Pretoria - Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday fired a broadside at what he referred to as self-serving leaders, saying South Africans didn’t need Mickey Mouse people to manage their affairs.
“We must not be afraid to be accountable. We must not run away and hide when accountability beckons. When the moment has arrived for you to be accountable and answer, don’t jika jika (dilly dally),” he said.
“But if you are doing it for yourself and your family, then that’s fine... you don’t need to account to anybody.”
Ramaphosa was delivering the keynote address to about 600 delegates during the fifth expanded public works programme (EPWP) summit at St Georges Hotel in Irene.
The two-day event is being held under under the theme “See, Feel and Experience EPWP”.
Public Works Deputy Minister Jeremy Cronin, Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen were also there.
Ramaphosa addressed the summit in his capacity as the chairman of the public employment inter-ministerial committee.
The deputy president had harsh words for those who dodged accountability while in charge of state institutions. His remark about leadership and accountability was a deviation from his prepared speech that highlighted the importance of EPWP as the driver for the creation of job opportunities.
The EPWP intended to create 6 million job opportunities before the end of the five-year term, he said.
“And how are we going to do it? We will do it without stealing government money; that’s when we can do it effectively. We will do it when we act as people of integrity, as we act with great respect for the assets of the people, the assets of our state.”
Ramaphosa said for EPWP to be effective, it didn’t need people who were interested in lining their pockets with public money.
He said the country needed men and women of integrity who, when they interfaced with the state, would not see it as a reservoir or a bank from which to steal public money.
Ramaphosa called on society to put the right people in the right places and for state resources to be protected and not mismanaged.
“We must get rid of mismanagement. We must get the best people to manage the affairs of our country; we must not put Mickey Mouse people to manage the affairs of the country,” he said.
He said another important attribute for those in power was to be transparent. “Don’t hide anything that involves our people. We must be transparent; do it transparently.”
Leaders had to be armed with the highest ethical values and not allow the EPWP to get bogged down in reputational risk.
Cronin warned against the tendency of ward councillors to only give the EPWP jobs to those who were aligned to their political party.
He said such allegations could potentially taint the reputation of the EPWP.
The tendency of councillors selecting political supporters to be part of the programme needed to be addressed.
Van Rooyen said many worked for the first time as a result of the EPWP, and the programme gave the poor income and dignity.
Pretoria News