By Thys Khiba – President Cyril Ramaphosa has revealed that the department of public enterprises will cease to exist in future because state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will fall under their relevant departments.
During a question-and-answer session Ramaphosa told the National Assembly that the plans were to reduce the number of ministries below 30 after the national elections in 2024.
“It will cease to exist because the entities that are now overseen by the ministry of public enterprises will revert to their departments,” said Ramaphosa.
On Thursday, Ramaphosa indicated in the National Assembly that the department led by Minister Pravin Gordhan is going to be affected by the reconfiguration of government structure.
Getting rid of the public enterprises department is part of the government’s plan to merge several departments to reduce the bloated Cabinet.
“We will come back and reconfigure the state following the report that will come, and I have said I’d like to see the ministries going further down,” Ramaphosa said.
President of the Republic of South Africa, H.E Cyril Ramaphosa delivering his response to the 2023 State of the Nation Address debate in Parliament at the City Hall in Cape Town.
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Ramaphosa is confident that the ANC is going to win elections and govern for another term with him in charge.
He indicated that his administration plans to have less than 30 ministries.
His promises comes after he introduced two new ministries.
“You may well say this is what you promised and so forth. In 2019, we had 34 ministries. We did bring that down by six. Now, we’ve gone to 30 for the reasons that I have set out.”
Ramaphosa defended his decision by saying that these were transitory moves because there were specific challenges that government was trying to address.
“The board’s system of appointment is completely different and we are the same government. We find that their financial systems are also very different and some of them are not even able to submit their annual financial statements.
“We do not have a line of sight of that because some of them almost operate hidden somewhere.”
CENTRAL NEWS
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