The Economic Freedom Fighters says the cutting down on cabinet ministers is a long and overdue process, which needs to be finalised. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his inaugural State of the Nation Address last week that he plans to cut down on government departments.
Under Thabo Mbeki’s tenure as President he appointed 50 cabinet ministers, while the number grew under the Presidency of Jacob Zuma to 73. EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi says they have always questioned the bloated cabinet, and are disappointed that Ramaphosa will no longer review it on an urgent basis.
“What is important is that Ramaphosa actually quite recently somersault on this commitment. He has said that it won’t happen immediately and yet the man only has twelve months. So we actually don’t have any hope that he will do it, and if so if his going to do it anytime soon such that it has meaningful spending impact because if he does it in June, he has six months left and that won’t achieve the part which is to save as much money as possible.
Ndlozi says he has a number of options when it comes to downsizing the cabinet. “He should’ve done it already, he should’ve said look in a month’s time I would’ve cut it in a specific way. There are many ways in which many departments can be amalgamated for instance, to return Communications to Telecommunications, it’s one of the immediate things that can be done and we have put out proposals concretely out there, but Ramaphosa has since somersaulted on this problem.”
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