EDITORIAL: How Zuma’s lethal cabinet churn has caused chaos and instability
The cabinet reshuffle has been used by Zuma as a political weapon
A startling new report by the Institute of Race Relations has revealed the extent of the chaos and instability of the Jacob Zuma administration. The report tracks the churn at the top of the government, measuring how long Cabinet and director-general posts are occupied by the same person and the length of time the same minister and head of department will, on average, spend working together. The findings are shocking. The trend from May 2009 to July 2017 indicates the average national department will be subject to a cabinet reshuffle every nine months. The average director-general will serve 22 months before their contract ends, or they are fired, suspended, given a golden handshake or redeployed. The length of time any minister and director-general will work together before a change is made to one of them is 14 months. Leadership and management churn of these proportions would be detrimental to any organisation. In the government, where most programmes are multiyear and may even ha...
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