Ekurhuleni – President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday he constantly reviewed his Cabinet, assessing whether the ministers he had appointed were meeting their mandate and serving the communities around South Africa.
Ramaphosa, however, declined to be drawn into whether he would be replacing some of the ministers in the security cluster, following the apparent failure to foresee and manage the recent riots which left hundreds of people dead, and billion of rand lost through widespread looting and vandalism.
“What are you trying to get me to say… that I am going to fire ministers and all that? As I said, the process of people who are deployed to work with any leader even in a Cabinet situation is a process that you evaluate, and it’s best to leave it there.
’’It is a process that one does, as one evaluates everything and everyone that you work with,” Ramaphosa said in response to journalists’ queries in Tembisa, Gauteng.
Ramaphosa was also asked if he is considering reconfiguring his Cabinet, considering South Africa did not have a substantive health minister after Zweli Mkhize was placed on special leave following his implication in the contentious awarding of a contract to Digital Vibes.
He replied: “Well, the issue of reconfiguring Cabinet is an ongoing consideration by any president. You look at how you deploy the people you are working with, and how you place those people to execute various tasks.
’’So it is an ongoing process of evaluation and all that. It’s not something that we would say it is an outlandish process. We continue to look at it”.
On Thursday, Ramaphosa was visiting two Gauteng vaccination sites in his bid to assess progress in the vaccination programme.
After visiting the vaccination site at Rabasotho community centre in Tembisa, Ramaphosa and his entourage, which include Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and Gauteng Premier David Makhura headed to Midrand, to inspect another site.
“I have been very impressed with what I have seen here. Acting Health Minister Kubayi and the Premier (Makhura) have been showing me around. We are making a great deal of progress. The numbers of vaccinations are ticking up,” said Ramaphosa in Tembisa.
“One of the things I came to check is whether they have any shortages of vaccines. They told me they don’t have shortages.
’’They have never had shortages. Today was a bit of a slow day, but on a good day they do manage to vaccinate quite a lot of people.”
African News Agency (ANA)