The minister of women, children and persons with disabilities, Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, has been in her office only “once or twice” this year, the Mail & Guardian has been told. Against government stipulations, she leaves her duties to special advisers.
“The minister has hardly sat in her office since the beginning of this year,” one ministry insider told the M&G. “She would just pass by for less than an hour and leave.”
The M&G understands that the minister has on several occasions given ill health as a reason for her absence. Ministry insiders claimed that she had been in her office only a few times this year.
But Mayende-Sibiya’s spokesperson, Sibani Mngadi, said the minister attended many meetings outside the ministry and when her colleagues did not see her they incorrectly concluded she was absent from work.
But a second ministry insider said Mayende-Sibiya is “incapable of running this important ministry, which women of this country fought for”.
The government’s stipulations on special advisers say they should “refrain from interfering in the administration and management” of a department.
Sources close to Mayende-Sibiya’s ministry said her advisers — Nomazotsho Memani and Sandi Mbatsha — were “intimately involved” in the running of departmental meetings and had on at least two occasions addressed the national gender meetings traditionally addressed by the minister.
These advisers presented the ministry’s “state of readiness” for the 2009-10 financial year to Parliament and later its annual report. They have also answered parliamentary questions on behalf of the department, a function that would normally be performed by a director general.
Mngadi said Mayende-Sibiya had the “final authority” on answers to parliamentary questions.
The Public Service Act makes provisions for special advisers to perform other “appropriate” tasks related to a minister’s powers and duties, Mngadi said. He denied that the ministry was run by advisers, saying the chief of staff, Simphiwe Mabasa, was hands-on, “as is the case with all government departments”.
Before she was appointed to the Cabinet, Mayende-Sibiya was regarded as a powerful and influential woman in the trade union movement when she was president of Cosatu-affiliated health union Nehawu.
But her suitability to lead the women’s ministry began attracting doubts six months into her new job when allegations of incompetence and indecisiveness surfaced for the first time in November.
The minister will represent South Africa at the United Nations commission on the status of women in New York next month, but has apparently failed to interact with specialists who attended the national gender forum last Friday.
Memani addressed the meeting and was meant to gather advice for the UN event where Mayende-Sibiya is expected to articulate the country’s position on gender issues.