President Cyril Ramaphosa says the size and form of government should be guided by the country’s needs to build a capable developmental state.
Ramaphosa, writing in his weekly newsletter on Monday, said, considering the size of the executive, the question people should be asking was how government should be organised to meet the country’s needs.
This comes after he announced changes to his Cabinet last week, adding two new Ministries, which led to a public discussion about the size of the executive.
Ramaphosa said he welcomed the discussion but it missed the point.
“It is argued by some that any decrease in the number of Ministers is good and any increase is bad … When it comes to building a capable and developmental state, the foremost consideration is how to organise every part of government, including the executive, to effectively implement the electoral mandate.
“The country’s needs will change over time and we will learn from our lived experience. Therefore, government has to adapt and be responsive,” he said.
“At the start of this administration we combined the Ministry of Human Settlements with the Ministry of Water and Sanitation. This made sense. The provision of water is closely tied to developing human settlements.”
However, the burden on the country’s scarce water resources had risen, with competing demands from a growing population, agriculture, industry and other economic sectors, which was why government had decided to separate the ministries in 2021.
Ramaphosa said he had reduced the number of ministries from 34 to 28 at the start of his administration in 2019.
“There was therefore much criticism when, last week, we increased the number of ministries for the remainder of this administration to 30. Yet there has been little analysis of why we made these changes and whether they were necessary.”
Ramaphosa said the country needed the temporary Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, to deal with the electricity crisis.
He said the second new ministry – Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation – arose from the need to focus on ensuring that government effectively implemented the programmes that underpinned its priorities and was able to fix problems as they arose.
“At this moment in our country’s history, when we have vast urgent and pressing developmental needs, when we have to undo the devastating and enduring legacy of apartheid, we need an active and capable, developmental state. It needs to have the resources and ability to tackle challenges like poverty, joblessness, homelessness, illiteracy, lack of social infrastructure and a significant burden of disease.
“Countries with developed economies that do not face these problems may well not need such an active state. The size and design of their governments may be very different to ours.”
Ramaphosa said while the state needed to be configured to meet the country’s needs, account needed to be taken of available resources.
“Where it is possible to rationalise ministries, departments and other state entities without affecting outcomes, we should do so.”
He said the government wanted to “take a deeper look into where there are opportunities to rationalise, merge or separate government departments, entities and programmes”. “In the State of the Nation Address, I announced that the Presidency and National Treasury would work with other departments to develop a proposal that could be implemented over the next three years.”
He added that the Presidential State-Owned Enterprises Council was undertaking a similar exercise. It is conducting an in-depth review of all key SOEs. – SAnews.gov.za
