Johnathan Paoli
The DA has declared its intention to go to court in order to force President Cyril Ramaphosa to make public the performance assessments of his ministers.
The opposition party previously instituted a Promotion to Access for Information application, which was subsequently turned down, a decision which the party said it would be appealing.
The performance agreements President Ramaphosa signed with his ministers in 2020 are published on the government’s website. But Ramaphosa was quoted this week saying he has no intention of making the assessments known to the public.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa is censoring the public from measuring the performance of their government, reneging on his promises and dodging transparency.
“As the South African people continue to suffer under the failure and collapse of government at the hands of the ANC, it is only fitting that the people be allowed to judge the performance, or non-performance, of their government for themselves,” Steenhuisen said.
According to presidential spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, the president is under no obligation to release the performance appraisals.
“The president’s goal with this exercise is to ensure that the government continues to operate as efficiently as possible and that the priorities he has outlined to the public are implemented as speedily as possible,” said Magwenya adding that the President didn’t want the opposition to use them for political ends nor to embarrass the ministers
Magwenya said that ministers do account publicly on their performance when they go to Parliament, and Parliament is quite transparent with those engagements and that there was no issue of accountability by the executive being absent from the public domain.
The spokesperson said performance assessments are similar in nature to discussions between an employer and his employees in terms of assessing progress on the priorities that have been outlined, and thus confidentiality was a core element.
“What I am trying to say to you is that, from the president’s point of view, the purpose is not to embarrass anybody or hang people to dry out in public. The purpose is to be constructive and find ways to immediately intervene where there are gaps,” Magwenya said.
INSIDE POLITICS