by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG – SINCE coming to power as South African president in 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa has earned a reputation as an indecisive leader, unable to make decisions quickly and effectively.
However, in the past few weeks, the country has woken up to a new version of a trigger-happy Ramaphosa that is firing corruption-linked and ill-disciplined members of his cabinet.
This is a part of a delicate balancing act to keep the coalition government afloat amid a barrage of challenges and infighting mostly between Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) and its biggest partner, the Democratic Alliance (DA), formerly the largest opposition party.
He was accused of shielding ANC ministers from dismissal but suddenly he is cracking the whip.
In the space of three weeks, Ramaphosa has fired a minister, axed a deputy minister and placed a minister on leave in a cabinet shakeup that mirrors the crises bedeviling his crime-riddle and corruption-plagued country.
On Monday, he dismissed Dr Nobuhle Nkabane from the role as Minister of Higher Education and Training, implicated in scandal around abusing her position to facilitate ANC cadre deployment to Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) boards.
She misled Parliament on such appointments seen as deploying ANC cronies to the boards.
Ramaphosa has in recent weeks been under fire as Nkabane hung on to her position, despite the DA and other opposition filing criminal charges against her at the South African Police Service (SAPS).
“Seeing one ANC Minister depart Cabinet under storming clouds of lies, deceit, cadre deployment corruption and a Hawks Investigation is a first step to restoring our faith that the GNU will not tolerate corruption,” celebrated Karabo Khakhau, DA national spokesperson.
The president has appointed, from his party, Buti Kgwaridi Manamela as Minister of Higher Education and Training. He was Nkabane’s deputy.
Nomusa Dube-Ncube, former Premier of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), is the deputy.
Ramaphosa last week sent Police minister, Senzo Mchunu, another former KZN premier, on leave over alleged links with figures in the underworld crime.
This is seen as a new version of state capture. A commission instituted las week is probing this,
Mchunu is an ally of Ramaphosa in the factionalism rattling ANC and some of the alleged criminal figures he is associated with allegedly steered a campaign to propel Ramaphosa to the presidency of the ANC.
The action Ramaphosa has taken against Nkabane and Mchunu thus always sentiment Ramaphosa was protecting ANC ministers in the fragile “government of national unity” that came to power in 2024 when his party lost its legislative majority.
These concerns by the DA arose in late June when the president removed DA’s Andrew Whitfield from the position of Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition.
Whitfield was fired for embarking on an unauthorised trip to the United States at the height of the differences between South Africa and the administration of President Donald Trump.
Whitfield was part of the DA delegation on the trip.
– CAJ News
