2007 Report Card — Part Two

Brigitte Mabandla

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development

Grade: GG (2006: G)

It’s a double G this time — and that stands for ‘get going”.

In the foreword to her department’s latest annual report, Mabandla writes: ‘The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s core mandate is, inter alia, to uphold the Constitution and provide for an appropriate environment for all people to exercise and enforce their rights.”

This is a fair summary — pity that Mabandla failed to teach by example in 2007.

She and her boss, Mbeki, suspended National Prosecuting Authority head Vusi Pikoli, apparently for party-political reasons, with blatant disregard for the Constitution and the values it represents.

Since then, she has dodged the NPA as it has sought to brief her on the cases against both Selebi and Zuma.

Not that in other areas there is much to write home about.

The adoption of a legal services charter for transformation, hosting the first-ever national conference for magistrates and the roll-out of ‘massive” IT infrastructure at courts hardly cuts the mustard compared with the enormity of Pikoli’s suspension and its constitutional implications.

Mosibudi Mangena

Minister of Science and Technology

Grade: A

Mangena is as comfortable with administrative organisation and detail as he is with number theory in mathematics. His problem is that although science and technology underpin much of South Africa’s economic growth and are critical to mining, agriculture and health, they are not a kingmaker.

His ministry received a clean bill of financial health this year. And it did not hog newspaper headlines with allegations of corruption or incompetence.

But, despite good management, and with six pieces of legislation in the pipeline and 99,8% of its budget spent, the ministry’s future does not look particularly rosy.

The fundamental problem is the science ministry is very limited in what it can achieve, while schools continue to produce scientifically illiterate citizens.

Mangena calls this ‘the national problem” and ‘a heartache”. While deputy minister of education for three years he came to the realisation that ‘until such time as we get it right, as a department at the end of this system, we will always have a problem”. Diplomatically, he now claims his department has ‘an arrangement with the department of education, we do work together”.

Perhaps it is the desire for a South Korean-style focus on science and technology graduates, from artisans to professors, which lies behind Mangena’s Christmas wish for a presidential council. ‘I’d be the happiest man on Earth if there was a presidential council on science and technology, but it has not been raised,” he says.

Mangena’s biggest headache of 2007 was South Africa’s satellite, still firmly lodged on terra firma a year after its proposed launch.

The Russian submarine launch of the satellite apparently failed to happen because the Russians were miffed at a breakdown in negotiations with the SANDF. Once again, the ministry is at the mercy of other parts of government.

Trevor Manuel

Minister of Finance

Grade: A (2006: A)

Manuel has broad shoulders and an extraordinary political radar, but he has had to carry a load that would tax Atlas. No wonder his temper has frayed as he has perceived the ANC’s war of succession increasingly threaten the work of a decade.

Bankers like to tell a Mills & Boon story about Manuel’s transformation from awkward revolutionary to market hunk, while the left likes to frighten the children with stories of his heartlessness in the vanguard of Mbeki’s 1996 ‘class project”. The fact is that neither captures what he has been trying to achieve.

For one thing, it should now be impossible to ignore his role in substantial income redistribution. As he points out repeatedly, South Africa spends more than the Bolivarian revolution on social programmes. And measures of the country’s economic inequality actually decrease after the contribution of government is taken into account.

The failure — starkly evident in 2007 — of increased education and health spending to deliver any perceptible improvement in outcomes, is to be laid at the door of Mbeki and his other Cabinet appointees.

It has been a tough year for the treasury, which delivered a budget surplus and spending increases in the face of escalating demands from both national ministers and provincial governments too often motivated not by good ideas and implementation capacity but a last rummage in the trough before the ANC’s leadership change.

If Manuel has been unable to deliver us into quite the sunlit upland that we dream of, that is in part because it is only in his domain at the treasury and SARS that the kind of state South Africa needs has really been built. In far too many crucial areas increased capacity to spend has not been matched by increased capacity to spend well.

The question, then, is whether the loyalty of treasury staff to the project of building and maintaining state institutions capable of delivery will persist after he leaves them behind, as the voting at Polokwane suggests he will.

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula

Minister of Home Affairs

Grade: E (2006: F)

Or should it be G for gone? Mapisa-Nqakula and her husband Charles are clearly in the Mbeki camp. In addition, she has not been an effective minister of a department that is a key entry point to the economy. Without an ID, poor South Africans cannot access the bare necessities of democracy like free education and welfare grants. Under her watch since 2004, what should be a relatively simple matter has remained a mess.

