Trevor Manuel lays into cadre deployment

Former finance minister Trevor Manuel has rubbished the ANC’s cadre deployment policy, saying it was at the heart of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s failed efforts at rescuing South Africa’s faltering economy. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the FW de Klerk Foundation’s annual conference in Cape Town on Friday, Manuel lamented the deployment of loyal party members to crucial state positions, saying this was robbing the country of talent. 

“I agree entirely with what chief justice [Raymond] Zondo said about cadre deployment. And I thought the president’s appearance before the Zondo Commission, trying to deal with that issue and trying to whitewash what has gone on, was perhaps his lowest moment ever,” Manuel said.

“We can’t continue to believe that what goes on is acceptable in any shape or form. South Africa has immense talent. We can’t have senior public servants being people without talent, without vision, without management, and then [believe] that, because they have been good comrades, you will resolve this.”

The Zondo Commission found that the ANC wielded considerable influence through its deployment committee that selects and places loyal party members in crucial positions in government and state-run institutions. These include the cabinet, the civil service, provincial administrations, local government, state-owned companies, education institutions, statutory committees and diplomatic postings. 

In parts V and VI of his final report, commission chair Zondo concluded that, contrary to Ramaphosa’s denials, there was a link between the deployment committee’s work and state capture, especially when one considered the weakening of state institutions.

We can’t have senior public servants being people without talent, without vision, without management, and then [believe] that, because they have been good comrades, you will resolve this

—  Former finance minister, Trevor Manuel

“The constitution envisages a public administration that maintains a high standard of professional ethics; that is efficient, economic and effective in its use of resources; and that is impartial, fair, equitable and without bias.” The governing party’s deployment policy was counter to the values guiding the “political-administrative interface”, the report found. 

In his testimony before the commission, Ramaphosa stressed the importance of cadre deployment. He insisted the ANC deployment committee's processes were vigorous and added “an extra level of scrutiny”.

Manuel served in the government between 1994 and 2014 under presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma. Besides having been the longest-serving finance minister, he completed a five-year term as minister in the Presidency responsible for the National Planning Commission. 

He said the Zondo commission’s observations on the political-administrative interface were closely aligned with the National Development Plan’s recommendations for building a capable and effective state. 

“There is a chapter in the National Development Plan that talks about building a developmental and effective state, and part of [achieving that] is appointing competent public servants and competent ministers. The constitution is clear. Legislation is abundantly clear. That’s not being seen.”

The ANC suffered a setback in September when two Supreme Court of Appeal judges dismissed its attempt to appeal against a Gauteng high court ruling compelling it to hand over deployment committee records to the DA, which is challenging the legality of the powerful panel.

During the state capture years, state-owned entities such as Eskom, Transnet, SAA and Denel were hollowed out, with lucrative contracts dished out to the Guptas and their close associates as a result of the family’s proximity to former president Jacob Zuma. Major SOEs are now largely dysfunctional and have become a drain on the fiscus. 

Manuel’s remarks come as South Africa prepares for an election later this year in which the ANC could for the first time in 30 years face a real challenge to its outright majority. 

The former minister also took issue with the electoral process, suggesting the country would better be served by US-style primaries where those seeking public office first present themselves and their policies to the electorate for scrutiny, instead of making it to parliament and the executive purely on a party ticket. 

“Nothing stops South Africa from having a political system where parties declare their candidates to the public before South Africans vote. The idea that parties can get on a ballot and choose a servant of the public before the electorate does is undemocratic.”

Manuel, who has since quit the ANC, told the conference South Africans were not getting an adequate return on investment from the public service on multiple fronts, including education, health care and policing.

Nothing stops South Africa from having a political system where parties declare their candidates to the public before South Africans vote

In 2022, he told talk radio station 702 that he was no longer a member of the ruling party and had allowed his membership to lapse because its moral leadership had evaporated after the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference, at which Zuma was elected ANC president. 

Manuel said that after Polokwane, even though he remained a member of the ANC's national executive committee for five more years and was in the cabinet until 2014, he could see the moral leadership of the ANC of his youth was gone. “I think the event at Polokwane took that away,” he said.

Also speaking at the conference, public protector Kholeka Gcaleka said many of the promises dating back to the advent of democracy had been broken. She said increases in the number of people receiving social grants were nothing to be proud of because they were an indication South Africa was becoming a “social state”.

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said this year’s election was expected to be a watershed moment where South Africans would choose their future path. He said that while poverty relief and redistributive policies may be well-intentioned, they could not succeed unless they were adequately funded.

“Our real national unemployment figure is 40%, with an ever-increasing number of South Africans dependent on social grants to survive. You cannot fund enough for the poor and expand redistribution programmes with shrinking revenue. The maths does not work,” he said.

Hill-Lewis said South Africa today was not the country the generation of 1994 had envisaged. He said growing the economy would have to be at the top of the country’s agenda, regardless of which government emerged from the election.

“You cannot have ambitions for improvement of communities ... if you do not have the economic growth to pay for it. You must have growth. Redistribution without growth is a one-way ticket to state bankruptcy.”

Speaking at the McCloskey by OPIS Southern African Coal Conference, Oxford Economics senior political analyst Louw Nel said that while it was true this year’s election would be a “watershed moment”, there was still room for the ruling party to cultivate useful coalitions it could control.

“It is a watershed election. It’s pretty self-evident the ANC is going to lose its majority. If you look at the past four election cycles, the decline has been consistent and accelerating. An important variable this year will be turnout.

“The problem for the ANC is Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Nationally, they have friends and smaller parties that may be happy to assist them, [because] the allure of seats for smaller parties is too great to ignore,” he said.

But if the ANC fell below 45%, he said, it might have to go into a coalition with one of the bigger opposition parties. The EFF might extract great concessions and find support within the ANC for policies such as nationalising the mines.

He added that while a coalition between the ANC and the DA might appear to be “principle suicide” by the official opposition, the centrist party could convince its supporters they would be “the adults in the room” who could lobby for liberal economic policies and the deregulation of some crucial sectors.

This weekend is the final opportunity for eligible South Africans to register to vote in the election. The Electoral Commission of South Africa recently announced that the South African voters’ roll has passed the 27-million mark.