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ANC committee meeting paves way for Cabinet reshuffle

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The ANC's top six NEC members. Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng/ANA
The ANC's top six NEC members. Picture: Motshwari Mofokeng/ANA

The ANC national executive committee meets on Sunday in what has been dubbed a “housekeeping” exercise that is expected to pave way for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s pending Cabinet reshuffle.

A Luthuli House insider with access to the agenda says the sitting will focus on deploying senior party leaders to subcommittees and provinces, as well as to finalise resolutions made during the party’s national conference in December.

The subcommittees have the power to summon ministers and give instructions on crucial policy matters, and the types of people elected into these committees would give an indication of Ramaphosa’s appetite for change.

City Press has learnt that Ramaphosa may restrict the expected Cabinet changes to the three key departments – finance, public enterprises and mineral resources – which means that the remainder of the changes could happen after the next year’s general elections.

While the focused change in these important portfolios may bode well for business confidence, questions still remain about whether keeping the majority of former president Jacob Zuma’s ministers would erode the key election message that the ANC is getting rid of corrupt people in its ranks.

Since taking over from Zuma earlier this month, Ramaphosa has played his cards close to his chest – much to the frustration of Cabinet ministers whose futures hang in the balance, as well as to those outside government who are keen to take up new posts.

Some national executive committee members have grown frustrated over the wait, saying that the reshuffle is vital if the promise of renewing the organisation is to be fulfilled.

The silence has created anxiety among government officials who are politically attached because new ministers often bring their own teams with them.

“There is obviously dead wood that has to go, but a wholesale reshuffle might not be advisable,” said a government official working under one of the Zuma-aligned ministers.

The imminent Cabinet reshuffle was expected to have happened immediately after this week’s budget speech by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, who has embarked on a public relations campaign to shore up his credibility as he features high on the list of those the opposition wants Ramaphosa to remove.

Zuma’s main benefactors, the Gupta family, have been accused of capturing ministers for their own commercial benefit, and those ministers who were seen to have done the Guptas’ bidding, including Gigaba, are obvious targets.

This week, those close to Gigaba denied that he was “a Gupta stooge”. On the controversial family’s influence in Eskom and Denel, Gigaba’s allies blamed Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, his successor in the portfolio, saying that Gigaba “cannot be held accountable for things that people do after he had left”.

The committee meeting ends on Monday.

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