There have been some successes this year, but these have clearly been the work of her director general Mavuso Msimang, who took over the reins in May. Under Msimang the department has finally started to show serious commitment to providing services. The minister must be credited with giving him the space to do so, but her actions as political head do not inspire confidence. Her relationship with the media remains frosty.  She once accused a journalist who asked her a question at a briefing of being ‘from the DA”, before profusely apologising.

Mapisa-Nqakula also insisted on standing by her deputy, Malusi Gigaba, who used public funds to buy flowers for family members.

The passports of South Africans are regularly counterfeited, to the extent that the European Union and Arab states no longer recognise temporary passports from this country.

Mapisa-Nqakula stands accused of being absent while the Zimbabwean refugee issue came to a head in April, when the influx of refugees from our neighbouring country reached crisis proportions. Only when Parliament’s home affairs committee raised the alarm at the state of the refugee centre in Marabastad were significant changes introduced.

Some argue that the problems in home affairs will not abate until the population register has been properly assessed and ‘cleaned up”, another issue that has been on the minister’s to-do list since the start of her tenure.

A spate of suspensions of senior officials this year crippled the department to such an extent that the annual report has been severely delayed — it was due to be tabled long after Parliament rose. The department has received a disclaimer from the auditor-general, showing the embarrassing financial state of an institution which manages large amounts of cash.

On the up side, visas are now issued within five days, down from the previous 10 days, while the Civil Union Act, which allows for gay marriages, has been implemented.

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri

Minister of Communications

Grade: F (2006: E)

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has not harnessed the power of information and communications technology (ICT) for development, as other developing countries are doing. For more than four years analysts and industry players have called for two basic steps: unbundling of the local loop and the declaration of landing rights on undersea cables as an essential facility.

Matsepe-Casaburri claims the following successes: the Dinaledi Schools project has taken wireless broadband to 500 schools in rural areas; and 92% of South Africa’s geographical area receive radio broadcasts, while the geographical reach of television is 90%.

While the minister should be doing everything in her power to liberalise the ICT sector, this year has seen what some critics describe as a ‘paradigm shift” in the department of communications, with a move away from a regulated competitive market towards greater state intervention.

Another bone of contention has been the to-ing and fro-ing over the multiple proposed undersea cables that are attempting to land in South Africa. Analysts have described the mixed messages emanating from the department on these issues as ’embarrassing” and have criticised the minister for backing her director­-general’s aggressive statements on local ownership of all cables landing in South Africa.

Most industry players and analysts surveyed by the Mail & Guardian said the minister had provided ‘inconsistent and contradictory” leadership, while some described her as a ‘complete disaster”.

Although hamstrung by capacity shortages and inadequate funding, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) appears to have made some progress in regulating key issues such as interconnection and facilities leasing. The licensing of Icasa-licensed new entrants in the Pay-TV arena was well executed and carried out with refreshing speed.

Membathisi Mdladlana

Labour Minister

Grade: E (2006: D)

Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana has been a passionate steward of a vital sector. But he has not had a good year. Mdladlana ended the year by firing his director general, Vanguard Mkhosana, a home boy he employed against the advice of his department. Then he fired three other senior officials.

Clearly, the minister has had it with his department and its inefficiencies.

For the third consecutive year since Mkhosana took over, the department received a qualified audit from the Auditor General for its failure to tighten financial controls. It has also failed, for several years now, to fill vacancies, including key positions in areas such as statistics, research, programme management, financial management and human resource management.

Senior officials in critical areas continue to leave the department in numbers because of their unhappiness with working conditions. According to departmental sources, between 20 and 25 officials in the finance unit have left in the past 12 months. There has also been an exodus from the inspectorate directorate: there are now 700 inspectors, down from 1 500 three years ago. The high vacancy rate, now in excess of 500, has been cited as one of the key reasons for the department’s failure to carry out its mandate.

Sections of Mdladlana’s department, including the Compensation Fund and the health and safety inspectorate, are understaffed, affecting the department’s ability to deliver much-needed services. Like the sector education and training authorities (Setas), the Compensation Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Funds have been plagued by allegations of corruption and fraud amounting to millions of rands.

Last month, four senior Compensation Fund officials were suspended following allegations of financial irregularity. And the department reportedly failed to spend about R129-million of its allocated budget this year.

