The new-look Cabinet features three virtual unknowns in full ministerial jobs. We take a look at the new communications, labour and public works ministers.
Roy Padayachie
When Radhakrishna Lutchmana Padayachie was appointed deputy communications minister to the late Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri in 2004, the late minister heard former president Thabo Mbeki read his name out and wondered: who is this?
She then discovered, with some relief, that it was Roy, “the comrade from KwaZulu-Natal”.
Padayachie is no showman. He has played a background role in the departments where he has worked, bringing up the rear while his political masters, Matsepe-Casaburri and, since 2009, Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi, fought their battles with political adversaries, stubborn cellphone companies and trade unions.
It was therefore no surprise that when Padayachie was sworn in this week he was the only minister who could hit the ground running, giving journalists detailed and thoughtful insights into his plans for the communications department.
While other new ministers and deputies were still gushing over the “privilege of serving” and the “trust that the president put in me”, ÂPadayachie was talking about his to-do list, with the first item being the SABC, “because the people deserve a functioning broadcaster”.
His priority will be to stabilise the department after the dramatic exit of communications director general Mamodupi Mohlala and the devastating effect of her row with former minister Siphiwe Nyanda.
A United Democratic Front member, he was a member of the negotiating team that represented KwaZulu-Natal at Codesa.
Padayachie joined the ANC in 1972, having come up through the ranks of the Natal Indian Congress. He is well known in KwaZulu-Natal. In fact, when Zuma called him to tell him of his ministerial job, he was in his home town of Clermont, where he was being honoured for his contribution to the Indian community.
Padayachie obtained a master’s degree in science from the University of ÂLondon and has worked as a research chemist at Shell Chemical and as a microbiologist.
Mildred Oliphant
Despite being new to national government, new Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant has considerable political clout. She does not sit on the ANC’s national executive committee, but is a member of the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial working committee, which strongly supports Zuma. She is also the ANC Women’s League’s provincial treasurer.
She has been an MP since 1994 and chaired the National Council of Provinces for five years. Her past position as chairperson of Cosatu’s Women’s Forum also gives her some familiarity with the trade union environment.
Oliphants’s immediate headache is the lack of an accounting officer in the labour department, as director general Jimmy Manyi has been suspended pending disciplinary steps. Also among the mountains she must climb is the financial management of the department, which this year received a qualified audit report for the sixth consecutive year.
Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde
The political career of new Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde appeared to take a hit after last year’s general election, when she lost her position as Speaker of Parliament and was appointed to the less influential post of deputy minister of economic development, a new ministry without a clear role.
Mahlangu-Nkabinde has been an MP since 1994, serving as chairperson of the environmental affairs and tourism committee before becoming the deputy speaker in 2004.
Her political home is North West province and it has not given her much prominence. Those who know her describe her as a hard worker who has served the ANC behind the scenes. She is outspoken and confronts issues head on, says Dodo Baloyi, the ANC’s chief whip in the North West provincial legislature.
Some in the ANC, however, see her as a political lightweight who was appointed to a ministerial position only as part of Zuma’s consolidation of political power in government.
“If she is that good, why was she never elected to any leadership structure in the North West or the ANC NEC in spite of being an MP from 1994?” asked a former provincial leader.