COSATU statement on the Cabinet reshuffle  

27 February 2018

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted the latest cabinet reshuffle by President Cyril Ramaphosa. We wish the newly elected  ministers and deputy ministers well in their new positions. We do hope that the process of reconfiguring the cabinet ,which will allow for the ANC led government to have its state tentacles  remain biased towards the working class and the poor, will be treated with a sense of urgency because the current arrangement is neither acceptable nor sustainable.  

We appreciate the work that has been done since the recall of president Jacob Zuma and we understand that the president had to factor in a lot of issues during his reshuffle and we are happy with the ministers that have been released.

The federation has made it very clear to the president that we expect qualitative consultation going forward and not a by-the-way arrangement that does not factor in the views of Alliance partners. We hope to see an improvement on this front in line with the reconfiguration of the Alliance.

We have also made it very clear during the meeting that we expect the President to derive his prerogative from the ANC and the alliance. The reshuffles should be based on principles like integrity, competency, biasness towards the working class ; decisiveness and capacity to implement radical socio – economic transformation. We remain very uncomfortable with the recycling of Cabinet ministers though ; it does not make sense for those ministers accused of corruption to be shifted around the cabinet, instead of being fired.

We hope that the newly elected cabinet will work hard to bring about the much needed stability at a government level. They should arrest the exodus of senior technocrats and focus on serving the poor and help drive the National Democratic Revolution forward.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 27 February 2018