As the speculation around a cabinet reshuffle intensifies, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says there’s no pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa to make changes.
Ramaphosa flew to the African Union summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, leaving South Africans guessing as to when will he wield the axe among his ministers.
Earlier in the week Ramaphosa is said to have told the ANC’s national working committee that he will announce the changes before the end of the month after consulting extensively.
He has three vacancies to fill: the former minister of public service & administration, Ayanda Dlodlo, has moved to the World Bank; Mbalula’s new ANC duties means he has to give up the transport portfolio; and someone is needed for the newly created post of minister for electricity in the Presidency.
And Ramaphosa confirmed this week in his reply to the state of the nation debate that his deputy David Mabuza had asked to be relieved of his duties.
New ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile is expected to take Mabuza’s place.
Mbalula told the Sunday Times yesterday that Ramaphosa had yet to formally consult the ANC or its alliance partners about a reshuffle. As for his own cabinet post, it was not vacant yet.
“I’m still minister. There can only be a vacancy when I resign. When the reshuffle happens, it will happen.” He would not say when he planned to resign.
Mbalula also dismissed talk that there were leaders in Ramaphosa’s inner circle opposed to Mashatile ascending to the Union Buildings as his deputy.
“There is nobody who is against Paul. If there is anybody with such a thing, it is unfortunate. The man is duly elected.”
I’m still minister. There can only be a vacancy when I resign
— Transport minister Fikile Mbalula
Shortly after the ANC conference at Nasrec in December Mbalula, in his new role as party secretary-general, told the media that Ramaphosa would soon have to make changes to his executive.
But more recently he has played down the urgency of a reshuffle.
“If anything of that sort has to happen, the president will consult the ANC and the alliance. That has not happened,” he said yesterday.
Both Cosatu and the SACP confirmed that they had not been consulted yet.
Cosatu president Zingisa Losi said: “We have not discussed the imminent reshuffle, including the [post of] transport minister. I suppose that also will be part of the reshuffle as Mbalula is still the minister, pending his resignation.”
SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo said his party was expecting “extensive” consultation between the alliance partners before cabinet changes are made.
“When it comes to … filling cabinet vacancies and related changes — based on an objective evaluation above all else — our stance is that there must always be extensive alliance consultation, just as we worked together to produce agreed-upon election manifestos,” Mashilo said.
He said consultation was at the heart of collective leadership and accountability “with the alliance as the political centre of our shared strategy of struggle, transformation and development”.
Mashatile has already been sworn in as an MP, which makes him eligible to become deputy president.
He was sworn in two weeks ago with former KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala, former Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau and the new ANC second deputy secretary-general, Maropene Ramokgopa.
The Sunday Times understands that the reshuffle has been delayed by conflict within Ramaphosa’s inner circle of trusted ministers and members of the ANC national executive committee about who should stay and who should go.
A minister close to the president said Ramaphosa was unlikely to announce major changes.
“It can’t be reconfiguration now, it will just be reprioritisation,” he said.
“It’s possible one or two people will be booted out of the cabinet but it will not be a big thing. It’s going to happen soon, I don’t know when but it will happen soon. There is a view of having it after the budget.
“Of course he was thinking of doing it before Sona [the state of the nation address] but he changed his mind,” said the minister.
Divisions within Ramaphosa’s inner circle are said to have emerged late last year when the section 89 panel appointed by parliament found he had a case to answer in relation to the Phala Phala imbroglio.
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