According to the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) so many government reshuffles, especially under the ‘rule’ of Jacob Zuma had a real damaging effect on SA.
The IRR says when Jacob Zuma was elected president in 2009, the ANC would have been expecting a stable, coherent two-term administration – but 14 reshuffled national executives and 164 changes later (including a change to the president himself), it has been anything but.
The scale of South Africa’s discontinuity in leadership is set out in ‘Executive Chaos’, the latest report from the Institute of Relations (IRR).
Author Gareth van Onselen, head of politics and governance at the IRR, writes: ‘There are many reasons for the ANC’s failure to deliver over the last nine years, but one of the biggest contributing factors is undoubtedly the discontinuity in leadership, at the very top. Executive chaos at the top equals delivery chaos on the ground.’
Among key findings in the report are that:
· There have been 14 reconstituted national executives since 10 May 2009. The average national executive lasts 245 days (or 165 working days) until it is reconstituted. The longest lasted 540 days (or 372 working days), the shortest just 5 days (or 3 working days);
· Eight national executives have lasted less than 200 working days and 4 have lasted less than 100 working days;
· 164 changes have been made to the national executive since 2009. A total of 94 changes have been made to ministerial positions (including 1 to the position of president) and 70 changes to deputy ministerial positions (including 2 to the position of deputy president);
· In total, 129 people have served as either a minister or deputy minister since 2009. Some 57 people who once served in either of those positions are no longer part of the national executive;
· By the time his second term started, Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet retention rate was just 28% (compared to 52% for former president Thabo Mbeki);
· Of the 64 members selected to the national executive on 10 May 2009, 37 (or 58%) are no longer part of the executive and only 7 (11%) retain their original positions; and
· Only 1 ministry – Basic Education – boasts an unchanged minister and deputy minister since 2009. By contrast, the Ministry of Communications has had 8 different ministers and 5 different deputy ministers (The average Communications Minister serves for 430 days or 294 working days before being reshuffled).
