Cape Town – Former finance minister Tito Mboweni believes that the inclusion of more parties in the government of national unity (GNU) will complicate President Cyril Ramaphosa’s task of finalising his cabinet.
The GNU now comprises ten parties: ANC, DA, IFP, PA, GOOD, PAC, Freedom Front Plus, UDM, Rise Mzansi, and Al Jama-ah.
Ramaphosa faces challenges in balancing the demands from these diverse parties.
“Ramaphosa has a very difficult task ahead of him in constituting a cabinet, and for heaven’s sake, I hope they don’t increase the number of cabinet ministers. We don’t need that. The fewer, the better. The more capable, the better to get this country going,” Mboweni said during an interview with the SABC.
Mboweni emphasises the need for a smaller, more capable cabinet and notes the difficulty posed by the different ideologies.
“I don’t know how they are going to navigate through the raft of ideological stances that other parties are bringing to the table. Good luck to the ANC. It is going to be a very difficult process.
“The danger we have here is when you have so many parties coming together to form a government, the question is what happens to the distinction between the executive and the legislature? Will these parties in parliament behave differently from the way they would behave because they’re part of the government?”
He compares the current GNU to Nelson Mandela’s 1994 cabinet, saying that the current situation is a coalition rather than a transitional government.
He stresses the importance of coalition parties agreeing on a unified governance program focused on infrastructure, service delivery, and health to avoid potential collapse.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
