GNU era ushers in greater presidential accountability

Nkosikhulule Nyembezi

Opposition parties are always notably keen on greater government transparency, but this enthusiasm mysteriously often diminishes once they gain power.

Not so in this Government of National Unity (GNU) era resulting from diminishing ANC dominance over the country’s political landscape.

On October 31, the National Assembly’s Rules Committee adopted a rule to establish a portfolio committee for oversight over the Presidency, thanks to the collective determination of several opposition parties pushing against the ANC’s resistance.

This decision is welcome progress.

In the run-up to the last national and provincial elections, several parties campaigned for greater government transparency and accountability.

In their determination to translate election promises into policy and practice, we now see that, within the first 200 days of this seventh administration, Parliament is taking the commendable initial step to achieve this goal in an era where multi-party voices have a direct say in decision-making.

This Parliament’s clear ambition is to enhance South Africa’s transparency and accountability standing, as the new rules and the envisaged portfolio committee will help ensure that the president and the Department of the Presidency are fully accountable, and not only through occasional oral questions and functions delegated to other members of the Cabinet.

We have already received a plethora of information about the damage to our democracy resulting from the lack of transparency and accountability in government. And yet, up to the last days of the sixth administration, politicians did not do enough to remedy several identified shortcomings.

In June 2022, former IFP chief whip Narend Singh – now Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment – proposed to the National Assembly’s Rules Committee the establishment of a committee to oversee the Presidency.

ANC MPs stalled the process, and a multi-party delegation of senior MPs went to the UK on a study tour in July last year, after which they recommended that the functions of the Presidency not already overseen by a committee fall under the Portfolio Committee on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. That was not enough action by the sixth administration, considering the complexity of the challenges that gave rise to the proposal.

Repeatedly, President Cyril Ramaphosa has lukewarmly responded to MPs’ concerns about the accountability shortfalls of his office arising from not having a dedicated oversight committee, particularly now that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are under his office’s purview. He usually repeats shallow commitments to enhance accountability – but often confirms that no committee has materialised.

Currently, the DG in the Presidency is the only director-general in the country not accountable to a committee of Parliament.

The president and the ANC’s lack of decisive leadership in establishing enhanced transparency and accountability mechanisms for the Presidency must also have missed that election campaign slogan on how “the ANC is working hard to restore trust and confidence as leader of the National Democratic Revolution and the fundamental socio-economic transformation of our society” through “transformation led by honest, dedicated and capable leaders”.

Otherwise, they would have appeared as champions of the proposed portfolio committee instead of dithering by hiding behind technical procedures.

The ANC’s theory that public faith in politics requires competent and accountable leadership from their politicians is decent; how unfortunate that the party practises the opposite. The personality of the person at the top shapes the government’s character.

When he testified before the state capture commission on behalf of the ANC, Ramaphosa prioritised his party’s interests above the nation’s.

Each time President Ramaphosa and the ANC dither on the issue, it is as if someone in the party did not get the memo. Or they took the memo on holiday intending to read it but struggled to open the envelope.

Or they had a last-minute change of mind about reading the memo. Or they read the memo but did not understand it.

From the list of findings and recommendations in the state capture report, the previous ANC administrations have presided over several of the most egregious blunders during the adolescent years of our democracy, culminating in the state capture debacle that inflicted so much trauma on so many ordinary people.

Far from taking responsibility for the actions of its employees by forcing them to resign or removing them from public office, many are still drawing the salaries of senior public officials.

This survival unites political parties in the unity government and the opposition benches in astonishment.

The citizen’s collective memory of the state capture report findings and recommendations is fresh. They state that it is incorrect to delegate to a minister or department outside of the Presidency everything for which the president is responsible. Our recent history also shows that existing portfolio committees do not always fully subject the president’s conduct to adequate oversight.

The state capture report identified several key elements present in a project of state capture, including the undermining of oversight mechanisms and the manipulation of the public narrative in favour of those who sought to capture the state; the manipulation of the rules and procedures of decision-making in government to facilitate corrupt advantage; a deliberate effort to undermine or render ineffectual oversight bodies and to exploit regulatory weaknesses to avoid accountability for wrongdoing; to subvert and weaken law enforcement and intelligence agencies at the commanding levels to shield and sustain illicit activities, avoid accountability and disempower opponents.

Yet, in this era of the GNU, there will be consequences for the ANC’s novel doctrine of total power with absolutely no responsibility. When the presidency and ministers start thinking that they will never be held accountable for their actions, they are that much more likely to make choices that are reckless, lazy, sleazy or stupid.

The shrewder people in the Cabinet know that power without responsibility is a poisoned method of governing that will rebound on their party. A cabinet of blunderers is adverse enough.

A cabinet that refuses to be transparent and take any responsibility for its mistakes invites an especially severe verdict from the public.

* Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist

Cape Times