SA leadership in the grip of procrastination
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa seems to be suffering from a bad case of decision paralysis.
The same diagnosis could be used to characterise most of his presidency thus far, if one were to do a pure "plan vs action" analysis.
But in this current period, there appears to a heightened level of suspense, tension and expectation as the nation awaits a response from the presidency on a range of issues.
It's been three weeks since the State of the Nation Address when Ramaphosa declared a National State of Disaster to "urgently" tackle the electricity crisis that has necessitated load shedding every day this year.
One of the key features of government's response was the creation of a minister of electricity within the presidency. That was on February 9 and no appointment has been made yet. Even the rumours about potential candidates have gone quiet.
Indeed there seems to be general procrastination around the executive. South Africans have been expecting the announcement of a Cabinet reshuffle since the the ANC national elective conference in December.
We can predict with a reasonable amount of certainty that new ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile will be in that Cabinet, the deputy position officially becoming available with incumbent David Mabuza’s resignation this week.
The position of minister of public service and administration needs to be filled. The president must also name a new transport minister after Fikile Mbalula was appointed to the full-time position of ANC secretary-general.
“Any day now,” senior government officials keep repeating. Ramaphosa is likely distracted by other matters needing urgent attention.
This week the Constitutional Court dismissed his bid to challenge Parliament’s report into the Phala Phala scandal, which found he had a case to answer for.
Then there was former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter’s televised allegations that at least one of Ramaphosa's Cabinet members enabled wholesale corruption at the power utility.
Ramaphosa’s glib reaction was to urge De Ruyter to report his allegations to the authorities, with supporting evidence. De Ruyter, who is legally obliged to report the criminality, seems to be suffering from a similar paralysis as he has not done so within the specified seven-day period