ActionSA slams Dina Pule appointment as accountability failure

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JEREMY MAGGS: President Ramaphosa’s decision to appoint Dina Pule as Minister of Social Development has triggered a fierce backlash from opposition parties and civil society, with critics pointing to previous findings of improper and unethical conduct during her time as communications minister.

ActionSA has called the reshuffle proof that the government of national unity (GNU) is protecting political insiders rather than driving accountability. Tough words.

Let’s talk now to Athol Trollip, who is ActionSA’s parliamentary leader. Athol, Dina Pule’s appointment, is it simply a bad one or does it tell us something deeper about the GNU?

ATHOL TROLLIP: Jeremy, I must right upfront say that I have not known Dina Pule for very long, but I have served in the agriculture portfolio, where she has been the chairperson for the last two years, and I believe that she did a fairly good job in that capacity.

But she does have a chequered background, and this is our concern as ActionSA, because it appears that the ANC barrel is completely empty.

If they’re battling to find a suitable replacement for the Minister of Social Development, imagine their dilemma in a year or two’s time when they need to replace their president.

They’ve had a really, really poor president in Cyril Ramaphosa. But God knows where they’re going to find a replacement because it just appears that they do not have suitable people.

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So let’s get closer to Dina Pule and the Department of Social Development, I read an article this morning that I’m sure you might have read as well, about the kind of people that have been heading up that department, including Sisisi Tolashe, who has just been fired, and Bathabile Dlamini, who infamously told us that everyone in the ANC (African National Congress) has smallanyana skeletons.

These are all people who have come out of the ANC Women’s League, and it appears that this particular department is the sole preserve of somebody from the ANC Women’s League.

Read: Ex-minister Dlamini to be prosecuted for perjury

That really bothers me, Jeremy, because women are supposed to be caring, compassionate people. If you come from a women’s organisation, you would think that that is the kind of person you would be.

But if you ask any of the 20-odd million social grant recipients in this country whether they experience care and compassion on a daily basis from this department, and I would venture you wouldn’t find any.

So really, we are very, very perplexed and concerned as ActionSA that this is the very best that the ANC have to offer.

JEREMY MAGGS: Athol Trollip, let me ask you this question. In your opinion, is there any room in public life then for political rehabilitation or as sometimes there are specific ethics breaches that are permanently disqualifying?

ATHOL TROLLIP: Well, let me just tell you, Jeremy, we’ve got a dilemma in our parliament where we keep having this debate about fit and proper people. Most recently, we were trying to establish in this committee that has been set up, the impeachment committee, to consider possible impeachment of the president.

There was an endeavour to define what kind of people we wanted to serve on that committee, and that there was an endeavour to say they must be fit and proper.

It was pushed back tremendously because some political parties have people who are represented amongst their ranks that have got either criminal records or have been implicated in wrongdoing, in corruption or have been impeached.

It’s a problem because the barrier to entry into parliament is that you must not have been found guilty of a criminal offence and being charged a sentence of more than a year, or should not be unrehabilitated insolvent.

Now that leaves the rest open.

Unfortunately, our representation in parliament is very short when it comes to fit and proper. I say that with respect, I’m also a member of parliament.

Rehabilitation is one thing. If you’re rehabilitated, you must have gone through a rehabilitation process. But that doesn’t appear to apply in the ANC. You simply get retreaded.

There’s a big difference between rehabilitation and being retreaded.

JEREMY MAGGS: Let me ask you about social development specifically, Athol Trollip. It controls grants and serves millions of vulnerable South Africans, as you’ve indicated. What do you think the real risk is if public trust in that ministry is damaged?

ATHOL TROLLIP: Well, we’ve seen in the most recent past, the ANC ministers and others, they have used this department as – I don’t know – as a trough to feed from.

Now, if the department that is there to service the most needy in our country – and there are too many people who are living below the breadline who are desperate for social grants – if that is being used as a trough, either for personal gain or party-political gain, then there’s a big problem in this country.

My concern, though, is you can go to any Sassa (South African Social Security Agency) grant pay point and you will find people, elderly women and men, who’ve been spending the night on the street waiting for the Sassa office to open so that they can access services, payments that weren’t made on time and so on.

Recently, President Herman Mashaba of ActionSA was in Soweto at the Maponya Mall and there were hundreds of people who’d camped out the whole night in blankets on the side of the street, waiting for the offices to open.

We don’t see much care and compassion coming out of the Department of Social Development.

We would like to see somebody who has a long track record in that kind of service to be appointed as the minister.

JEREMY MAGGS: Athol Trollip, let’s stay with the cabinet reshuffle. Your party has also attacked the move of John Steenhuisen to deputy minister. Is your argument the deputy ministries have now simply become political shock absorbers?

ATHOL TROLLIP: Well, our argument is very clear on that. I personally moved a constitutional amendment to do away with deputy ministers entirely.

I’ll give you one example why, when the Minister of Police (Senzo Mchunu) was placed on gardening leave – and he’s still there – instead of promoting one of the deputy ministers to be a caretaker minister, we had to go and find somebody outside of parliament in Firoz Cachalia to be the acting minister, and there’s no provision for an acting minister in the Constitution.

So this is all very peculiar.

When it comes to John Steenhuisen, if he was removed by his party solely for his mismanagement of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which is what Geordin Hill-Lewis said he did, then why should he be redirected to being a deputy minister elsewhere.

If he’s failed as a minister, surely that is failure enough to be removed entirely?

But we’ve seen that it is a shock absorber. It is a position of patronage where somebody who fails in a senior role of responsibility, is then redirected to a slightly junior role, but still very, very well remunerated.

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It’s a mattress. Former DA (Democratic Alliance) member Dion George says that he’s been bounced out of the ministry into a deputy minister position and a nice, comfy mattress to catch his fall.

That, to us, is unacceptable because it’s paid for from the public purse. So why are we protecting people with the public purse, protecting politicians who have failed with the public purse?

JEREMY MAGGS: Athol Trollip is the parliamentary leader for the political party ActionSA.