Mandisi Mpahlwa

Minister of Trade and Industry

Grade: B- (2006: D)

Such a nice guy, but with way too much work.

This year he finally got the BEE code passed into law; he passed the National Credit Act, which forces lenders to consider loan affordability; and he released the Industrial Policy Framework and accompanying action plan. And after a humiliating suspension, Mpahlwa finally got the Lotto balls rolling again,

With that record, Mpahlwa gets a B for progress. Until now, he’s been a Cabinet laggard, though he is certainly one of Cabinet’s more charming members.

Next year he will have to ensure the BEE advisory council finally gets started and he will have to usher through the ambitious industrial policy framework. And Mpahlwa must assess the Credit Act to assess its impact on growth as well as aligning empowerment laws with other legislation.

The ambitious Industrial Policy Framework and accompanying Action Plan were released this year, to a very mixed response. Proponents say they promote the emergence and growth of job-creating industries through targeted tax breaks and subsidies; critics charge that there are grave dangers in the state trying to pick winners.

Despite controversial quotas on Chinese imports imposed at the end of last year and above-average tariff protection, the state of the clothing and textiles sector remains dismal, as Mpahlwa acknowledged in his budget speech this year.

The Motor Industry Development Programme is under review, and, although an outcome was originally expected this year, a final decision on the future of the programme has been postponed to next year. However, in an apparent upstaging of the review process, Mpahlwa promised investors that they would receive the same levels of support until 2012.

The competition authorities have delivered brilliantly this year, and will soon be in a stronger position to investigate and fine companies who are out of line. Just ask Mittal Steel and Tiger Brands.

All in all a good year for Mpahlwa. We still think his job should be split in two, with one minister for trade and another for industry.

Sydney Mufamadi

Provincial and Local Government

Grade: C (2006: C)

Mufamadi’s portfolio is centrally about the intractable problems of local government, with which he has battled doggedly for eight years. The jury is still out on the overall effectiveness of his Project Consolidate — aimed at propping up local government basket cases — and other methods of bolstering the third tier.

Mufamadi’s other major task is spearheading government’s review of the entire system of local government.

This year he implemented measures to regulate the payment of municipal managers, who have sparked outrage by paying themselves huge bonuses unrelated to performance or the market. Other initiatives included the municipal leadership development programme, to improve management and leadership skills among municipal officials and councillors.

Central government’s municipal infrastructure grant is finally being disbursed. Effective spending is largely credited to the work of the accountants, engineers and other skilled people sent to struggling municipalities.

But there are still a disturbingly high number of municipalities which receive qualified reports from the Auditor General’s office. An anti-corruption strategy has been tried out in two provinces and will be extended in the new year.

Mufamadi judges himself in the following areas: good governance, institutional transformation and service delivery, local economic development and financial viability.

He has a daunting task, created by the post-1994 policy of wall-to-wall local government across the country in a context of scarce skills and the absence of revenue sources, particularly in rural municipalities.

He will receive a better grade only once we see a clear pattern of improvement in service delivery to local communities.

Charles Nqakula

Minister of Safety and Security

Grade: D (2006: F)

Spare a thought for Nqakula. His five years in the portfolio have been one long swig from the poisoned chalice of leadership in the failing fight against crime.

To measure his performance, one has to understand crime in South Africa as seepage from a large reservoir of inequality, discontent and deprivation. The police and the rest of the criminal justice system try to mop it up, but there is always more where it came from.

Nqakula has to shoulder the intractable problems of law enforcement largely on his own, and one can sympathise with him. The time has come to realise that crime-fighting is a task for the whole of the government.

The new business-backed, seven-point crime strategy approved by Cabinet in November is a step in the right direction. It aims not only to strengthen the police — and crucially its detective capacity — but also to integrate the criminal justice system and make it more effective.

The government has set itself the target of reducing contact (person-to-person) crime by 7-10% a year. Crime statistics have shown only partial advances in that direction and a disturbing increase in some categories of violent crime. But again, this is a government target, not that of safety and security alone. Nqakula has not met the targets, but neither have his Cabinet colleagues.

Nqakula’s biggest shortcoming may be his lack of dynamic leadership. One is not asking for another Steve Tshwete, who was long on gung-ho talk and short on action. But in a time of crisis, one needs a leader who is energetic and visible, who argues inside and outside government for more resources and who impresses the citizenry with government’s crime-fighting resolve. A rather dull and passive fellow, Nqakula has not led by inspiration.

