Integration top of Ramaphosa’s list
President Cyril Ramaphosa will likely announce a plan to merge government departments, ANC Eastern Cape provincial chair Oscar Mabuyane said on Tuesday. Mabuyane was addressing the provincial executive committee during its provincial January 8 celebrations where he tabled some of the key plans by Ramaphosa for this year’s manifesto launch in KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday.
“Integration is going to be important – national, provincial and local government working together with speed to deliver,” said Mabuyane.
Ramaphosa’s first hint of his plan to reduce the number of government departments emerged in his maiden state of the nation address last year, where he said it was critical that the structure and size of the state had to be optimally suited to meet the needs of the people and ensure the most efficient allocation of public resources.
“We will therefore initiate a process to review the configuration‚ number and size of national government departments,” Ramaphosa said at the time.
Mabuyane is viewed as one of the president’s closest allies following the critical role he played in lobbying support for Ramaphosa to become party president when he won against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in 2017. The Mabuyane-led PEC was the first to publicly declare Ramaphosa its preferred presidential hopeful.
Mabuyane said streamlining departments from national down to local level would help speed up service delivery.
The province has several multibillion-rand projects which could unlock major investment and create hundreds of jobs, but these have yet to start. This includes the Umzimvubu water catchment project, Project Umthombo, and the N2 along the Wild Coast.
“We said at the NEC meeting it can’t be that we have a dam in Bizana built in five years and people don’t receive water.
“What’s sad is we have taps with no water.”
Speculation is rife that Ramaphosa will shrink his cabinet should the ANC win the election. Some other key plans likely to be announced include fighting corruption, service delivery and the fourth industrial revolution.
Highlighting the importance of the state’s migration to the fourth industrial revolution, Mabuyane said the NEC decided that every deployee must be visible on social media.
“This fourth industrial revolution is here and it’s not going to change. No one will put their problems on social media and sleep without a response.
“It can’t be right. When we say things will change we mean it.” He emphasised the need to deal with corruption in the party and the public sector.
“The one enemy we have to deal with is corruption.”
Mabuyane said deployees would be scrutinised during their term in office to ensure that they did not bring the party into disrepute.