Reshuffle a smokescreen
IWAS on my way from a long day at work when I heard people talking about the reshuffle that president of the Guptas, oopsy, of the country, Jacob Zuma, had finally done of his cabinet. I was very happy to hear that and I immediately took to social networks, Twitter to be specific, to find the topic already a trend.
Oh, what a bore, that wasn’t a reshuffle, but deployment and redeployment. The ever-sostrategic JayKop, of the infamous Nkandla Republic, was at it again.
For President Zuma to shift a former Limpopo premier and an equally controversial political figure from his portfolio as minister of mineral resources to the Presidency, where he replaces the late minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane, seems to show a president who is working under orders from the business sector and those who are known to handle him.
It’s well known that the powerful Gupta family has interests in many spheres of business. (I won’t be surprised to hear that they are also into the taxi industry since they already have utilised the business of flying a deputy president to a foreign land).
It will be fool’s comfort to think that Zuma took that decision independently to reshuffle his already pathetic executive of mostly incompetent ministers that are just there because he had to give them something to look forward to every morning.
Cadre deployment has been a topic for years and it’s a debate no one will ever get right simply because we mostly differ completely on the subject. There are instances where it hasn’t totally gone wrong as we have seen some ministers who have done very well, having been cadre deployed.
But unfortunately this trend took a wrong turn when other leaders used it to cover themselves and their handlers.
I mean, the president replaced Ngoako Ramatlhodi with an unknown, untried politician in a portfolio that is very strategic both politically and economically, and we have to ask ourselves why this had to happen and why now? I don’t really remember Ramatlhodi doing badly in this portfolio.
Who really is Mosebenzi Zwane to deserve this position that is certainly so big for his small shoes? Who is he, other than he may have been appointed on the basis that he will protect the interests of those close to the president as the president is coming to the end of his second term?
We all know that the Gupta family is making inroads in the mining industry with the president’s son and Free State premier Ace Magashule’s son in the mix. Have the powerful and controversial Gupta family finally told Zuma that they need some sort of payback since he will soon vacate office as his term naturally comes to its end?
Is Zwane simply going to be that spineless cadre who will do as the powerful men around Zuma tell him to do? Did Ramatlhodi get the chop because he was becoming some sort of a thorn in the backsides of the powerful people around Zuma?
We need to ask ourselves all those sorts of questions when something like this just suddenly happens.
And also, why an unknown Free State politician promoted to the cabinet all of a sudden? Was this politician recommended by the powerful Magashule just to show us that he is a powerful politician worth his name?
Who exactly is in charge of this country? Is the president just a ball boy surrounded by big bullies who will rather he fight their battles as they comfortably sit and watch?
Where exactly are we going as a country if our president seems to be just there in body and not anything else? Is this the kind of democracy we voted for?
Is Zuma just happy to consolidate and make sure that by the time he leaves office he has done enough for his buddies and himself? These questions are very important because long after Zuma leaves that office we are going to be left with his mess and it will take the next president a very long time to fix it.
This will mean every president will have to clean up the mess of the previous one and this won’t do us any good in terms of fast-tracking issues of service delivery and the like.
We need to show the ANC come the local government elections that we are gatvol about the state in which it is putting us.
Enough is enough.