Reshuffle: decision to be made soon

• Most ministers are on tenterhooks, particularly those in the under-fire security cluster

President Cyril Ramaphosa has given the strongest indication yet that a cabinet shake-up is on the cards, saying he is considering the matter and will make a decision soon since the issue is causing “a lot of anxiety”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has given the strongest indication yet that a cabinet shake-up is on the cards, saying he is considering the matter and will make a decision soon since the issue is causing “a lot of anxiety”.

“It is a process that it is under way. It is going to be addressed as soon as possible. The deployment of people [in] government occupies the mind of a president at all times. That is what I am applying my mind to. All I can say is watch this space,” Ramaphosa said.

Speaking during an oversight visit in Gauteng, Ramaphosa committed to a minor cabinet reshuffle that would see vacancies filled but not a sweeping overhaul that would potentially put some in the security cluster in the firing line for being “caught napping” when crowds ran amok in an attempted insurrection. More than 300 people died and scores of businesses were destroyed in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in recent weeks.

With minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu having died more than six months ago and health minister Zweli Mkhize on special leave pending the outcome of a graft investigation, two important portfolios remain vacant and are being manned by acting political heads. This situation prevails as the country battles the Covid-19 pandemic.

The reshuffle has been postponed twice in the past four months. In May, just as it seemed about to happen, ANC secretarygeneral Ace Magashule was suspended from the party, prompting Ramaphosa to back off. Then in June, the crisis erupted over Mkhize, and Ramaphosa again paused while awaiting the outcome of the investigation.

Ramaphosa said acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and acting minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni “are doing an excellent job” but acknowledged that they are “overloaded”. However, he added that he had “finished reading” the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU’s) report into a dodgy R150m communications tender issued to close associates of Mkhize and was just finalising “one or two” things.

“I have received the SIU report and there is some finalisation of certain aspects which we’re going to get. I am looking at it so allow me the time and space to look at that,” he said.

He declined to comment on whether there will be any action against a minister in the security cluster, which he says was caught napping during the recent violent unrest. But the president was clear on the dangers posed by ministers blaming each other publicly over the violence a few weeks ago.

“The issue of mixed messages was well addressed by acting minister in the presidency Ntshavheni. Let’s stop the squabbling in public. Obviously it was driven by their own understanding and explanation, but from now on you will see coherence from government,” Ramaphosa said.

Business Day reported this week that Ramaphosa has in recent days intensified private interactions with his cabinet ministers and directors-general in the security cluster in a sign that the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle might be imminent.

The newspaper spoke to just under a dozen cabinet ministers this week and some said they had had “private conversations” with the president and expect an imminent reshuffle. However, nobody is in the know when this may happen, leaving everyone on tenterhooks.

“I know there is impatience but it’s not a matter I am going to sit on forever,” Ramaphosa said.