Cabinet clout – the GNU's best and worst performers, one year in

Daily Maverick

21 hours ago

As the Government of National Unity marks one year in power, Daily Maverick staffers give their take on who's dithered and who's delivered in Cabinet.
TOP OF THE CLASS
Leon Schreiber
Less than one year at the helm of one of South Africa's most dysfunctional departments, crippled by years of corruption and capacity constraints, is a short time to make an assessment of the Minister of Digitisation… Oh, wait, sorry, Home Affairs.
But with the GNU reaching its first anniversary, it's time to rank Schreiber on the work he has done to transform 'Hell Affairs'.
When he delivered his inaugural budget speech, he promised to digitise Home Affairs, tackle network issues (how many times have you heard 'the system is offline') and crack down on corruption.
Schreiber has launched Home Affairs @ Home, a comprehensive five-year strategy to transform Home Affairs into a fully digital department and earlier this year, the DHA upgraded its once-problematic and inefficient digital verification system, pushing SA closer to a complete roll-out of the Smart ID.
In February, the DHA announced that it had successfully cleared the visa and permit backlog that dated back a decade. While his predecessor, Aaron Motsoaledi, initiated great backlog clearing, Schreiber made quick work of completing it.
Since July 2024, Home Affairs has fired 33 officials for fraud, corruption and related offences as part of a bid to rid the DHA of rot. Schreiber has emphasised that this campaign will continue until all corrupt officials are removed and held accountable, with a clear warning that further dismissals and prosecutions are expected as investigations progress. – Lerato Mutsila
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa
A year into the GNU, Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa stands out as the minister under whose watch South Africa has grown accustomed to a near-reliable electricity supply after more than a decade of load shedding. He didn't do it alone, but the steady retreat of load shedding is largely thanks to Ramokgopa's diligent efforts.
With his watchful oversight of Eskom's Generation Recovery Plan, the utility has mostly fixed generation issues. His insistence on transparency, public accountability and clear communication (as evidenced in his frequent briefings) has helped soften public anger, rebuild trust and demystify the complexities of the energy sector.
He's also been sapient and humble in acknowledging the tainted history of nuclear procurement and public scepticism toward large-scale procurement. In August 2024, he paused plans for new nuclear capacity, citing the need for transparency and legal certainty.
But Ramokgopa has not only managed the crises of the present, he has laid out a compelling vision of a low-carbon energy future and has repeatedly advocated an ' ultra-aggressive ' rollout of renewables, calling it financially sound and environmentally necessary. 'Let's show the country and the rest of the world that we can do it,' he said in July 2024. 'We are going to be the leaders on this continent in relation to renewable energy.' – Ethan van Diemen
Cyril Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa has often been lauded for his negotiation skills, but they were put to the test when he met US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last month. He was ambushed by Trump, but he didn't take the bait. As a result, Trump was shown up for the bully he is.
Ramaphosa has championed a forward-thinking G20 agenda for South Africa. He is a progressive leader in a world of strongmen.
His Operation Vulindlela, the economic reform programme of the Presidency and National Treasury launched in October 2020, has made strides, particularly in energy. The energy reforms in the first phase of the programme have unlocked 22,500MW of independent power (mostly renewable).
But, in some instances, Ramaphosa has shown a modicum of leadership. Among his biggest weaknesses is his slow pace of action in certain situations. Decisions are delayed to death. He's failed to act decisively on removing former Justice Minister Thembi Simelane from Cabinet, reshuffling her to Human Settlements in December 2024. His continued inaction on longstanding issues such as gender-based violence is a blind spot too big to ignore.
Ramaphosa is not always the leader to crack the whip – particularly when it comes to members of his own party – but he may just be the one to keep the GNU from cracking completely. – Victoria O'Regan
Ronald Lamola
International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola was regarded as one of Daily Maverick's top performers, but this assessment of him is almost solely based on his work on SA's genocide case against Israel. SA's decision in December 2023 to take Israel to the World Court to argue that it violates its obligation as a signatory to the Genocide Convention has been a direct action welcomed by global human rights groups.
Lamola (then justice minister) led a top legal team of nine and a delegation to The Hague in January 2024, where he defended SA's application in his opening statement and won many plaudits, saying it was an act of ubuntu with Palestine.
He is principled and pragmatic, and his age (41) is a positive and makes him one of the youngest leaders in the GNU. But, in some instances – for example, dealing with the Trump administration in the Oval Office – he has appeared out of his depth.
Lamola has provided basic continuity in SA's foreign policy, which is identical to that of the former ANC government. This has been a sticking point for other parties in the GNU, which have called out the ANC for ' monopolising ' SA's foreign policy. – Victoria O'Regan
Siviwe Gwarube
At just 35, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has emerged as a dynamic force who has brought much-needed optimism into a beleaguered system.
Gwarube has made early childhood development a priority, with a sharp focus on foundational literacy and numeracy, recognising that strong beginnings lead to long-term success. She also advocates for curriculum modernisation, emphasising digital literacy and expanding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education to equip learners with critical thinking, adaptability and creativity for a technology-driven global economy.
Despite her party's (DA) opposition to certain clauses, Gwarube has committed to implementing the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act – albeit advocating for staggered implementation and the development of regulations to address concerns.
However, the challenges Gwarube faces are Herculean as she inherited a sector riddled with deep-rooted inequality, failing infrastructure, teacher shortages and the weight of austerity.
Her strategy of teaming up with the private sector has drawn fire: McDonald's-branded desks raised eyebrows over junk food marketing, and the Safe Schools app, built with Vodacom, has struggled in rural areas where basics such as electricity and connectivity are still luxuries. She also missed her self-imposed deadline to eliminate pit toilets by March 2025, a failure with life-or-death consequences.
SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPELLED
Paul Mashatile
It is genuinely hard to find a redeeming aspect to Mashatile's performance over the past year.
In fairness, the role of deputy president is famously meaningless, which is what allowed Cyril Ramaphosa to skate out of the State Capture years virtually unscathed. But even taking into account the very low bar for this role, it's difficult to see how Mashatile has been a value-add.
The two most noteworthy things that have involved Mashatile during this period have both been negative. First, there was the ' assassination attempt ' on the DP in April, during which his car was allegedly shot at – an incident shrouded in mystery because it appears that almost nobody in the ANC believes it actually happened, with the conspiracy theory there being that Mashatile was hoping for a Donald Trump-style post-assassination popularity surge. If so, it didn't work; one of the only groups to express real concern was the EFF leadership, which is so strange in itself that it greatly fortified theories that a Mashatile presidency would see the EFF elevated to hitherto unrealised heights of political power.
The second was the revelation from an Action SA Parliamentary question that Mashatile and his wife had somehow managed to spend more than R900,000 on accommodation for a three-night stay in Japan in March. Mashatile is not beating corruption allegations any time soon.
Within the GNU, meanwhile, his role has seemed to be largely shit-stirring: he has made menacing noises towards the DA on a number of occasions, but it appears his bark doesn't come with much bite. – Rebecca Davis
Thembi Simelane
Thembi Simelane should not be in Cabinet. Her tenure as Justice Minister was rendered untenable by Daily Maverick and News24's reporting on corruption allegations against her, and she was shuffled to Human Settlements by President Cyril Ramaphosa in December 2024 instead of being suspended, as she should have been.
Since then, Simelane's personal woes have clearly been distracting her. There have been further corruption allegations from the past involving an Eskom contractor; the DA laid criminal charges against her; and her romantic partner was arrested for his own corruption charges.
She inherited a dysfunctional Human Settlements department from her predecessor Mmamoloko Kubayi, whose approach can best be summed up as 'see no evil, hear no evil'. DA MP Luyolo Mphithi has tried, mostly in vain, to draw attention to what he has termed a 'catastrophic collapse of governance across several housing entities' falling under Simelane's control – among them the National Housing Finance Corporation, as revealed by Daily Maverick.
Simelane has shown almost zero appetite to investigate what is going on under her own roof. There is no plausible justification for her presence in the executive. – Rebecca Davis
Angie Motshekga
Evaluating Minister Angie Motshekga's time as the head of our Department of Defence is difficult. Not because there's nothing to analyse, but more that it's a smorgasbord of ineptitude. The only thing we can be thankful for is that she's only mismanaging our sovereign defence capability, rather than the minds of our young learners.
Motshekga has not only failed to reverse the inexorable decline of a defence force in dire need of a strong leader, she has failed to demonstrate how the defence force can, if managed properly, be a major force for public good. I wrote in July last year that the first and most important thing she could do was to start a major defence review.
Instead, the minister has fêted military suitors from the world over, overseen the induction of air force cadets, who have very little in the way of serviceable airframes to fly, and generally dithered about. But by a country mile, the most egregious lapse in basic leadership has been her colossal bungling of our SAMIDRC retreat at the hands of Rwandan-backed rebels. Not only has Motshekga outright lied in parliamentary committees about their role, the fact that our troops languished under M23 lock and key for months without any useful communication from the DOD is inexcusable. Correction – the DOD was quick to note which golf days had or had not been cancelled. – John Stupart
Gayton McKenzie
One of the most recent ministers of Sport, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, was accused of being too reactive in the role. To the point where he earned the nickname ' minister of condolences and congratulations '.
Current Minister Gayton McKenzie is the opposite, to his detriment at times. On a few occasions, McKenzie has been found placing the cart before the horse – something he has been criticised for even by his department's oversight committee.
Other critics of McKenzie have highlighted his blatant xenophobia. It is a tool he has used to his political advantage as leader of the Patriotic Alliance, but he has struggled to eradicate it when wearing his ministerial hat, despite heading a department that is a conduit for national unity.
A perfect example of McKenzie's overzealousness is the situation around the video assistant referee (VAR). The minister is a staunch supporter of the technology, which he believes will improve the quality of officiating in South African soccer.
It will cost millions of rands to roll out and maintain. But McKenzie's department will help the financially strapped South African Football Association acquire the technology and train its officials to operate VAR.
A master of populist politics, McKenzie knows that soccer is the most popular sport in South Africa. The implementation of VAR will earn him countless plaudits from the masses. – Yanga Sibembe
Gwede Mantashe
Gwede Mantashe's crowning achievement for 2025 should be the online mining cadastre, which is supposed to go live in June and then be rolled out to other provinces after this 'test drive'.
After years of needless delays under Mantashe's watch, the mining sector is waiting with bated breath to see how this rolls.
The lack of a functioning cadastre – an online portal that displays a country's mineral wealth while allowing companies to apply for mining and prospecting rights – has long been seen as a deterrent to mining investment, leading to massive application backlogs.
While the mining sector has cautiously welcomed this development, it has been jolted by the Mineral Resources Development Bill (MRDP), which seeks to further entrench onerous BEE provisions.
In June, Mantashe did a U-turn and removed the BEE requirements in the draft for exploration companies, which have always been excluded on this front – a sign that he is not completely tone deaf to industry concerns.
He also has his brand new South African National Petroleum Company – the department has been renamed the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources– but given the ANC's track record on SOEs, few expect it to be solvent for long. – Ed Stoddard DM