EDITORIAL: How to fail upwards

It turns out there is a consequence for abysmal performance in the ANC: it’s promotion.

Last week, the country breathed a collective sigh of relief when President Cyril Ramaphosa sacked his bumbling defence minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. In a career dating from 2004, she has filled three ministerial roles — home affairs, correctional services and defence — and arguably contributed less to society than one of parliament’s wooden benches.

As defence minister, she was ruthlessly exposed many times — not least when she put party loyalty above the state and ferried an ANC delegation to Zimbabwe at taxpayers’ expense during the hard lockdown.

More recently, her ham-fisted fiddling while the country burnt during the unrest meant that retaining her in her post was impossible.

Though you’d hope that perhaps Mapisa-Nqakula would switch careers at this point — perhaps become an undertaker specialising in the Niehaus family tragedies — the ANC seems to believe her track record qualifies her for greater responsibility.

So it is that ANC chair Gwede Mantashe has nominated her as speaker of parliament. Her "wealth of experience" commends her. A better description, of course, would be her "poverty of experience".

And here we thought we’d hit rock bottom with former speaker Baleka Mbete. This is a move that sorely undercuts Ramaphosa’s claim to be trying to ensure better performance.