{"id":166599,"date":"2017-03-28T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=166599"},"modified":"2017-03-28T10:00:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:00:07","slug":"why-zuma-appointing-himself-head-of-government-communications-is-so-important-legal-analyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/166599\/why-zuma-appointing-himself-head-of-government-communications-is-so-important-legal-analyst\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Zuma appointing himself head of government communications is so important: legal analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma has reconstituted\u00a0the inter-ministerial committee on information and publicity, government confirmed in a statement <\/a><\/strong>on 27 March.<\/p>\n

The committee is responsible for championing government programmes and \u00a0ensuring that they are more effectively communicated to ordinary South Africans and the world at large,\u00a0, noted Legalbrief <\/a><\/strong>analyst Pam Saxby.<\/p>\n

The statement notes its purpose is to \u2018improve the management\u2019 of the Government Communication and Information Services \u2018secretariat\u2019 by \u2018centralising\u2019 the communications function under Minister Faith Muthambi.<\/p>\n

The President will chair the committee, which has apparently been headed for some time by Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe \u2013 as a \u2018transitional\u2019 arrangement.<\/p>\n

It’s ironic then that his\u00a0first act as head of communications was to offer no explanation for his recall of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, notes Saxby.<\/p>\n

“Sadly, things began rather badly yesterday with three media statements on an investment \u2018roadshow\u2019 that had just begun in London, only to be ended abruptly by President Jacob Zuma with no explanation whatsoever,” said Saxby.<\/p>\n

“All\u00a0three media statements were dated 27 March and have since been the subject of widespread speculation about an imminent Cabinet reshuffle. Interestingly, however, the \u2018reconstituted\u2019 communications committee includes Gordhan – this appointment could point to a small chance of Gordhan retaining his post.”<\/p>\n

However she also noted that Zuma’s appointment and Gordhan’s recall had broader implications for the ANC.<\/p>\n

“As reported earlier this year, an ANC\u00a0discussion document<\/a> on communications policy and the \u2018battle of ideas\u2019 released last month among other things concedes that government communications \u2018from the legislature upwards\u2019 require \u2018serious attention\u2019 and improvement.”<\/p>\n

“Yesterday\u2019s media statements on the aborted \u2018road show\u2019 clearly demonstrate why,” she concluded.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0\u2018Not our business,\u2019 says ANC of Gordhan\u2019s recall<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma has reconstituted the inter-ministerial committee on information and publicity, government confirmed in a statement on 27 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-166599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166599"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166613,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166599\/revisions\/166613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}