Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The SACP wants the Cabinet to be restructured, provinces to be reviewed, security agencies to be overhauled and a strong but friendly president after next year’s elections.

Releasing the SACP’s discussion papers ahead of its policy conference, party general secretary Blade Nzimande said there was a need for the Cabinet to be reconfigured for proper co-ordination and plan-ning.

This would eliminate the current structure, in which “there is a queue to the Treasury” – and the Finance Ministry thus became a “super-ministry”.

The SACP proposes a council of state – comprising a few super-ministers – who will be accountable to the president but will be responsible for a cluster of junior ministries.

“The attempt to introduce some degree of integrative coherence into the state via the (existing) clusters has also generally not been successful,” said Nzimande.

“The clustering system brings together several line department ministers, but there is no hierarchy among ministers and, in many of the clusters, there are prolonged and sterile deadlocks.”

He suggested a single rural development department, the separation of Minerals and Energy into two departments, doing away with the Department of Public Enterprises and the creation of a department of higher education.

At the same time, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema lambasted those planning the structure of government ahead of elections.

“These people want to be appointed as ministers of education, sports and culture. They are acting as experts in various departments, positioning themselves,” Malema said at the Youth League’s anniversary celebration.

“If these people were harbouring such interests to be premiers and ministers, they should not be bitter towards the ANC or the president (Jacob Zuma) if they are not appointed.

“We are warning them that we have realised that there are those who think that because they were elected into the NEC they would automatically be appointed to certain positions. The movement will not succumb to their opportunism.”

The SACP policy statement also highlights “dysfunctionalities between the three spheres of government”.

“Provinces, in particular, are often responsible for problematic major mega-projects and the hollowing out of local government has often reduced municipalities into tendering agencies with all the attendant dangers of corruption,” Nzimande said.

“At the provincial and local level, the state is increasingly less and less an implementer and more and more a tender processor.”

He said the review of provinces should be done because “with new incumbents in place it will become difficult once more to carry through an objective evaluation”.

The SACP policy conference will debate whether South Africa needs “provincial governments and legislatures as opposed to provincial administrations under their respective national departments”.

The party – which criticised President Thabo Mbeki for centralising power – now wants a strong presidency that “is not aloof”.

The SACP criticised the state of the SA National Defence Force, and said that business interests had compromised the current black leadership.

“Many of these “deployees” have left the SANDF and set themselves up in a variety of defence-related companies and consultancies, with their “deployment” having served the personal purpose of primary accumulation.

According to reports, much of the remaining black senior command level in the SANDF is content with a ceremonial role and endless overseas conferences, playing little active role in the management and strategic direction of the SANDF.

“Effective operational command is said to be largely in the hands of a second layer senior command dominated by white officers from the previous era, while the mass of black junior officers and NCOs feel marginalised, abandoned by their erstwhile MK seniors and disgruntled,” the SACP said.