His other major failure this year has been his defence of Jackie Selebi, the greatest liability of the South African Police Service. One can only hope that with the rebalancing of ANC politics after Polokwane this close ally of the president will step from the shadows and come more into his own.

Naledi Pandor

Minister of Education

Grade: B- (2006: D)

Pandor understands her portfolio as well as, and in many cases better than, the rest of the Cabinet. She is highly intelligent, passionately committed to education and exceptionally hard-working.

But judged by the key indicators for the health of the education system — whether reading and numeracy levels among schoolchildren or the massive drop-out rate (50%) from universities — the overall picture remains one of dismal performance, with isolated pockets of excellence.

It is true that much of Pandor’s effectiveness depends on the vast and problematic bureaucracy that ‘serves” her — especially in the school sector, where provincial delivery often amounts to dereliction. But that is no excuse — the buck stops with her.

Consider last month’s release of the Progress in International Reading Study (Pirls), which surveyed mainly grade four pupils in 40 countries. South Africa was rock bottom. First, the education department withdrew at the 11th hour from the report’s formal launch (no public explanation offered). But days later Pandor referred specifically to Pirls and announced a new strategy to be called a ‘foundation for learning”. Among other things, this would involve developing assessment tests in literacy and numeracy for all years of compulsory schooling.

It would have been scandalous for the department not to respond to Pirls. But the ambivalent response suggests internal departmental incoherence.

Similar concerns arise from Pandor’s silence to date on the resignation of adult education expert John Aitchison from the government’s mass literacy campaign: Pandor appointed him, after all.

Yet much else in Pandor’s performance has been admirable. She has spearheaded an improved remuneration system for schoolteachers (currently stalled in negotiations with the unions); she is awaiting a report she requested from Higher Education South Africa on the perennial problem of student fees; she has spoken of the need to make one of the system’s Cinderellas, early childhood development, a priority and she has appointed a ministerial committee to look into the other Cinderella, adult basic education and training.

But where are the results?

Jeff Radebe

Minister of Transport

Grade: C on general matters. F for eNaTIS (2006: C-)

In a country which loves cars, Radebe must be credited with putting public transport back on the agenda. He has made all the right noises about public transport being the legacy of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Cabinet has endorsed this position and significant funding has been secured. The introduction of Transport Month and No Car day has also created awareness of the need for improved public transport. Now it’s time to spend wisely.

Because of capacity constraints, at least half of the nine host municipalities for the World Cup have failed to develop well-planned public transport programmes.

Some believe there might be a need to separate public transport and freight logistics into two separate departments because the task of overseeing air, road, rail and maritime transport is so complicated.

Attempts to amend the Road Accident Fund Act have dragged on for two years now and the country’s road death toll is still unacceptably high, with 15 000 fatalities on our roads last year.

The minister cannot be blamed for how South Africans drive, and particularly for their lethal tendency to drink and drive, but road safety campaigns do fall within his ambit.

The major blemish on Radebe’s 2007 record was his department’s dismal failure to implement the long-awaited eNaTIS system, which was supposed to revolutionise the vehicle registration system. After chronic delays eNaTIS was implemented in April — and the upshot was huge backlogs in the motor manufacturing sector, long queues at testing stations and even a threat of arson at one registration centre in Johannesburg. It emerged that the Auditor General had warned of serious network flaws in the system well before implementation. The ministry claimed the benefits far outweighed the backlogs and congestion of traffic data.

Another departmental responsibility, the taxi recapitalisation programme, is still plodding along, with targets far from being met, and the industry and department still uneasy bedfellows. How many taxis are scrapped in order to recapitalise and how many are just scrapped? The ministry says 12 000 old taxis have been scrapped to date and estimates that by 2010 80% of all old taxis will be off the road.

South Africa continues to face huge road-maintenance backlogs, which the provinces cannot clear. The work is being transferred to South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral), which is under-funded. Sources say that the national transport department has a huge vacancy rate of 40%, which is leading to the poor implementation of policy.

Lindiwe Sisulu

Minister of Housing

Grade A for policy; B- for practice (2006: A-)

Sisulu clearly has a passion for her portfolio. But because of the continuing crises around her flagship N2 Gateway project in Cape Town, in particular, it has not been a good year for her.

