EFF : Ramaphosa reshuffle ‘only serves factional squabbles’

Ramaphosa announced four critical changes to his cabinet on Thursday evening affecting finance, defence, health and state security. 

Following Tito Mboweni’s resignation, Enoch Godongwana is now the Minister of Finance. He is also the ANC’s head of economic transformation.

Godogwana resigned from his position as deputy minister of economic development in 2012 after he faced outrage for his involvement in a R100 million loan linked to Canyon Springs. 

EFF spokesperson Vuyani Pambo has described the appointment as shocking. 

“The changes made in cabinet have nothing to do with service delivery or efforts to revitalize the economy that continues to embody the apartheid economy. Instead, Ramaphosa's changes are intended to serve the ruling party’s factional squabbles and reassure those in the CR faction that their jobs and patronage network are safe for him to win the next ruling party conference. 

“The EFF is mainly shocked by the appointment of Enoch Godogwana as the finance minister. While Godongwana will continue with austerities and neoliberal policy posture that holds South Africa's developmental objective ransom and serves capitalist interests, he has been preaching as chair of the ruling party's NEC economic transformation subcommittee. His appointment is proof beyond reasonable doubt that Ramaphosa's talk about fighting corruption was just rhetoric,”said Pambo in a statement. 

The party is also not so happy with Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams remaining in cabinet. 

“The SABC has dwindled into corporate capture under Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, tenure as Communications and Digital Technologies Minister. It has continued to air its content for free in pay-to-view entities, retrenched workers and side-lined indigenous languages which is a fundamental abandoning of its core mandate as a public broadcaster.  

The South African Post Office has collapsed and closed its offices, yet her failure has been rewarded, and she is now in charge of Small Business Development. How will Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams revive Small-Businesses which have been hard-hit by Covid-19, when she has collapsed Postal Services?”

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