A source told the M&G that Mohammed Valli Moosa, the new environmental affairs and tourism minister, had formed an unfavourable view of Fitzgerald’s abilities. But a senior departmental official said Moosa had given staff no indication of this.
Abrahams’s replacement at welfare, Angela Bester, formerly worked as the director general of the office of the public service commission. Bester’s former minister at public service, Zola Skweyiya, is the new welfare minister.
The three changes in the security community appear to have a different explanation. The departure of Azhar Cachalia, head of the secretariat at safety and security – amid signs that the secretariat might be disbanded – is thought to be a negative reaction to the confusion earlier this year over gun control legislation.
The tough-talking regime that Minister Steve Tshwete is putting in place at safety and security is also de-emphasising civilian control of the kind the secretariat was supposed to promote.
Instead, the element of civilian control will now be catered for by the appointment of Jackie Selebi, the able former director general of foreign affairs who has no experience in uniform, as the new commissioner of police to succeed George Fivaz, who is retiring.
Selebi , who has an international reputation as a champion of human rights, should enable the government to defend internationally any harsh measures it decides to unleash to bring down South Africa’s high crime rate. Selebi will also, for the first time, assert African leadership in the police, which has been a site of sometimes serious racial tensions.
Top government officials explain the other security change – the replacement of Sizakele Sigxashe as director general at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) – by saying that he reaches retirement age next year. Sigxashe’s abilities have, however, been questioned for some years now by intelligence and security insiders.
His replacement at the NIA, Vusi Mavimbela, who has been Mbeki’s security adviser, was described as a “careful appointment” by a senior government official this week. He added: “The president’s office, which takes a keen interest in security and intelligence matters, has moved to ensure that the intelligence community is under competent control.”
The Cabinet also confirmed that it had accepted the resignation of the disgraced former director general of home affairs, Albert Mokoena.
l Embattled correctional services Commissioner Khulekani Sitole miraculously survived the chop this week.
The parliamentary joint committee on public accounts has referred to the auditor general allegations that Sitole used more than R1,3-million of the Department of Correctional Services’s money to fund a scholarship named after himself.
This move, according to government insiders, suggests that Sitole is far from off the hook. The committee has already submitted its findings on allegations against Sitole – including claims that he ran a professional soccer team from his offices and gave jobs in the department to members of his team – to the Cabinet for consideration. His fate is due to be made public next Friday.
The committee’s chair, Gavin Woods, says the issue of the “Khulekani Sitole Scholarship” was referred to the auditor general for his professional opinion on whether this had been unauthorised spending.
The M&G reported last week (“Sithole has done it again”) that the Department of Correctional Services spent R1,3-million of the R26-million budgeted for training on the Sithole scholarship at Jackson State University in the United States.
The Democratic Party has appealed to the joint committee to “seriously” consider undertaking an investigation into the role played by Minister of Correctional Services Ben Skosana in the Sitole saga.
The DP said “just a month ago”, Skosana attempted to pre-empt the committee’s findings when he exonerated Sitole from the auditor general’s findings.
“While Mr Sitole stands accused of using department funds to make the shortfall on a private sholarship, Mr Skosana apparently bailed him the R507 000 needed from the department’s training budget.
“Mr Skosana is supposedly in the United States approaching various universities to raise the remaining shortfall.
“Bearing in mind that the scholarship is a private one, which is specifically named after Mr Sitole, the minister’s involvement is highly questionable – especially if he is in the US in his official capacity and at the expense of the South African taxpayer,” said the DP.