Ramaphosa wielding his executive powers to drive agenda – analysts

President Cyril Ramaphosa is wielding his executive powers to drive his agenda by establishing commissions and agencies, an admission that the current bureaucracy is rotten and corrupt, yet an ideal method to fill administrative gaps, say analysts.

In his State Of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday, Ramaphosa listed plans to establish several agencies, councils and commissions as part of recovery and priority action plans to reform the country.

These include the national water resources infrastructure agency, border management agency to curb illegal immigration and cross-border crime, the presidential coordinating commission to work on climate change and a land and agrarian reform agency.

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Yet another council to oversee the fight against corruption will be established, with members soon to be appointed to the national anti-corruption council to oversee the initial implementation of the national anti-corruption strategy and an anti-corruption body which reports directly to parliament.

But political analyst Dr Ralph Mathekga said Ramaphosa could be accused of wielding his executive powers to establish functioning and reliable institutions parallel to state functions which are facing a crisis.

“When you create agencies every week, what does that mean? It is actually an acknowledgement that you cannot work with the current bureaucracy because it is rotten and corrupt.

“One thing we have not fully analysed is that we are actually dealing with a smart person who is wielding executive power through commissions. Is there any commission that has not agreed with him? No.

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“These agencies are a soft way of exercising executive power while evading the normal bureaucracy of decision-making processes because it is undermined,” Mathekga said.

But this method was dangerous as it could ignore the responsibilities of the relevant institutions as parallel ones have been created.

“You would have created your parallel [institutions] that will help drive your agenda which is widely shared by the people.”

Ramaphosa’s agencies and commissions were an ideal mechanism to fill the administrative gap while driving to ensure normality, said North-West University school of social and government studies professor Barry Hanyane.

It was clear from recent testimonies by parliamentary portfolio committee chairs at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that oversight was easily manipulated to protect corruption, he said.

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“Surely oversight by these committees was compromised. If they were doing their job, it would have been easier, for example, for

Eskom and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to come to parliament without it being negotiable.

“Unfortunately, some committees will be manipulated to a point.

“All agencies, state institutions, committees and commissions must speak with one voice,” he said.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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