Rob Hersov’s Cabinet of Extraordinary People

Rob Hersov has never been shy about what he thinks of South Africa's political class, and this piece is vintage Hersov — provocative, pointed and packed with names, with quite a few BNC#9 speakers among them. Taking Cyril Ramaphosa's bloated 32-portfolio Cabinet as his foil, the businessman proposes a leaner 20-ministry structure built around competence rather than cadre deployment. His picks span Dawie Roodt at Treasury, Mteto Nyati running a consolidated energy and minerals portfolio, Judge Mahomed Navsa heading law and order, and Rassie Erasmus as his self-described "rockstar" choice for sport and culture. Agree or disagree, the bench he assembles makes the current Cabinet look even worse..By Rob Hersov.I have created a deliberately hypothetical, talent-first Cabinet for South Africa to show you what extraordinary talent we have in this country – compared to the idealogues, clowns, commies, corrupto’s and cadres the ANC has heaped on us for 30 years. I have chosen people who are highly respected in their fields, have been successful, who have not served as national Cabinet ministers, and who are mainly non-politicians, although a few appointments inevitably come from public advocacy, public administration, military leadership, or civic life.I have taken Cyril’s bloated and ineffective 32-portfolio structure and developed a leaner, more credible, less ideological Cabinet of 20 portfolios. My aim is not to reproduce the current state architecture, but to show what a serious reform Cabinet could look like if portfolios were merged, symbolic or duplicative ministries were removed, and appointments were based primarily on competence, public trust, execution ability and broad respectability.The Free Market Foundation has argued that South Africa’s Cabinet is excessively large and could be reduced from more than 30 portfolios to only 10 ministries through consolidation, devolution and abolition of unnecessary departments. My proposal is less radical than that model, but follows the same logic: fewer ministers, broader mandates, clearer accountability, and less room for patronage.I am well aware of the constitutional rights of only two Ministers that are not Parliamentarians as well as the idea of the editorial is to show the consolidation of the portfolios as well as the stature and competence of individuals available in our country .And I am leaving the offices of President and Deputy President open, so you don’t jump to any conclusions about “who runs the country”. .My revised structure merges Justice, Police and Correctional Services into a single Law and Order ministry, because crime, prosecution, prisons and policing should be managed as one safety-and-justice chain. I have merged Basic Education, Higher Education and Training into one Education, Skills and Higher Education portfolio, because schooling, vocational training and universities are parts of a single human-capital pipeline.I have also combined Electricity and Energy with Mineral and Petroleum Resources, since energy security, grid reform, gas, coal, renewables, mining investment and petroleum strategy are inseparable. Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development are consolidated because food security, land, farmer support, rural title and agricultural exports should not be split between competing bureaucracies. Communications, Digital Technologies, Science and Innovation are merged because artificial intelligence, broadband, digital government, research and technology commercialisation now belong in one future-facing ministry.The previous stand-alone ministries for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, The Presidency, Planning, Public Works, Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, Tourism, and Small Business Development are either abolished as separate political offices or absorbed into larger delivery departments. The goal is not to downgrade those social concerns, but to stop treating every concern as requiring a separate minister, deputy minister, director-general, press office and patronage structure. At exorbitant cost..Here we go………my top picks:Finance and Treasury —Dawie Roodt is a strong fit for Finance because the position needs fiscal honesty more than political choreography. His reputation as a direct economist and market commentator would help restore seriousness around debt, deficits, tax exhaustion, state-owned enterprise bailouts and the cost of low growth. The Treasury should be the guardian of arithmetic inside government, and Roodt’s greatest contribution would be to force Cabinet to choose, cost and fund priorities transparently.Economic Growth, Trade, Industry and Competition — Warren Wheatley would bring a capital-markets and investment lens to a portfolio that too often confuses policy announcements with actual industrial growth. He would be expected to focus on investable industrial policy, competition that lowers barriers to entry, export growth, black industrial capital that can scale, and practical partnerships between government, pension capital, development finance and private enterprise. His appointment would signal a shift from ideological industrial policy to commercially credible execution.Electricity, Energy, Minerals and Petroleum — Mteto Nyati remains one of the strongest candidates in the entire exercise. He is executive chairman of BSG, chairman of Eskom, former Group Chief Executive of Altron and former CEO of MTN South Africa, with a mechanical-engineering background and a record in technology-led leadership. A consolidated energy and resources ministry would need precisely that mix of engineering literacy, turnaround experience, procurement discipline, corporate credibility and realism about grid constraints.Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development —Dr Theo de Jager is exactly the kind of practical, field-tested figure a reform Cabinet should elevate. He is president of the World Farmers’ Organisation and former president of both the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions and the Pan African Farmers Union, with work in land reform, transformation, farmer development and African agricultural liaison. He would be well suited to a merged agriculture-and-land portfolio that must protect food security while making land reform productive rather than symbolic.Law and Order —Judge Mahomed Navsa is a strong non-political choice for a combined Law and Order portfolio. The Supreme Court of Appeal records his career at the Legal Resources Centre, appointment as Senior Counsel, service as a High Court judge, chairmanship of the Legal Aid Board, and long tenure as a Judge of Appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal. He also acted at the Constitutional Court, worked in public-interest law through the Legal Resources Centre, contributed to judicial training and was involved with George Bizos in drafting legislation that led to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Combining Justice, Police and Correctional Services under Navsa would put the full safety-and-justice chain under a figure associated with legal seriousness, civil liberties, institutional independence and judicial authority.Defence, Intelligence and Military Veterans —General Rudzani Maphwanya would bring professional military seriousness to a defence portfolio that should not be treated as a ceremonial political reward. South Africa needs an honest capability audit covering borders, maritime security, regional commitments, intelligence coordination, reserve forces, equipment readiness and veteran welfare. A career military leader would be better placed than a career politician to distinguish between symbolic defence posture and actual operational capacity.Education, Skills and Higher Education — Professor Zeblon Vilakazi is a high-calibre replacement for the education portfolio because he combines scientific excellence, university leadership and institutional credibility. Wits records that he was appointed Vice-Chancellor and Principal in January 2021 after serving as Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, and that his earlier career included leadership roles at NECSA and iThemba LABS, postdoctoral work at CERN and membership of major scientific bodies. He has more than 300 refereed articles in nuclear and high-energy physics and is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. His appointment would make the education portfolio more ambitious: universities, schools, vocational training and research would be treated as one national talent-and-knowledge system.Health and Social Protection —Dr Stavros Nicolaou is a pragmatic and skilled appointee. He is Aspen Pharmacare’s Group Senior Executive for Strategic Trade, with more than three decades of pharmaceutical experience, work across over 50 geographies, involvement in introducing generic ARVs on the African continent and a key role in South Africa’s organised-business Covid response. His bio highlights his focus on African vaccine manufacturing, predictable procurement and health security. He would bring public-private execution, medicine supply chains and continental health-manufacturing strategy to the ministry.Home Affairs, Immigration and Civic Services — Wayne Duvenhage is my choice because Home Affairs is fundamentally a public-systems reform department. His civic activism and OUTA-style accountability approach would be useful in a ministry that must fix passports, identity documents, visas, border processes, records, queues and corruption. His central mandate would be to turn Home Affairs into a fast, digital, trusted civic platform that supports skilled migration, tourism, investment and citizen dignity.Public Administration, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs —Busisiwe Mavuso is perfect for the machinery-of-government portfolio because her strengths are governance, accountability, board discipline and institutional performance. This ministry would absorb public service reform, municipal oversight, intergovernmental coordination and traditional affairs. Her task would be to professionalise appointments, publish performance metrics, protect competent officials, reduce duplication and make local government failure visible before it becomes irreversible.Infrastructure, Public Works and Human Settlements —Sizwe Nxasana would be a practical appointment for a merged infrastructure portfolio because public works, housing, public assets and infrastructure finance must be managed together. The point of this ministry would be delivery, not ribbon-cutting: project pipelines, transparent procurement, maintenance, land