OVERHEARD AT DURBAN: An age-old excuse from Zuma
Our Cabinet-maker says reshuffle was to open doors for younger ministers, writes Tim Cohen
Thursday’s highlight was the opening address by President Jacob Zuma, introduced by World Economic Forum (WEF) executive chairman Klaus Schwab. Actually, highlight is probably an overstatement. The hall was packed and you got the sense that people were more mesmerised than genuinely interested. What would he say? What can he say? As it turns out, not much. The only little frisson was when he suggested that the real reason he reshuffled his cabinet was because he wanted to draft in younger people. "I reshuffled my Cabinet recently and I put a lot of young people in my Cabinet," Zuma said in his response. "Of course, people have different views about that, but that’s democracy." Aha! That’s the reason. Funny that there were no younger candidates who would take the place of 54-year-old Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini who nearly brought one of SA’s most successful development initiatives to its knees. In fact, he did draft younger people into the Cabinet. Newly appointed P...
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