Ivor Chipkin: GNU outlaws cadré deployment

President Cyril Ramaphosa's assent to the Public Service Amendment Bill has been hailed as the most significant reform since 1996. In this interview with Chris Steyn,  Ivor Chipkin, the Director of New South Institute (NSI), says “we've got now in law a distinction between political office and administrative office…Our politicians, our president, our cabinet ministers and our MECs no longer have the power to recruit and to make operational decisions inside departments. And senior officials extraordinarily can no longer be office bearers of political parties. Again, quite extraordinary…it blocks cadre deployment, makes cadre deployment essentially illegal or …very, very difficult.” Chipkin predicts that the new law is also going to change “the shape of…elite contestation”, saying: “Essentially what the new act does is it reduces the ability of a dominant political party, whether it's the ANC or any other party, to deploy people into the State directly and therefore to gatekeep access to State resources.” Chipkin also explains how South Africa’s foreign policy is “strongly influenced”  by political networks, both within the ANC, but also outside the organised political networks.

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Edited transcript of the interview