release, title, urban densification and private capital mobilisation. Nxasana’s institution-building and financial-services background would suit a portfolio where the central discipline is turning balance sheets and budgets into assets that work.Transport, Ports and Logistics —Vuyani Jarana would bring operating-company discipline to one of South Africa’s most economically important portfolios. Transport should be understood as a logistics system linking ports, rail, roads, aviation, taxis, buses and freight corridors. Jarana’s experience in aviation and large-scale corporate operations would be useful in forcing measurable improvements in reliability, safety, turnaround times, freight movement and customer service.Communications, Digital Technologies, Science and Innovation — Stafford Masie’s profile records his experience in software, Novell, open-source technology and as CEO of Google Africa and Sub-Sahara. This consolidated ministry would combine broadband, digital government, cyber resilience, artificial intelligence policy, data centres, scientific research, commercialisation and technology entrepreneurship. Masie would be expected to make South Africa a serious participant in the digital economy rather than a passive consumer of imported platforms.Planning, Monitoring and State Performance —Phuthuma Nhleko would be a strong choice for a slimmed-down central performance ministry. Nelson Mandela University records his role in MTN’s growth across Africa and the Middle East, while IHS Towers notes his service as MTN Group CEO, later MTN chair, Phembani Group chairman and Johannesburg Stock Exchange chairman. His role would be to impose execution discipline across Cabinet, set measurable targets, monitor delivery and force consequences for non-performance.Environment, Water, Sanitation, Forestry and Fisheries —Dr Stanley Liphadzi would be a technocratic choice for a merged natural-systems portfolio. The logic of the merger is straightforward: water, sanitation, catchments, forestry, fisheries, conservation and environmental regulation are part of one ecological and infrastructure system. This ministry should be run less like a political communications platform and more like a science, engineering and enforcement department focused on wastewater compliance, dam planning, catchment protection, fisheries sustainability and municipal water recovery.International Relations and African Cooperation —Moletsi Mbeki brings strategic realism and African political-economy literacy to foreign affairs. South Africa needs a foreign policy that is principled but not performative, commercially useful but not mercenary, and continental in outlook without being naive about governance failures. Mbeki would be expected to focus on trade corridors, African institutional reform, investment diplomacy, regional stability and a more mature non-aligned posture.Employment, Labour and Industrial Relations —Gerhard Papenfus is a top choice because this portfolio needs a serious employer-side voice if South Africa is to become a jobs economy. His mandate would not be to abolish worker protections, but to rebalance labour policy toward employment creation, apprenticeships, industrial peace and small-business hiring. A labour ministry should be judged by whether more people enter formal work, not by how much regulation it produces.Small Business, Tourism and Events Economy —Rashid Toefy would be a suitable minister for a merged small-business, tourism and events economy portfolio because these sectors overlap in practice. Tourism depends on small operators, restaurants, transport providers, cultural venues, events, township businesses and destination marketing. The point of the ministry would be to remove barriers, improve safety coordination, simplify permits, support conferences and events, and turn tourism into a decentralised enterprise engine.Sport, Arts, Culture and National Identity —Rassie Erasmus is my “rockstar” choice. He guided the Springboks to the 2019 Rugby Championship and Rugby World Cup titles and then to a second consecutive world title in 2023, using unconventional methods, team culture and trust-building. His value in this portfolio would be to treat sport, arts and culture as instruments of excellence, national identity, discipline, youth opportunity and soft power, not as a patronage pool.Civil Society, Family and Community Development —Rachel Kolisi would be a superb non-political and focused choice. This ministry would absorb the useful parts of Social Development and the abolished Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities portfolio without creating a separate symbolic department for every social category. Its work would focus on families, children, community organisations, early intervention, trauma support, youth mentorship, disability inclusion through mainstream services, and stronger partnerships with non-state providers..In summary, the message is clear – we have a huge “bench” of extraordinary and talented people in our beloved country. Why are we then allowing the ANC to continue forcing upon us their madala’s and the ideologues and, worst of all, their kleptocrats and ineptocrats?.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Rob Hersov’s Cabinet of Extraordinary People

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