MARIANNE MERTEN: Action and accountability needed as 2025 shapes up to be a rollercoaster ride
Blame-shifting and political noise are becoming common currency
15 January 2025 - 05:00
byMarianne Merten
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Questions surrounding the SAPS's resources have still not had satisfying answers from government, the writer says. Picture: Eugene Coetzee
On Monday Donald Trump is set to be sworn in for his second term as US president. His populist “Make America Great Again” motto already shapes global relations, as illustrated by the fallout from his comment that the US should annex Greenland in the interests of national security. Blame-shifting and political noise are becoming common currency, whether the US and world are prepared for this or not.
SA is an old hand at political noise. Saturday’s ANC January 8 statement reiterated the tendency to speak of doing something about, say, joblessness or water scarcity, without worrying about the how. Despite the May 2024 electoral thrashing the party received, its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, insisted that “state power will always be in the hands of the ANC”.
While words can be pretty, even rousing, without appropriate timely action it’s just hollow verbiage. With SA chairing the Group of 20 in 2025, it is crucial to get all the details right and do what is required when it must happen.
The devil is indeed in the details — such as ministers disregarding parliament by not answering questions on time, despite reminders. Those replies are part of the National Assembly rules and parliament’s accountability mechanism for cabinet members.
The year started with a fail for minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, with seven unanswered, now lapsed, questions; public works minister Dean Macpherson with four; police minister Senzo Mchunu three; higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane three; and sports, arts & culture minister Gayton McKenzie one.
Ahead of the final January 9 deadline, documents also show finance minister Enoch Godongwana submitted all of the last 12 late replies from his 2024 workload of 93, while defence minister Angie Motshekga nixed the last 18 of her 122 questions of 2024, and home affairs minister Leon Schreiber answered the last of his 114 questions. Electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa cleared his 10 overdue questions, justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi 14 and basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube the last six of her 2024 batch of 139.
At 194 parliamentary questions the police minister carried the heaviest load, yet health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, with the second most questions at 157, answered all before December 31. On that date Mchunu still had 27 overdue replies, though in addition to support staff the executive handbook allows parliamentary questions show he gets SA Police Service (SAPS) support worth R4.59m, including administrators, drivers, two cleaners and three “food service aides”.
More important than numbers is the quality of replies — or nonreplies. Asked about SAPS vehicles, Mchunu gave provincial breakdowns but not whether these actually were on the road. For the umpteenth time — as with K9 dog handlers’ ages and genders — Mchunu invoked national security secrecy: “availability, utilisation and deployment of human and physical resources may expose operational vulnerabilities, compromise policing activities and the safety of the SAPS employees.”
Yet without real numbers of operational (roadworthy) police vehicles, preferably at dorpie level, or whether K9 handlers are fit, the SAPS’s crime response effectiveness can’t be properly assessed.
The choice of secrecy over accountability and transparency is a worry. The SAPS holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and it seems to exercise this injudiciously. It settled 6,381 claims totalling more than R15.63m in the 2023/24 financial year for, among others, assault and wrongful arrest, by paying out. According to parliamentary replies, that’s up from 2,899 claims totalling R4.88m three years earlier.
The SAPS’s secrecy bias unfolds as the much talked about revised national security strategy remains missing in action despite ministerial pledges to publish it. Such a strategy — not a descriptive statement — was urgently needed, according to the 2018 State Security Agency high-level review panel, and the Sandy Africa panel on the July 2021 violence.
Without it, SA’s strategic approach to domestic issues will remain unknown, allowing police to roam at will, while it’s also a mystery how SA sees the world and its place in it.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
MARIANNE MERTEN: Action and accountability needed as 2025 shapes up to be a rollercoaster ride
Blame-shifting and political noise are becoming common currency
On Monday Donald Trump is set to be sworn in for his second term as US president. His populist “Make America Great Again” motto already shapes global relations, as illustrated by the fallout from his comment that the US should annex Greenland in the interests of national security. Blame-shifting and political noise are becoming common currency, whether the US and world are prepared for this or not.
SA is an old hand at political noise. Saturday’s ANC January 8 statement reiterated the tendency to speak of doing something about, say, joblessness or water scarcity, without worrying about the how. Despite the May 2024 electoral thrashing the party received, its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, insisted that “state power will always be in the hands of the ANC”.
While words can be pretty, even rousing, without appropriate timely action it’s just hollow verbiage. With SA chairing the Group of 20 in 2025, it is crucial to get all the details right and do what is required when it must happen.
The devil is indeed in the details — such as ministers disregarding parliament by not answering questions on time, despite reminders. Those replies are part of the National Assembly rules and parliament’s accountability mechanism for cabinet members.
The year started with a fail for minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, with seven unanswered, now lapsed, questions; public works minister Dean Macpherson with four; police minister Senzo Mchunu three; higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane three; and sports, arts & culture minister Gayton McKenzie one.
Ahead of the final January 9 deadline, documents also show finance minister Enoch Godongwana submitted all of the last 12 late replies from his 2024 workload of 93, while defence minister Angie Motshekga nixed the last 18 of her 122 questions of 2024, and home affairs minister Leon Schreiber answered the last of his 114 questions. Electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa cleared his 10 overdue questions, justice minister Mmamoloko Kubayi 14 and basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube the last six of her 2024 batch of 139.
At 194 parliamentary questions the police minister carried the heaviest load, yet health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, with the second most questions at 157, answered all before December 31. On that date Mchunu still had 27 overdue replies, though in addition to support staff the executive handbook allows parliamentary questions show he gets SA Police Service (SAPS) support worth R4.59m, including administrators, drivers, two cleaners and three “food service aides”.
More important than numbers is the quality of replies — or nonreplies. Asked about SAPS vehicles, Mchunu gave provincial breakdowns but not whether these actually were on the road. For the umpteenth time — as with K9 dog handlers’ ages and genders — Mchunu invoked national security secrecy: “availability, utilisation and deployment of human and physical resources may expose operational vulnerabilities, compromise policing activities and the safety of the SAPS employees.”
Yet without real numbers of operational (roadworthy) police vehicles, preferably at dorpie level, or whether K9 handlers are fit, the SAPS’s crime response effectiveness can’t be properly assessed.
The choice of secrecy over accountability and transparency is a worry. The SAPS holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and it seems to exercise this injudiciously. It settled 6,381 claims totalling more than R15.63m in the 2023/24 financial year for, among others, assault and wrongful arrest, by paying out. According to parliamentary replies, that’s up from 2,899 claims totalling R4.88m three years earlier.
The SAPS’s secrecy bias unfolds as the much talked about revised national security strategy remains missing in action despite ministerial pledges to publish it. Such a strategy — not a descriptive statement — was urgently needed, according to the 2018 State Security Agency high-level review panel, and the Sandy Africa panel on the July 2021 violence.
Without it, SA’s strategic approach to domestic issues will remain unknown, allowing police to roam at will, while it’s also a mystery how SA sees the world and its place in it.
• Merten is a veteran political journalist specialising in parliament and governance.
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More of the same expected from the ANC in 2025
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