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Ramaphosa’s leadership style questioned

Malusi Gigaba
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With pressure mounting on President Cyril Ramaphosa to axe Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, Ramaphosa’s leadership style has been questioned. While in the past some have accused him of indecisiveness, others have said he has had to strike a fine balance between the needs of the party and the state.

Upon the election of President Cyril Ramaphosa as African National Congress (ANC) President, calls for President Jacob Zuma to resign gathered momentum.

Dealing with the matter put Ramaphosa firmly in the spotlight. “I then asked at that time what is it that I have done Speaker, no one said ‘look this is what you have done’… the only difference is that now some of the people who were raising the issue, they are in the leadership,” said Zuma in Parliament.

Some saw the process to shift Zuma as un-necessarily prolonged, with Ramaphosa being accused in some quarters of consulting too much, and of indecisiveness. The same was true in the case of North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo who was eventually axed by the ANC’s National Executive Committee when it dissolved the Provincial Executive Committee. The case is in the courts.

Getting rid of former South African Revenue Services Commissioner Tom Moyane moved along a little swifter with him being axed by Ramaphosa half way through the Nugent Commission of Inquiry.

What will become of Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba who is now in the firing line?

“The inclusiveness process is actually delaying far too much of the decisions that need to be made.. to a large extent, what I would like to be speaking to you about is that if you were to have a Ramaphosa who is actually with a NEC that is very much united, it would be easier to make those kind of decisions,”  says leadership expert Buyani Zwane.

Political Analyst Nompumelolo Ranji concurs with Zwane regarding the need for more speed.

“He is being cautious and unfortunately in his caution he is undermining his very own credibility – like he runs the risk of being complicit and culpable in the very same acts of his ministers if he fails to act against them, but at the same time being a caretaker president, being a president that forms part of a term of another president because you had a resignation – he does not have necessarily a very strong mandate.”

The analysts do concede that Ramaphosa’s task of restoring a decade of destroyed public confidence in the state is not an easy one.

“His role is that of restoring the credibility of presidency, and then restoring the credibility of state machinery – and that is not an easy thing because it requires you to be able to look at two critical things, the character of people who are in leadership, secondly the competency people who are in leadership.  What we are being able to pick up at local government level is that we have a whole lot of people whose character is questionable and whose competency is found to be lacking altogether,” says Zwane.

The Public Protector has recommended that Ramaphosa to discipline Gigaba. According to media reports, Gigaba engaged the President on why he should not be shown the door.


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