The Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is proposing to government to cut down to only 15 departments. President Cyril Ramaphosa has said in his State of the Nation Address that it is critical to downsize the structure and the size of the state.
Under Thabo Mbeki’s tenure as President, he appointed 50 government ministers, while the number grew under the Presidency of Jacob Zuma to 73. DA Spokesperson Mabine Seabe says the DA has always been in support of fewer cabinet ministers.
“Through our calculations we have seen that we can at least save R5 billion annually, if we are able to implement these cuts, if it is R5 billion it can go into ensuring that we have a healthcare system that works. Five billion rands can go into job creation, R5 billion can go into ensure that a young black youth can be subjected to quality education.”
Seabe says government cannot have three separate departments dealing with the same contents. “Our cutting down on government departments would streamline the work of government, it would cut down the number of layers and the level of bureaucracy that we already have in government. It’s almost unreal that we have almost three different departments dealing with economic policy, and this comes down to the fact that we don’t have a clear economic policy in South Africa because there are too many people who have evolved themselves in this process, so if we streamline and cut down on government departments, we are able to deliver services better to the people. We are able to cut down the size of corruption; we are able to save money.”
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