Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams takes over two departments, Cwele new home affairs minister

In a much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced new home affairs and environmental affairs ministers on Thursday.

He explained that after the late former environmental affairs minister Edna Molewa passed away in September, at 61 years of age, and the fact that Malusi Gigaba finally resigned in the “interests of the country” a reshuffle was necessary.

The new minister of home affairs will be Siyabonga Cwele.

Nomvula Mokonyane will be the new minister of environmental affairs, leaving the department of communications.

Stella Ndabeni Abrahams is the new minister of communications. Ramaphosa said he had decided to merge the department of telecommunications and postal services into Abrahams’ department. They would, however, they remain separate departments until after next year’s elections.

He also announced the resignation of deputy minister of energy Thembi Majola, with effect from next year.

Questions were not allowed following the announcement, as it was “ceremonial” in nature. The new ministers were immediately sworn in.

There was speculation ahead of the announcement that Ramaphosa would also give Minister of Women Bathabile Dlamini her marching orders, particularly because today is the deadline for him to decide on whether to oppose the DA’s legal challenge against his decision to keep Dlamini in cabinet. However, this did not happen.

Originally, the DA was opposing both Dlamini and Gigaba’s retention after both ministers were found by the courts to have lied under oath.

The DA is seeking an order declaring the appointment of Dlamini “unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid” after the Constitutional Court found her reckless and negligent in the social grants debacle when she was minister of social development.

The latest judgment against her stemmed from the matter brought by two civil rights groups – the Black Sash and Freedom Under Law – which wanted to protect the social grant system when the contract between the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) expired in March 2017.

The court was left with no choice but to extend the CPS contract for another year as Sassa could not take over the payment of social grants. The Black Sash pushed for Dlamini to pay legal costs as she acted “unreasonably and negligently” in handling social grants.

The views of the Black Sash were shared by a Section 38 Inquiry mandated by the court and chaired by retired Judge Bernard Ngoepe into Dlamini’s role in the 2017 social grants crisis.

In his report, which was submitted to the court, Ngoepe found that Dlamini misled the inquiry about appointing the ‘workstreams’, a parallel function within Sassa established in July 2016 that comprised advisers hand-picked by Dlamini to investigate Sassa’s capacity to take over social grant payments from CPS.

Froneman had scathing words about Dlamini misleading the inquiry and, effectively, the court.

Dlamini might still face criminal prosecution for perjury. Froneman ordered that the findings from the Ngoepe inquiry be handed over to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to consider whether Dlamini lied under oath and if she should be prosecuted for perjury.

The court Dlamini to personally pay 20% of the legal costs incurred by the groups who took her to court.