Julius Malema says Ramaphosa uses task teams to hide his incompetence

Reacting to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, said the President’s reliance on task teams is proof of his own incompetence. 

Addressing the South African public on 12 February, Ramaphosa announced several new national task teams to address the country’s biggest challenges. 

Speaking to the SABC on the sidelines of the event, Malema said that there has been an overabundance of task teams established during Ramaphosa’s administration. 

“This thing of task teams, task team after task team – it’s a sign of a person failing to execute their own responsibility, and they shift it to other people,” the EFF leader said. 

“It’s a confirmation that he doesn’t have the necessary capacity in the GNU to deal with issues that he wants to deal with.”

During his speech, Ramaphosa spoke on the progress of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into allegations of corruption and political interference in the police and criminal justice system. 

He said that a task team has been established in the South African Police Service (SAPS). This will ensure that investigations arising from the commission are “undertaken swiftly and without interference”.

While discussing the electricity sector, the President laid down the framework for a new, fully independent state-owned transmission entity.

Contrary to previous statements from Eskom and the Department of Energy and Electricity, this new entity will have full ownership of the country’s transmission infrastructure, which will be transferred from Eskom.

The president has established another dedicated task team under the National Energy Crisis Committee (NECC) to attend to the restructuring process. The task team will report back to the president with clear time frames within 3 months. 

The EFF, in its official response, critiqued this move, arguing that the president said the energy crisis is resolved, and that “a crisis that is truly resolved does not require emergency-style oversight.”

No shortage of plans

In addressing the national crisis caused by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which is plaguing South Africa’s agriculture sector, the president praised the creation of a task team to deal with the matter. 

This task team is made up of farmer organisations and experts who are working with the minister of agriculture and report back to the president monthly on the progress of tackling the pandemic. 

Finally, Ramaphosa plans to establish a new task team to deal with the country’s water crisis. The National Water Crisis Committee will be chaired by the president himself.

The EFF said that this newest task team is proof that “the gap between policy pronouncement and execution continues to widen.”

President Ramaphosa has created more task teams, commissions, war rooms, councils, funds and initiatives than his predecessors. 

Professor Jo-Ansie Van Wyk found that by 2023, Ramaphosa had created a whopping 110 of these organisations. 

This criticism of SONA was shared by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), which said that there is no need for more task teams to develop plans to combat South Africa’s problems. 

“South Africa does not have a shortage of plans,” said OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage. “We have a shortage of implementation, transparency, and accountability.”

South Africans have seen this formula too many times before, Duvenage said, a crisis is followed by a commission, then an ad hoc committee or a task team.

“Meanwhile, implementation lags and public trust continues to decline.”