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The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) today called for a significant reduction in the number of Cabinet Ministers, along with a fundamental overhaul of the Presidency, as important steps towards fixing South Africa’s weak state.

These proposals are contained in a new CDE report titled ACTION ONE: Reorganise the Presidency and the Cabinet (see here) which forms part of CDE’s AGENDA 2024: Priorities for SA’s new government series. 

“The state’s capacity to develop policies and deliver public services and programmes has been undermined by systemic corruption, too many compromised party loyalists, inadequate skills at critical levels, and a lack of accountability for poor performance and wrongdoing,” said Ann Bernstein, executive director of CDE.

“At the same time, government has taken on more responsibilities, creating new government departments and public entities. Adding extra layers of bureaucracy and parallel management structures has made it harder to take decisions and co-ordinate key actors to deliver on outcomes,” she added. 

A Cabinet of quality, not quantity

To deepen reform, the President must select the best people available to him – those with the necessary experience and skills to lead large government departments, and those with the integrity to govern honestly. He should resist the urge to preside over a bloated Cabinet since smaller Cabinets tend to be more agile, more collegial and more accountable.  

“We are alive to the political reality of a potential coalition government, and the need for the President to accommodate various parties in his Cabinet. However, we believe – even within this constraint – it is possible to reduce the number of Cabinet Ministers and ensure that the best available people are chosen in key portfolios,” said Bernstein. 

In CDE’s analysis, a better organised, smaller and more effective cabinet of some 20 ministers could be constituted out of the current 30. The appendix below offers one proposal for a more streamlined Cabinet.   

Not all ministers have equally important portfolios. The most important figure in the Cabinet (after the President himself) is the Minister of Finance, who must be someone with personal and political authority and full confidence of the President. This support must include backing the Finance Minister’s assessment of affordability or otherwise of policy proposals from other ministries and critically of what is and is not, a sustainable fiscal position. 

“The President must make full use of his constitutional prerogative to appoint two Cabinet Ministers from outside the National Assembly. This is a crucial mechanism to bring in new leadership and specialist expertise into key positions at a time of national crisis,” said Bernstein.

A reorganised Presidency

Cabinet processes must be dramatically improved and the Presidency reorganised to ensure a focus on key priorities. 

“Judging by the quality of government’s decision-making and from the accounts of senior public servants with experience of Cabinet processes, Cabinet’s ability to make evidence-based decisions is weak, largely because its processes deny it the information needed to make those decisions,” said Bernstein.

Cabinet processes would be greatly strengthened by a far more rigorous process of priority-setting so that government focuses on doing fewer things well.  

“We need to stop the tendency of Presidents endlessly updating their list of priorities and announcing new initiatives every time something captures their imagination,” said Bernstein. 

Operation Vulindlela (OV) should be strengthened and reconstituted as a delivery unit focused solely on the delivery of priority reforms. It should absorb the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation and the Project Management Office in the Presidency, while ensuring that implementation of a reform agenda is its core function. Its tasks would be: ensuring that priorities are pursued without distraction; focusing on routine problem-solving and delivery; systematically promoting cooperation across government agencies; and developing metrics that identify achievements and early warning of challenges being encountered.

Consideration should also be given to bringing back the Mbeki-era Policy Coordination and Advisory Services (PCAS) unit in the Presidency. PCAS was small, simply organised and staffed by high-quality people. The role it should play includes risk mitigation, bottlenecks in implementing complex multi-sectoral policies and ensuring the President is properly briefed on all key proposals on Cabinet’s agenda. It should also be tasked with playing devil’s advocate in respect of policy proposals to Cabinet, testing the plausibility of assumptions, costing methods and risks, working closely with National Treasury. 

Issued by Centre for Development and Enterprise