MANDY WIENER: President Cyril Ramaphosa must harness Thuma Mina 2.0 energy
The new government’s energy is palpable, and ministers seem eager to step up and outperform each other.
Newly sworn-in Cabinet ministers pose for a photo with Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and President Cyril Ramaphosa on 3 July 2024. Picture: GCIS
On the fringes of a conference in Cape Town this week, a public relations specialist effervescently commented about his optimism about the Government of National Unity (GNU) cabinet.
What excited him was that new cabinet ministers had arrived with energy and enthusiasm, putting pressure on incumbent ministers to step up their performance. “It’s like they’re competing with each other to actually do a good job,” he commented.
It reminded me of the heady days at the start of the sixth administration when President Cyril Ramaphosa was hitting the promenade in Sea Point, and everyone wanted a selfie. Remember, when everyone was rallying to recapacitate and rebuild post-State Capture?
Much of that zeitgeist was driven by Ramaphosa’s debut SONA speech on 16 February 2018, when he quoted from the late great Bra Hugh Masekela’s ‘Thuman Mina’.
“Now is the time to lend a hand.
Now is the time for each of us to say, ‘Send me’.
Sifikile isikhathi sokuthi sisebenze soke sibeke izwe lakithi phambili. (Now is the time for all of us to work together to put our country forward).
Now is the time for all of us to work together, in honour of Nelson Mandela, to build a new, better South Africa for all.
Now is the time.”
Unfortunately for Ramaphosa, that spirit was derailed by the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst the national support for Thuma Mina waned over the six years since and reform came too slowly for many, the arrival of a GNU has resuscitated the enthusiasm somewhat.
Former opposition party cabinet Ministers have taken on their new roles with gusto.
This has put pressure on ANC Ministers who may have become stagnant and tired, to step up their game.
“They have gone in knowing they have to compete. They have to outperform one another and hopefully, it will be to the benefit of the country, so you are seeing a lot of energy,” EWN Associate Politics Editor Tshidi Madia told me on The Midday Report this week.
“But you also must watch the likes of Parks Tau who is now a minister along with his deputy. There is a need to be seen to be performing. To be seen to have energy. I think that’s a good thing. Some of those who are returning to cabinet might take a while to adapt to a new normal where you have to be fiercely seen to be working. It’s not just about loudly out-talking each other. You’ve got to do the work and for me, it’s a beautiful competition to the benefit of the citizens. At the moment it’s a competition of who is the loudest on the social media.”
Patriotic Alliance leader and new Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie immediately set the tone for the kind of energy he was bringing to the portfolio when he posted a picture of himself in a tracksuit, lacing up his boots.
In the fortnight since his appointment, he has dominated headlines.
This week, in Parliament, he told journalists that he won’t stop naming those who have benefited from his department over the past few years.
McKenzie ‘dropped the files’ when he named 4000 people who had received Covid-19 relief funds.
McKenzie said taxpayers deserved to know how their money was spent and who was defrauding the government.
IFP leader and COGTA Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa has also had to hit the ground running dealing with floods in the Western Cape and fires in KZN. He’s also committed to placing underperforming municipalities under administration.
A cursory Google News search of the New Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber will illustrate how busy he has been. Schreiber got into action quickly, signing law extensions, declaring war on system downtime, intensifying inspections, clamping down on undocumented workers, reducing backlogs, you name it.
Within a week at his job, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson revealed that cybercriminals looted R300 million from the Department, apparently in cahoots with government officials. His predecessor Patricia de Lille was not impressed with that.
Macpherson also announced a bold new plan to revamp South Africa’s infrastructure.
The eagerness of the new ministers has been breathless.
It has been refreshing but makes me want to shout, “This is a marathon, not a sprint!”, but that would be way too clichéd.
We can only hope that they can sustain the energy and deliver on their initial commitments.
This was a risk for all the parties in the GNU.
The DA (and others) knew that if they were going to go into government, they had no option but to make a real and tangible difference. If they were going to give up the opportunity to stand on the outside and criticise, then they would have to show the ANC and the voting public that it is possible to deliver and to do so quickly and in a big way.
Macpherson and DA leader John Steenhuisen have said that it was far easier to be in opposition than in government.
The risk for the ANC of inviting opposition parties into government was that they would be overshadowed. If DA/IFP/PAC/PA/FF+ Ministers do a better job and show real improvements in their portfolios, they will find it easier to campaign in five years and win more support.
There is truly much at stake.
Even opposition party members in Parliament this week seem to have been reinvigorated and responses to the budget speeches have been solid. EFF and even new MK MPs have understood that they are required to be more vocal and more detailed.
President Ramaphosa has an opportunity in his address at the Opening of Parliament to harness the energy demonstrated by this seventh administration. He has an opportunity to seize the moment in the way he did that night in 2018 when he called on all of us to lend a hand.