When President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he was going to sign performance agreements with his ministers it brought a glimmer of hope that things were going to change in terms of service delivery, handling of government funds, reduction in corruption. Making cabinet ministers sign performance agreements will not help make President Cyril Ramaphosa any more decisive, the writer says. – Picture: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Media
By Bheki Mngomezulu
In principle, performance agreements are a good thing to have – both in the public and private sector. They define executive accountability for organisational goals. Each organisation assesses its performance by timeously checking if those who were tasked to perform certain functions do so as expected.
Performance agreements assist executives in aligning daily operations. They assist in clarifying how work unit activities contribute to the organisation’s set goals and objectives.
As an incentive, performance agreements are sometimes used to reward those who are found to have performed well when the performance assessments are done. This is done with the understanding that it will propel them to either keep the momentum or perform even better.
Driven by this general understanding of performance agreements, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced to the nation that he was going to sign performance agreements with his ministers. This brought a glimmer of hope that things were going to change for the better in terms of service delivery, handling of government funds, reduction in corruption, etc.
Though many South Africans were optimistic about this new development, some of us were pessimistic. This had nothing to do with hatred of the President, as some claim. On the contrary, the pessimism was predicated on other unfulfilled promises that the President had already made since assuming office on February 15, 2018. These included the so-called “New Dawn” and the resolve to address the wrongs of the so-called “Nine Wasted Years”.
It did not come as a surprise when South Africa moved from position 43 to position 41 on the Corruption Perceptions Index. There were also no changes in the country’s triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. As we speak, recent figures show that the country’s unemployment rate has risen to 33 percent.
The question is: What are the ministers doing? Importantly, how are these performance agreements assisting government (and the President) in improving the performance of Cabinet ministers? A related question could be phrased as follows: If performance agreements were signed between ministers and the President, how come that service delivery protests have continued unabated? Is there any recourse?
This has been the situation until the end of the term of the sixth administration, which was dominated by the ANC. In that context, it is easy to blame the ANC for many (if not all) of the failures of Cabinet ministers to deliver on their mandate. Some are back, while others have exited the stage or have been appointed as deputy ministers.
Now, following the results of the 2024 general election, there was no outright winner at national level since no single political party obtained the required fifty plus one threshold to allow it to constitute government alone. Consequently, the ANC, which obtained 40 percent of the votes, invited other political parties to form what they referred to as the Government of National Unity (GNU), which is a multiparty coalition.
If the President was unable improve the country’s performance in many areas with ministers coming from the ANC who had already signed performance agreements, how is he going to achieve this goal this time around working with a diverse pool of ministers who come from different political parties?
One of the issues the President will have to contend with is political parochialism by some of his Cabinet ministers. Ideally, anyone who is in government either as an ordinary Member of Parliament (MP) or minister (and deputy minister) should relinquish a party hat. However, this is not the case.
With this in mind, and given divergent views from the ANC and the DA on whether South Africa is in a GNU or a Grand Alliance of ANC and DA, how will this impact on the identity of ministers? Will they see themselves accountable to the President who appointed them and be guided by the performance agreements they have signed, or will their loyalty be on their individual political parties?
This question speaks to power dynamics. Constitutionally, the President wields power derived from Section 84 of the Constitution. Political parties who are part of the coalition might think that they have power because without them the ANC cannot run the country. If this happens, some ministers and deputy ministers might find themselves having mixed allegiances depending on what they consider to be the location of the centre of power.
The main concern is that the President does not project himself as a decisive leader. In the main, he is accused of over-consulting. Those he has surrounded himself with seem to be the ones wielding more power and influencing his final decisions.
This became clear when the President correctly took a decision to resign following the Phala Phala saga. He was told to rescind his resignation and was promised that should other parties invoke Section 89 of the Constitution and try to impeach him, the ANC was going to use its numbers to defend him. This is what happened.
Therefore, while these performance agreements are good to have, we should not be over-excited about the prospects of them yielding positive results. Drawing from history, considering the current political dynamics, given the different interpretations of how the ANC and the DA perceive the current political arrangement, we can brace ourselves for the turbulent.
Put succinctly, having performance agreements in place should be commended. However, these cannot be a panacea for the country’s challenges.
* Prof Bheki Mngomezulu is director of the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy at Nelson Mandela University.
** The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The African