{"id":780888,"date":"2024-07-04T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=780888"},"modified":"2024-07-05T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T13:08:09","slug":"south-africas-new-cabinet-larger-than-germany-uk-and-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/780888\/south-africas-new-cabinet-larger-than-germany-uk-and-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s new cabinet larger than Germany, UK, and Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 30 June 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his new cabinet after forming a government of national unity (GNU).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What stood out about his new national executive, apart from including numerous GNU partners, is the high number of ministers and deputy ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa added two ministers and seven deputy ministers, increasing the national executive to 75. It is the largest the country has ever had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He previously promised to reduce the number of portfolios in the national executive, and, therefore, the number of ministers and deputy ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said it was not possible because the new cabinet had to include all the parties to the government of national unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also against the DA\u2019s 2029 vision, which provided a new configuration for South Africa\u2019s executive with only 15 ministries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bloated cabinet has drawn widespread criticism as it will make governing less effective and more costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marius Roodt, an analyst at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), described Ramaphosa\u2019s cabinet as bloated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cabinet could be reduced to ten portfolios. The cabinet must have a laser-like focus on one thing: economic growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the new cabinet means almost one in every five members of parliament is either a minister or a deputy minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ministerial salaries cost South Africa close to R200 million a year. This does not include the value of other perks that cabinet ministers and their deputies receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) has also called for reducing the South African cabinet to ten ministries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe size of the cabinet, in particular, the large bureaucracy and contingent of civil servants represented by each portfolio, is a significant burden on the economy,\u201d the FNF said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConsequently, reducing the size of government is more important than which particular party controls a department at any given time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An analysis of South Africa\u2019s cabinet size<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Outlier has analysed Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s 2024 cabinet<\/a>, which shows it is significantly larger than many developed countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new national executive of 75 ministers and their deputies has eleven parties represented in the newly formed coalition government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the largest cabinet South Africa has ever had. The second-biggest was ten years ago under then-president Jacob Zuma, when there were 72 ministers and deputies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below, courtesy of The Outlier, shows how the size of South Africa\u2019s cabinet changed over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Outlier compared Cyril Rrmaphosa\u2019s 2024 cabinet size with that of other countries, like Germany, the UK, China, Brazil, and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis shows that South Africa\u2019s cabinet is double the size of Germany\u2019s. Germany, with 17 portfolios, is the smallest of the countries in the comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has a bigger cabinet but a smaller population and economy than Germany. The latter has a population of 84 million, much larger than South Africa\u2019s 60 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) of $405 billion is 90% smaller than Germany\u2019s $4 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, South Africa\u2019s cabinet is smaller than China, Brazil, and India. It should be noted that they have far larger populations and economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Read: Alarm bells are ringing for South Africa\u2019s coalition era<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Cyril Ramaphosa added two ministers and seven deputy ministers, making it the biggest cabinet South Africa has ever had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":780269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1900,1293,20167,20168],"class_list":["post-780888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cabinet","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-government-of-national-unity-gnu","tag-national-executive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780888","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=780888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781204,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780888\/revisions\/781204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}