'We don’t want people sleeping on the job' – Mbalula on impending cabinet shakeup
On the back of the election of a new national executive committee (NEC) in December, ANC secretary general, Fikile Mbalula says a cabinet reshuffle is imminent and, it would be ‘reckless’ of President Cyril Ramaphosa not to consider the shakeup.
Some ministers and deputy ministers did not make it onto the list for the new national executive and could face the chop.
Under his new position as the party’s SG, a full-time position, Mbalula will also have to step down from his position as Transport minister.
Labour minister, Thulas Nxesi has been acting as minister for the Department of Public Service and Administration after Ayanda Dlodlo took up a post at the World Bank in April last year.
“Even before this conference, there were vacancies in Cabinet. As a president he has got to think about that, that’s what I said, and I still repeat that he’s got to think about that. If he doesn’t think about it, he is reckless,” Mbalula said at a media briefing at Luthuli House on Tuesday.
It’s also widely expected that deputy president David Mabuza, who declined a nomination to serve a second term, will be replaced by Ramaphosa’s deputy in the ANC – Paul Mashatile.
“We come from a conference, there will be vacancies [and] implications that the president has got to apply his mind…working with the ANC. In the end, the decision is his. He will bring proposals to the ANC and at the end of the day the president has got to work with the package that he’s got,” said Mbalula.
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Mbalula says the president has the full support of the NEC, who don’t want to micromanage him to a point where he’s unable to make decisions. However, he stressed that the new Cabinet should be youthful and ‘gender sensitive’.
“We want a government that is youthful, that is running. We don’t people who are sleeping on the job. If the president is going to come with sleepers, he must forget our support. There we are not going to agree. People who are not working are not going to have our support,” Mbalula said.
Ramaphosa returns emboldened as party president with his allies serving in the NEC top seven. He’s expected to act against his detractors, ministers Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (Cogta) and Lindiwe Sisulu (Tourism) who are part of a group of ANC MPs who failed to toe the party line and voted for the adoption of the section 89 report that had found against the president over his conduct during, and after, the 2020 robbery at his Phala Phala farm.
At the same time, Mbalula dismissed a letter claiming the executive committee would be discussing the reshuffle as they meet to finalise the conference on 5-6 January.
