HIV activist Mark Heywood tells Bhekisisa editor Mia Malan the president and health minister are direct opposites.
ANC MP Bongani Bongo will be sworn in as the new state security minister on Wednesday, but his tenure is set to have marked similarities to that of his predecessor David Mahlobo – namely a possible heavy-handedness when it comes to civil society.
Bongo was named state security minister in President Jacob Zuma’s latest surprise Cabinet reshuffle.
Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP), the ANC’s alliance partners, have lashed out against the reshuffle. Both have said Zuma is not considering the interests of South Africa.
Meanwhile, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe has called SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande’s axing as higher education minister “a pity”.
“After about six months we had just had an alliance secretariat meeting to pull it together again and this reshuffling of the general secretary of the party is going to undo some of the work that was done in that meeting,” he said in a press conference on Tuesday.
While speculation has mounted that Nzimande would be sacked, Bongo’s promotion as a little known ANC MP from Mpumalanga to a fully fledged minister in one of the most important state departments has come as a surprise.
Mahlobo, who was known to accuse protesters and civil society groups as being “agents of regime change”, is now South Africa’s newest energy minister.
His new appointment follows a trip in September when he reportedly travelled to Russia to secure a multi-billion rand gas deal.
But with Bongo in charge of state security, a lineage of criticism against civil rights organisations may be set to continue.
The Right2Know Campaign’s Murray Hunter said that under Maholbo’s administration of State Security there has been a pronounced increase of anti-civil-society sentiment, painting non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as “agents of regime change”.
Bongo has also pursued this line of questioning in his role in Parliament, noted Hunter.
In Parliament hearings to appoint a new public protector, Bongo raised concerns about NGO’s acting against the state in his questioning of candidate to the post Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, of the South African Litigation Center (SALC).
The centre was instrumental in challenging government over its handling of the Omar al-Bashir debacle.
According to minutes from the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, Bongo questioned her about her fitness for the position “in light of national unity and her involvement in the Omar al-Bashir matter”, as well as her understanding of the public protector’s office being seen as “an enemy of the state”.
He also wanted to know more about the SALC “as NGOs were seen as more often acting against the state, rather than around issues which united South Africa”.
Before his appointment to state security, Bongo served in Parliament’s justice and correctional services portfolio committee as well as the defence and military veterans committee. He was sworn in as an MP in 2014, and his new state security job will be his first post in the Cabinet.
But like state security ministers before him, Bongo is a Zuma loyalist. During a motion of no confidence against Zuma in August, Bongo disclosed that he had voted for Zuma to remain in office. The vote took place via secret ballot.
“The people voted for the ANC into power. So the ANC decided to put me on the list, so I have to abide by what the ANC says I must do,” Bongo told News24 after the vote in August.
He has also defended public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane from a Parliamentary inquiry into her fitness to hold office, calling the investigation a “ploy” from the Democratic Alliance.
The state security department is responsible for keeping updated on national and foreign threats to South Africa as well as threats to stability in the country.
Zuma’s Cabinet reshuffle affected five different departments. Everyone who has filled a new post in the Cabinet has already been sworn in with the exception of Bongo who will be officiated as state security minister today. — Additional reporting Lynley Donnelly