OLIVER DICKSON: Cyril Ramaphosa just inflated the cabinet, adding to an excessive count of ministers

You would not be alone if you described President Cyril Ramaphosa as spineless, habitually indecisive and lacking in courage. That is unfortunately the type of leadership Ramaphosa has delivered during his first term, and what we have grown used to.

The cabinet reshuffle he announced on Monday evening was no exception. It is cosmetic at best, and regressive at worst. It was a cabinet “reshuffle intended not to deal with the inefficiencies in the government and the legion of crises facing our country, such as rampant crime and unabated poverty. Its clear goal was to respond to the ANC's elective conference outcomes, including managing political egos, rewarding political allies with cabinet positions and removing or demoting political adversaries.

If it were a cabinet reshuffle aimed at producing a cabinet fit for purpose, Bheki Cele would not have survived as police minister while on his watch SA's murder rate has soared from 57 a day to 80 a day with no increase in the paltry proportion of solved cases. While load-shedding has decimated countless small, medium and micro enterprises there is no sign of a plan from the small-business development minister — who, you may have forgotten, is Stella Ndabeni Abrahams.

While no bold changes have been made to the cabinet, a couple of worrying trends have emerged. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula was unabashed in saying, right after the president's announcement, that the appointment of ANC deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa as a minister in the presidency was to create a link between Luthuli House and the Union Buildings.

There was time when the ANC was less overt about the unholy conflation of party and state, but that seems to be long gone given how brazen and shameless the ANC has become. This, like its cadre deployment policy, is a worrying lurch towards constitutional calamity.

Instead of dismissing inefficient actors in his cabinet, like horrendously underperforming mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe or the equally dismal public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, Ramaphosa retained them. This demonstrates an indubitable lack of political courage and political will to deal with our energy and Eskom disaster.

The appointment of a minister of electricity, with statutory powers still to be bestowed on him, does not subvert the lacuna in capable leadership at the top of Eskom, or the energy crisis. The selling point of Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as being a suitable candidate for the position because of his civil engineering background is as irrelevant as the existence of the department itself, because Ramokgopa has no identifiable experience in the energy field.

Ramokgopa will also have to contend with a cabinet colleague, energy minister Gwede Mantashe, who has branded his position a project management role, while stating that he believes he could solve the Eskom crisis within 18 months, in ways Gordhan could not. The fact that the statutory powers that that govern and regulate Eskom functionaries and our energy that is now split across four different departments — if you include the environmental affairs ministry — should be as worrying to Ramaphosa as it is to expert analysts and ordinary citizens alike.

This cabinet reshuffle was an opportunity to reduce that concern and streamline the actors in the Eskom and energy recovery efforts. It was an opportunity missed. Ramaphosa simply continued to inflate the cabinet, adding to the already excessive count of ministers and deputy ministers in the presidency. He has simply confirmed that leadership makes him anxious, which will certainly come back to bite him — and the ANC — at the ballot box in 2023.

• Dickson, a former communications adviser to the home affairs ministry, is a political analyst, policy and political risk consultant and talk show host.