In her battles with poor communities over the removal of squatters and building standards, she has assumed the persona of the kragdadige minister resorting to tough talk of ‘removals” and ‘evictions” reminiscent of the apartheid past.

Sisulu has changed the old one-size-fits-all housing policy that provided match-box RDP houses in grid system settlements for the poor and the unemployed, far from urban centres.

And she gathered some of the best brains in the business to develop the Breaking New Ground (BNG) approach, which sets out to define the state’s obligation in relation to the constitutional right to housing.

Under Sisulu most of the right policies were put into place, and this year has seen an orgy of ribbon-cutting and handing over of keys to crying, grateful women.

But she is just not building enough houses. And as the protests increae, she has sounded increasingly kragdadig, threatening the poor with the ‘elimination” of their shacks, removal to alternative sites and legal action.

In Cape Town, she threatened Joe Slovo squatter camp residents that she would remove their names from waiting lists after they refused to move to Delft, 30km away.

There is a backlog of more than 400 000 houses in Cape Town, while only 20 000 are being built a year. The national demand and growing backlog require South Africa to build 250 000 dwellings a year or 1 000 units per working day. Only 25 000 a year are currently being built.

This is not entirely Sisulu’s fault — she is responsible for policy and direction, and provinces and municipalities should deliver.

But she does have the power to hold provinces and local authorities accountable for service delivery and at least pressurise them into implementing her policies more effectively.

Historical problems with the size of the housing budget remain. In his last budget speech Manuel tripled the housing budget, at Sisulu’s insistence. But the allocation still represents just 1% of the national pie.

Buyelwa Sonjica

Minister of Minerals and Energy

Grade: B (2006 -)

Buyelwa Sonjica, appointed last year to the strategically important post of minerals and energy, has won praise for her openness and willingness to consult interested parties. An Energy Summit in October this year saw her consult widely within the energy sector. In its wake, an Energy Master Plan was drawn up and endorsed by Cabinet, with the aim of securing fuel security for a growing economy.

Little regard was given in the plan to issues such as climate change and renewable energy, but last week, a biofuels strategy was announced.

While mine safety is the responsibility of the industry, Sonjica will have to pay greater regulatory attention to it in the new year.

Questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the mine health and safety inspectorate, which seems to be struggling to attract skilled people.

Sonjica’s other challenges are to finalise the restructuring of the electricity distribution industry and to address the electricity generation crisis. The restructuring exercise has faced constitutional and legal challenges, and government is consulting to find consensus. The Electricity Masterplan, Integrated Energy Masterplan and Nuclear Strategy and Policy were all developed this year. Energy efficiency will remain a focus, but campaigns in this area need to be ramped up.

Progress has been made in the area of mining rights conversions. Backlogs for applications were eliminated last year, and several companies have had their mining rights converted. The minerals beneficiation strategy is still under discussion, and the problem of illegal mining also needs to be dealt with.

Makenkhesi Stofile

Minister of Sport and Recreation

Grade: C (2006: E)

If Stofile were to be judged solely by the programme he promised at the beginning of the year, he could go on holiday well satisfied. In fact, he should have a restless feeling that he has left work undone.

On the plus side, the Sports Commission was finally integrated into the department, while the Sports and Recreation Bill finally became law. Stofile also won plaudits by voicing his unambiguous opposition to the application of racial quotas in teams.

But it was also a year when the biggest scandal or perceived scandal to hit sports sponsorship deals — the PSL executives’ commissions — exploded. Stofile left it to Manuel to handle.

His silence fuelled the belief of 2010 World Cup doubters that football administration is in the hands of people who cannot be trusted. He was also eerily silent when the race quotas issue raised its head at an inter-provincial swimming competition earlier in December, when the Western Cape was disqualified because it consisted entirely of white swimmers. Given his earlier statements, there is confusion here about when race quotas matter.

Stofile would argue that until the passing of the Sport And Recreation Act — which aims to give him the power to intervene in sporting matters — his hands were tied.

But leaders should provide guidance on issues that are not provided for in policy documents or legislation.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

Minister of Health

Grade: F (2006: Guess?)

Tshabalala-Msimang showed the power of scientifically proven medicine this year when she roared back into action following a liver transplant. Adherence to her new regime of lifelong chronic medication has resulted in a physically reinvigorated minister, able, within a short span, to rid herself of a troublesome deputy and face down the country’s biggest newspaper by loftily ignoring allegations of theft and alcoholism.

