State shakeup coming – Mabuyane

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 2019’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,” Mabuyane said.

Ramaphosa first hinted at his plan to reduce the number of government departments in his maiden state of the nation address in 2018, when he said it was critical that the structure and size of the state be optimally suited to meet the needs of the people and ensure the most efficient allocation of public resources.

“We will 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 after the critical role he played in lobbying support for Ramaphosa to become party president when he won against Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at Nasrec in 2017.

The Mabuyane-led PEC was the first to publicly declare Ramaphosa as 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 thereby create hundreds of jobs, but these have yet to start.

These include the Umzimvubu water catchment project, Project Umthombo – an oil refinery project, and the N2 Wild Coast Road project.

“We said this at the NEC meeting. It can’t be that we have a dam in Bizana built in five years and people do not receive water. What is sad is that we have taps with no water.”

Speculation has been rife that Ramaphosa will shrink his bloated cabinet should the ANC win 2019’s election.

Some of the other key plans likely to be announced include fighting corruption, service delivery and measures to take advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Highlighting the importance of government officials’ migration to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Mabuyane said the NEC decided every deployee must be visible on social media.

“This Fourth Industrial Revolution is here. No-one will put their problems on social media and sleep without a response. When we say things will change, we mean exactly that.”

He emphasised the need to deal with corruption in the party, as well as in the public sector. “The one enemy that we have to deal with is corruption. Corruption is not ANC [sic], it’s individuals, be it independent or administration.”

Mabuyane said deployees would be scrutinised during their term in office to ensure they do not bring the party into disrepute. –

‘Integration is going to be important – national, provincial and local’ Oscar Mabuyane

ANC PROVINCIAL CHAIR