The South African Communist Party has taken a swipe at senior ANC members who left the army to make money from arms sales.
They include ANC national executive committee member Siphiwe Nyanda, who was formerly a general in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
SACP head Blade Nzimande released the party’s policy discussion document on Wednesday. The document said former members of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), became part of the SANDF but did not bring about transformation. Instead they set up defence companies for themselves ”with their deployment having served the personal purpose of primary accumulation”.
Nzimande was speaking in the context of how the army should be transformed.
The SACP is also planning a major overhaul of the way the government works after the 2009 elections.
Key to the recommendations outlined by Nzimande last week is the creation of a ”council of state”. This will see power vested in a small group of Cabinet ministers who will be responsible for macro-planning, while responsibility for the day-to-day running of government will lie with junior ministers.
This system, used by democracies such as Britain, will address the lack of overall planning that the SACP sees as one of the main failings of President Thabo Mbeki’s administration.
The party hopes that under a reconfigured alliance with the ANC it will have powers to co-determine government policy.
It suggests a two-tier executive structure. In the first layer, senior ministers would form a council of state led by the presidency and seven additional ministers of state. The second layer would include the line department ministers — for example, housing, energy and water would fall under the infrastructure minister.
The party also wants to reopen the debate on the need for deputy ministers and provinces. Nzimande told a press briefing that deputy ministers have no real power. If a minister is unable to perform his or her duties, another minister serves as a stand-in, not the deputy.
The usefulness of provincial governments is another issue to be tackled by the SACP. ”Few countries of South Africa’s size have a three-tier system of government; do we need provincial governments and legislatures as opposed to provincial administrations?” says the discussion document.
The future of the National Council of Provinces is also under discussion. ”Real powers need to be devolved to local level and the relationship between district and municipal level government needs to be addressed,” says the document.
In addition, the SACP proposed:
- Scrapping the public enterprise department;
- State-owned enterprises to be run by individual departments;
- A rural affairs department; and
- A moratorium on state-land sales
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Reshaping the state
How the SACP wants to take a scalpel to government: proposed two-tier executive structure
First tier:
Council of state led by president and seven senior ministers to take charge of state planning and strategy
Second tier:
Group of junior ministers with administrative rather than strategic roles
What could be removed:
Deputy ministers and provinces. These ministers have no real power at present, and provinces have difficulty coping with legislation or getting mandates needed to operate effectively
The seven senior ministries:
 Finance
 Economic development
 Infrastructure
 Human development
 Governance
 International relations
 Crime prevention and justice