But her stays in the private ward of the public sector Johannesburg Hospital have not galvanised her leadership skills. Much of the public health system continues to fall into decrepitude.

Strategic and operational plans abound in government healthcare, but these dissipate outside discussion rooms. The minister fails to take responsibility for the failures that have contributed to the rising death rate among young children. She boasts of the excellent service available in the public sector, while South Africa’s growing TB epidemic reflects a failure of the health systems.

While babies at Chris Hani Bara­gwanath Hospital may now sleep in plastic rather than cardboard boxes thanks to the minister’s intervention, up to 20% of infant deaths nationally could be avoided if more attention were given to the needs of pregnant women and their babies.

Prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV programmes are still a failure, with less than half of pregnant women participating. South Africa’s antiretroviral therapy programme is rolling out, powered by the funding and expertise of international organisations and donors. Yet it is still failing to clear the backlog of people needing ARVs, let alone meet the demands of new patients.

The good news this year has been the revitalisation of the South African National Aids Council (Sanac). The bad news for the ministerial scorecard is that the rebirth of the country’s guiding body on HIV/Aids has largely been driven by her Cabinet colleagues, aided by the management skills and vision of her axed deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

Marthinus van Schalkwyk

Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism

Grade: B- (2006: B) on environment; A for Tourism

A hard-working minister, Van Schalkwyk has had a busy 2007. He made progress in formalising regulatory frameworks and compliance with environmental legislation, and ended the year with bold moves aimed at protecting marine resources.

The abalone ban was, unfortunately, poorly managed. In a portent of potential future conflicts between green and developmental concerns, the minister was accused of failing to consult subsistence fishermen. Legislation introduced included a draft Waste Bill, aimed at cleaning up the living environment of an estimated 45% of South Africans who do not have access to domestic waste collection, and sorting out problematic landfill sites.

Other important legislative initiatives included the Integrated Coastal Management Bill, which aims to promote better use of coastal resources; regulations on alien and invasive species; and a ban on the manufacture and sale of asbestos goods.

Van Schalkwyk gave teeth to the Air Quality Act by declaring the Vaal Triangle and the Mpumalanga Highveld ‘air pollution hotspots”. The Green Scorpions started tackling industries in these areas, undertaking environmental compliance inspections at Mittal Steel, Highveld Steel and Scaw Metal.

The minister played an important role in international negotiations on future regimes for dealing with climate change, but struggled to get fellow Cabinet members to take the issue seriously.

Another political battle involved coalmining for the supply of power stations. Responding to the Department of Minerals and Energy’s issuing licences to prospect and mine large swathes of eastern Mpumalanga, Van Schalkwyk announced his intention to commission an Environmental Management Framework for the area.

Another of his headaches was the bankrupt Marine Living Resources Fund, jointly funded by the government and fishermen as a means to protect marine resources.

Judged by his tourism portfolio alone, he would get an A. Tourism’s estimated contribution to GDP increased from 4,6% in 1993 to more than 8%, and foreign arrivals reportedly grew by 10% between January and May.

Preparations for the 2010 World Cup energised SMME training and Van Schalkwyk led the move to get non-hotel accommodation contracted for the event for the first time. He has announced that 22 000 hotel rooms and 6 000 non-hotel rooms had been contracted, indicating accommodation targets will be exceeded.

Lulu Xingwana

Minister of Land and Agriculture

Grade: D+ (2006: B-)

Xingwana continued to breathe fire this year on the key issues in the land sector: farm evictions, land expropriation and the willing-buyer, willing-seller expropriation principle.

But activists have labelled her an all-talk, no-action minister — and the hard evidence suggests they are right.

While there are many plans and policies on the table in the emotive land portfolio, little has been implemented. And land reform continues to creep forward at a snail’s pace.

While Xingwana says she acts for all stakeholders, farmers have repeatedly reported her to the Human Rights Commission for hate speech. The minister seems to use rhetoric to disguise her department’s own inefficiencies. For example, she has not used the laws against evictions to bring down the rate of job losses on farms.

Land activists insist many of her department’s problems are rooted in mismanagement. Asked about her most significant achievement of the year, stakeholders across the spectrum said that it was axing the director general of land affairs, Glen Thomas.

Agriculture potters along as the side-show of the department. Post-settlement support for new black farmers is vital but unforthcoming.