Sameera Casmod | sameerac@radioislam.co.za
30 August 2024 | 17:06 SAST
3-minute read

Several former state-owned enterprise (SOE) CEOs have been sworn in as members of parliament for the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.

Jacob Zuma says that the new MPs, which are former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, former PRASA CEO Lucky Montana and former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama, will safeguard the SOEs from being privatised under the Ramaphosa administration.

Research Director Angelo Fick at the Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute (ASRI) highlighted the irony of appointing people who were centrally implicated in corruption while at the helm of SOEs to guard against privatisation and defend the integrity of the same enterprises.

“This counterfactual politics has become central to what we see as developments in the MK Party,” Fick said.

The outcome of the ongoing investigations into corruption allegations against these politicians will determine whether they remain eligible for parliamentary office.

The MK party stands to benefit from the information that the former state actors have about how the ANC operates and the way things work at a regional level in KwaZulu Natal.

Additionally, placing controversial figures in parliament is seen as a ploy to divert attention away from the MK party’s objective to unseat the ANC and highlight the problems of the Ramaphosa administration.

In another development, the Auditor General reported once again that the state of municipal governance is deeply distressing and recommends professionalising public service.

Fick observes that this would undo some of the cadre deployment issues that have hampered service delivery and the management of municipalities.

The National School of Government, which is a state entity, has outlined a five-pillar vision to implement additional training for existing public servants. However, it does not adequately address the hiring practices of cadre-deployment.

Fick calls for the prioritisation of professional accreditation bodies, such as those for engineering, law, town planning and architecture, to ensure that people who apply for positions in local government have accreditation from those bodies. That way, if they are then implicated in malfeasance or poor conduct, their accreditation will be withdrawn- an important way to combat forms of corruption.

Another step to take is to change the hiring practice at the local, provincial and national level of government.

Fick also discussed the failure of several municipalities to pay their water boards, which is due to the mismanagement of finances, resources and municipal infrastructure.

Adding to the problem is the lack of adequately skilled professionals in municipal positions, Fick said.

This mismanagement has far-reaching implications.

“That would lead to health complications, agriculture and industry complications in a society that’s already pockmarked by the blight of unemployment, water shortages, and so it’s an urgent matter that the government has to intervene,” Fick noted.

On the issue of DA leader John Steenhuisen’s appointment of Roman Cabanac as his chief of staff in the agriculture ministry, Fick said that this might be another misstep and a misreading of the DA.

“The issue is that all of the officials of this kind really shouldn’t be individually appointable. They should go through the same processes as any other civil service employee,” Fick noted.

Listen to the ASRI Report on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.