3 days ago
No contracts, no clarity – almost a year of the GNU and still no ministerial scorecards
As the first anniversary of the Government of National Unity draws near, ministerial performance agreements have yet to materialise.
South Africa's 10-party coalition turns one this month, but signed ministerial performance agreements – an important accountability tool – are still nowhere in sight.
However, the Presidency says the work of government is not hampered by the absence of performance agreements.
'The process is under way and remains between the President and the concerned members of Cabinet. There are enough public accountability measures through Parliament when APPs (annual performance plans) are presented and assessed,' Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told Daily Maverick this week.
In a response to Parliament in August 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Cabinet ministers would only sign performance contracts once the 2024-29 Medium-Term Development Plan, which outlines the key priorities for the seventh administration, had been approved.
The Medium-Term Development Plan was approved by the Cabinet in February, but ministers' performance agreements still seem some way off.
President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a bloated Cabinet and executive (32 ministers and 44 deputy ministers) to accommodate the parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU). The GNU Statement of Intent outlines the gargantuan government's agenda and strategic priorities.
But, as Bhaso Ndzende, an associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Johannesburg, wrote, exactly how each minister is to contribute to the realisation of these priorities is unclear in the absence of performance agreements.
Previously, the ministerial performance agreements of the sixth administration were based on the 2019-2024 Medium-Term Strategic Framework, and ran from June 2019 to April 2024. But most of the agreements were signed only in late 2020.
In his 2020 State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa pledged to publish the agreements online, in an attempt at transparency. However, progress on those agreements was never made public.
It's unclear whether the President will choose to make the performance agreements of the current administration public. Political analyst Professor Susan Booysen, says it could be a gamble so close to the 2026 local government elections.
Booysen, however, said she regards ministerial performance agreements to be 'extremely important'.
'They can be a great accountability tool, not just internally for the ANC – and that would've been in times when it was just the ANC in power – but also now, in times of coalition. It would really help specify what the exact expectations are [and] what the exact permissions,' she said.
Booysen said these agreements would define what was expected of each minister and what each minister was allowed to do. This is crucial because there have already been tensions and disagreements between coalition partners over responsibilities, with ministers being accused of overstepping or claiming credit for work started before their time, she said.
'We have seen that kind of acrimonious exchange happening, and a performance agreement would help spell out in exact details what it is that the expectations and requirements are,' she said.
DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp told Daily Maverick that 'there [haven't] been any targets that have been set'.
'We believe, from the DA's side, that it is very important to get targets set. You must have measurables to be measured on,' he said.
Aucamp said the DA supported making the contracts public, for South Africans to assess the work of the executive. 'Should the President not make [them] public, the ministers from the DA will make their targets public, as well as the achievement thereon,' he said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Good and the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) told Daily Maverick they would support the publication of the performance contracts.
IFP national spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Transport Mkhuleko Hlengwa described performance contracts as 'important tools to measure performances against the desired and set targets'.
'The IFP ministers and deputy ministers are visibly hard at work with or without the performance agreements because they know the commitments and the agreements they made with the voters,' he said.
Good's secretary-general Brett Herron said the party 'fully [supports] meaningful performance agreements for members of the executive' and expected them to be 'concluded soon' given that the Medium-Term Development Plan had been adopted and the Budget had been tabled in Parliament.
He said: 'We must remember that the GNU Cabinet was appointed in June 2024 – thus the executive has really been implementing the final few months of the previous term of office's performance plans. The delay in finalising the performance agreements is somewhat explicable in this context, though it is reasonable for the South African public to expect performance agreements to be wrapped up now and ready for signature – now that we have a governing programme and hopefully a Medium Term Budget to implement it.'
However, Wouter Wessels, MP and national spokesperson for the FF Plus, said the party believed the finalising of ministerial performance agreements was taking too long.
'We do believe that performance agreements are an important component of accountability. Ministerial performance is, however, not solely dependent on such agreements… The conclusion of these agreements [is] taking much too long. We believe this should be expedited,' he told Daily Maverick.
On whether to make them public, Wessels said: 'There is no need to keep such agreements secret.'
'Effective accountability can only take place in the presence of transparency,' he said. DM
