The ANC completely destroyed every national government department – Geordin Hill-Lewis

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis said years of ANC mismanagement and corruption destroyed every government department in South Africa.

Hill-Lewis was commenting on the task the DA cabinet ministers have and their performance in the government of national unity (GNU).

After the formation of the government of national unity in June 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed six DA ministers.

• John Steenhuisen – Minister of Agriculture 
• Siviwe Gwarube – Minister of Basic Education 
• Leon Schreiber – Minister of Home Affairs 
• Dean Macpherson – Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure 
• Solly Malatsi – Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies 
• Dion George – Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment

George was removed from his position as the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in November 2025 and replaced by Willie Aucamp.

The performance of these DA Ministers over the last two years has been a mixed bag, with good work in some departments and poor in others.

Schreiber is transforming the Department of Home Affairs, prioritising automation and cutting bureaucratic red tape.

Macpherson has also been a positive force in the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, with an auditor-style approach.

On the other end of the scale, Steenhuisen has been heavily criticised for his handling of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak.

His state-controlled approach to fighting the disease has drawn intense backlash from livestock farmers, industry stakeholders, and political opponents.

Malatsi has also faced an embarrassing public scandal after it was revealed that South Africa’s Draft National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy was written using AI.

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis’s view on government departments

Commenting on the performance of the DA ministers, he said they showed enormous bravery and courage, given the environment in which they work.

“My overall impression is one of enormous bravery and courage, because they are going into a system that is completely broken,” he said.

“You have departments of thousands of people who are either militantly anti-DA, actively trying to trip you up at every corner, or corrupt.”

He said the government employees in these departments try to use every contract to skim off the top or figure out what they can get out of it.

“Of course, there are those who are professionals, who take their jobs seriously and are just trying to do the right thing,” he said.

“However, after years of cadre deployment and ideological government, they are browbeaten and cowed.”

He said that the operating environment for the DA Ministers is indescribably tough. “You have to go into this rotten, fetid cake and try to make a change and fix it,” he said.

He added that every single government department in South Africa has been destroyed by years of ANC mismanagement, misrule, and corruption.

“If you go there, you have to apply yourself intensively to fixing that and rebuilding it from the ground up, brick by brick, which is a very intensive job,” he said.