Govt communicators fail to separate party and State, ‘lack professionalism’

Although many government departments and their ministries have increased their presence on the social media app Twitter, the difference between their State and political party work remains blurred to many of the government communicators.

This is according to the third annual ‘South African Government Leaders on Twitter’ report, released this week.

Data was gathered and analysed after monitoring the conduct of ministers and their departments, premiers and official communicators on Twitter between December 2021 and December 2022.

Last year was one of South Africa’s busiest years as far as news was concerned, leading to more people taking to Twitter to inform themselves or comment on current affairs, and having subsequent interactions with spokespeople and government leaders.

President’s spokesperson leads the pack in blurring lines

According to the report, many government spokespersons blurred the lines of communication in the process.

“2022 was a big political year for South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). As a result, citizens witnessed many government communication professionals blurring the lines, all in the name of – ‘this is my personal account, no one will tell me how to conduct myself.’

“Unfortunately, the lack of tact that comes with this kind of reasoning and conduct is not adequately dealt with by the GCIS’s social media policy,” read the report.

President Cyril Ramaphosa‘s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya was pointed out as the foremost culprit, after he conducted interviews on Ramaphosa’s government work at the ANC elective conference Nasrec venue in December, donning party regalia.

“He started his job well on the Twitter front by rebranding his handle to reflect his role. However, it was worrying to observe that even a seasoned communicator like him was emboldened to project the party message in his capacity as a government official at the ANC’s conference in December 2022.

“This is one of the many examples of how government bureaucrats take advantage of the gap in social media governance and easily conflate the party and state.”

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Other communicators make the mistake of using their initial personal accounts for government work once they assume communication roles. Some use the same account to tweet personal matters, leaving users confused from the disconsonant messaging.

Scrolling their timelines reveals older personal posts that have nothing to do with the work, noted the report.

Lack of professionalisation ‘a problem’

In his analysis of the report, UNISA media studies Professor Sherperd Mpofu said governments on the continent fail to professionalise communications.

“This is why you had Vincent Magwenya speaking on behalf of the president at the ANC conference, mixing the two roles.

“Lack of professionalisation is a problem in that field in most governments and in South Africa. There’s a need to invest in the communications arm of government.”

He added that because of the mostly poor service from government departments, social media is an opportunity to spread information quickly for ministries.

“Social media is crucial for political leaders to communicate with the public. They call themselves servants and refer to people as their bosses but that changes as soon as elections are over.

“For example, former home affairs minister Melusi Gigaba used to connect with people on Twitter when it came to home affairs matters. They would tweet and he would tweet back a phone number to call. There was actually from his side a deliberate effort to serve the people and make sure they were served properly by his department, the same things raised by the current minister.”

Furthermore, said Mpofu, blocking people from accessing a public service account is not professional.

“You don’t have credible reason to block anyone using a government handle – unless there’s a constitutional infringement issue, such as someone threatening violence.

“But the fact that someone differs or critiques in engaging the account isn’t a reason to block them from any of your official communication platforms. You can only do that with your personal account.”

The top performers

According to the report, outgoing Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula remains the leading Twitter account holder in government with 2.8 million followers, almost 10% up from 2021 when he had 2.6 million followers.

Mbalula is followed closely by Ramaphosa, whose account has a following of 2.5 million, up from 2.1 million the previous year.

However, Mbalula’s practice of speaking out of turn and making light of serious issues was flagged in the report.

“This continues to present a challenge for communicators as they constantly have to deal with endless distractions instead of providing public value through engaging citizens on service delivery.”

“Leadership fails when politicians become a law unto themselves.”

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For the rest of the Cabinet members, usage of Twitter grew from 62% to 72% last year.

Leading the pack with growing his account is Deputy President David Mabuza, who gained 45,000 followers followed by Justice Minister Ronald Lamola who gained 32,000 followers. Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu improved by 1639 new followers.

“Unlike in 2021, all the top 10 most followed accounts of cabinet members and the top 10 most followed national departments in 2022 are verified. On the contrary, none of the 10 most followed accounts of cabinet members’ spokespeople are verified.”

Minister of Public Works Patricia De Lille continues to experience the least growth at 2%. Last year, she saw a 3% growth, which was the least among Cabinet members.

Justice department has separate accounts

Among the spokespeople, defence ministry’s Cornelius Monama experienced the highest year-on-year growth at 81%, gaining just over 3,000 new followers, followed by the Lamola’s spokesperson Chrispin Phiri and Department of Monitoring and Evaluation’s Nonceba Mhlauli who gained just over 2,000 new followers.

Lamola’s department is the only one that has separate Twitter accounts – his, the ministry’s, and the department’s.

“The benefit is – departmental accounts communicate on administrative issues, and the ministry on policy issues without depending on the government leader or their spokesperson.”

Regarding provinces, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi is the most followed provincial leader, gaining 71, 000 new followers.

The premiers of KwaZulu-Natal, Nomusa Dube-Ncube and the North West, Bushy Maape are the only provincial heads not on Twitter.

The researchers remarked that although Twitter is an important and influential tool, other platforms should be used efficiently as well.

“Although Facebook has the greatest number of users in South Africa, Twitter is the most influential platform used as a channel for news and prompt information sharing by politicians, government leaders, public representatives, media and communication professionals, journalists and newsrooms.

“This presents several risks – the Presidency, ministers, premiers, MECs and spokespersons with a huge following lend their respective departments the necessary muscle to connect and engage with citizens, however, when they leave, for one reason or the other, they leave with the audience.

“Also, should the unimaginable happen with Twitter, citizens will be the biggest losers as government leaders who prefer Twitter are not learning to prioritise the utility of the other social platforms for citizen engagement.”