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Gwede Mantashe’s reported plan to establish an ANC committee to oversee the work of State-owned entities (SOEs) from Luthuli House is an insult to Parliament and the Constitution.

SOEs do not belong to the ANC. SOEs belong to the South African people and as such must account to the elected representatives of the people in Parliament.

We have already seen how SOEs are avoiding accounting to Parliament on vital matters. Eskom is yet to provide full clarity to Parliament on its current situation and a turnaround plan. This Luthuli House committee will just make matters worse, as SOEs will now attempt to report to the ANC, and not to Parliament.

Mr Mantashe’s plans are a disgusting attempt to conflate the state with the ANC, by making institutions of state account directly to Luthuli House.

This new proposal will effectively put cadre deployment at SOEs on steroids, as the cadres will not only be appointed by the ANC, but will also be directly managed by the ANC.

It is simply unconstitutional and cannot be tolerated.

It is a clear violation of sections 195 and 197 of the Constitution. Section 195 (1)(i) of the Constitution states:

“Public administration must be broadly representative of the South African people, with employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness, and the need to redress the imbalances of the past to achieve broad representation.”

By making SOEs report directly to Gwede Mantashe, there is no guarantee that management practices will be based on ability, objectivity or fairness and indeed it is likely that the ANC will enforce narrow party political interests in its interactions with SOEs.

Section 197 (3) of the Constitution states:

“No employee of the public service may be favoured or prejudiced only because that person supports a particular political party or cause.”

There is no doubt that a direct reporting line to Luthuli House will inevitably cause certain individuals to be favoured or prejudiced due to their political allegiances.

This new proposal is not compliant with our Constitution or with democratic principles. The party and the state is separate and Mr Mantashe cannot conflate the two.

The DA will monitor the situation extremely closely and will take whatever action is necessary to stop this from proceeding.

Issued by DA