SADTU dismayed at the appointment of Faith Muthambi as the Minister of Public Service and Administration.
31 March 2017
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union has received with utter dismay and disappointment the news that Faith Muthambi has been appointed by the President as the new Minister of Public Service and Administration. We wish to put it on record that we do not support the President’s decision in this regard and we firmly believe that it is ill-timed, ill-informed and defies all laws of logic.
As a Union that represents over 70 % of education workers in this country, we have played our part over the last few years to help develop and sustain labour peace in the sector. We are thus shocked that against this back ground, the President appoints an individual who had spectacularly failed in her previous portfolio into the Public Service and Administration Department.
It is under Minister Faith Muthambi that the public broadcaster the SABC limped from one crisis to another. It moved from one failed court battle to the next, had an almost non-existent governance structure and made a good case study for a failed state entity under her watch. Amongst others, she failed to ensure that South Africa met its digital migration deadline so that there can be faster broadband services in the country; this was one of her key deliverables in the previous portfolio.
Despite the dismal failures in as far as some of her key deliverables were concerned, the President took a decision to reward her with a move to the Public Service and Administration. This is a department that is tasked with ensuring that there are cordial relations at all times between the state and its employees. Ultimately, it is tasked with ensuring that there is service delivery to our people as envisaged by the National Development Plan.