Cabinet reshuffle: ‘Ramaphosa welcome to look beyond ANC’ says opposition

One Movement South Africa chief activist and former Democratic Alliance leader, Mmusi Maimane has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to look beyond the governing party for candidates if he is considering a Cabinet reshuffle.

There have been growing calls for Ramaphosa to do a complete overhaul of his national executive, while others are demanding the removals of certain ministers from their portfolios.

OPPOSITION READY ‘TO SUPPORT’ ON CABINET RESHUFFLE

In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Maimane said Ramaphosa is welcome to look beyond the ANC or political structures for new Cabinet Ministers.

“I would definitely fire the Minister of Police, because policing has not worked and not necessarily because of the recent unrest but citizens do not feel safe. I would also remove the State Security and Basic Education Ministers,” he said.

“There are Vice-Chancellors who are gifted enough to reform our education and could be brought into the education space. Likewise, there are institutions that focus of security and intelligence and they could be brought in to professionalise the service,” he added.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has, for the most part, refused to be drawn into disclosing whether he will be firing certain ministers.

“Well, the issue of reconfiguring the cabinet is an ongoing consideration by any president. You look at how you deploy people who you are working with and how you place those people to execute various tasks. So it is an ongoing process of evaluation and all that so it is not something we would say is a process that is outlandish,” Ramaphosa said as he was responding to questions in Tembisa where he was assessing the country’s vaccination programme.

ActionSA has also called for action to be taken against certain ministers in Ramaphosa’s Cabinet.

“As ActionSA, we are demanding the president fires the ministers of the security cluster and not recycle them because that has been the tendency. They have failed to locate the voices within their own organisation, African National Congress, that were circulated during our darkest times,” the party’s KZN provincial chairperson, Dr Makhosi Khoza said.

DA leader, John Steenhuisen said the party stands ready to support Ramaphosa and ‘give him the majority he needs in Parliament’ to fix the country’s intelligence service and its oversight and ‘rid it of Zuma acolytes once and for all’.

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