When a government begins to resemble a corporate year-end function—replete with inflated titles, overlapping responsibilities, and far too many people doing far too little—it ceases to be a cabinet and becomes a congregation. South Africa’s executive, now swollen to 77 members, has long since abandoned (arguably never adopted) the lean pragmatism of constitutional governance.
Instead, it has become a stage for theatrical inclusivity, factional appeasement, and ideological nostalgia. It is less an engine of reform than a sanctuary for the politically indebted. What we are witnessing is not governance—it is self-preservation in ceremonial attire.
The calls to reduce the size of this mammoth machine have been loud and varied. Libertarian reformists, federal conservatives, classical liberals, and even the odd disillusioned socialist have all sharpened their pruning shears. The arguments are well-trodden and rather simple: excessive cost, duplicated functions, lack of efficiency, and a patronage culture choking public service, born out of Lenin’s most fanciful daydreams.
But allow me, dear reader, to offer a somewhat different perspective, that this Cabinet is not just oversized, it is ideologically embalmed.
When Titles Trump Service
To understand why South Africa continues to defend such a grotesquely oversized executive, one must peer into the psyche of its ruling class. It was that prophet of the ANC, Karl Marx, who in 1845 stated that the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. So what exactly are the ideas of our guides up Government Avenue?
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently defended the value of deputy ministers by citing inclusivity—gender, youth, region, party politics. It’s a poetic line, suggesting that representation itself is governance. But there’s a deeper pathology here, namely that we are still entranced by the idea that the state must represent everything, own everything, control everything, and solve everything.
The state is not a partner in our pursuit of freedom, prosperity, and community, it is our mother and father who will decide when and what we eat, where, and when we sleep, and if we allow it, advise on the ideal way in which to approach our ablutions. This is the long tail of post-liberation centralisation, the ideological hangover we have in our new constitutional order.
A large cabinet and executive is not about pragmatic governance. The undertone is about the preservation of the idea that a larger state is a better state, that more ministers equals more care, that political representation is interchangeable with capability. Like the Soviet Union before us, whose bureaucratic mass eventually collapsed under the weight of its own absurdities, the government has convinced itself that performance is secondary to presence. Effectively that governance is about titles rather than outcomes.
What is the point?
What is a Ministry of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation if not an admission of bureaucratic mistrust? And is this ministry supposed to move around like a team of yuppie consultants in fancy suits from one department to the next, thinking on their behalf? I’m not being coy, I really want to know. And if that is their job, what exactly if the job of the department that they are consulting, if it is not planning, monitoring, and evaluation? What is the point of a Minister of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities if every other department is supposed to be inclusive by design?
These roles don’t signal innovation, they signal an inherently impractical view of what a government is, and what it is supposed to do. They are not ministries of governance, they are ministries of feeling, created not to do but to reassure.
We are no longer led by a Cabinet, but by a shrine, one erected to the idols of past struggle credentials, systemic factional appeasement, and the illusion of inclusivity.
Trimming of the executive is therefore not just a fiscal necessity, it is an act of national rebirth. A move away from state-as-parent to state-as-servant. A lean Cabinet would not just save billions, as we at Free SA, among others, have indicated. It would signal that the executive (likely a coalition government as this seems to be South Africa’s future) is ready to govern, not cling to the revolutionary moment that has long since passed.
How should Cabinet look?
So what would a post-shrine executive look like?
Start with the obvious. Eliminate ministries that exist solely for show. If representation is the goal, embed it through performance metrics and equity audits and not redundant departments. Ministries such as Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities; Small Business Development; Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation should all be dissolved or integrated. These functions belong in every department’s DNA, not perched on a ministerial pedestal.
Next, merge overlapping portfolios that have bred administrative hydras rather than outcomes.
Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure should absorb: Electricity and Energy, Water and Sanitation, Transport and Land Reform and Rural Development.
Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development should absorb Correctional Services.
Ministry of Sports, Arts, and Culture should merge with Tourism, Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment and Agriculture.
South Africa’s geography and diversity demand tailored responses, not bloated structures duplicating each other’s failures.
Decentralise
Then decentralise. Push education, policing, and healthcare closer to the communities they serve. Johannesburg does not need the same policing strategies as De Aar. The Western Cape’s health system bears little resemblance to that of Limpopo. Let provinces compete. Let them innovate. Devolve power and watch responsibility return. The national government should set standards and enforce accountability, not run every chalkboard, clinic, and police precinct from Pretoria.
And yes, abolish deputy ministers. The President’s protestations to their value ring hollow. They are not junior ministers; they are political IOUs. The only place where duplication produces value is in a copy machine, not in governance. Let ministers earn their salaries. And let us be honest about what that salary represents: R2.7 million per year, more than a minimum-wage earner makes in five decades. In what moral universe can this be justified when potholes remain unfilled, crime unfought, and power grids unpowered?
Of course, the GNU complicates matters. Coalition politics demands compromise. But if that compromise requires structural inefficiency, then it is not a government but a jobs programme for party and coalition loyalists. The same President who claims his Cabinet “represents the people” must explain why his ministers need VIP protection from those very people.
What, then, is the unique contribution to this debate? It is this: We must recognise that Cabinet bloat is not an accident of mismanagement—it is a symptom of our ideological malaise. Until we break from the romance of central planning, until we stop equating quantity with care, and until we rediscover the virtues of subsidiarity and minimalism, we will remain governed by shadows, past struggles, empty portfolios, and vanishing fiscal space.
The idea of subsidiarity comes to mind – this approach dictates that a decision is only escalated if it can not be solved at the lowest level. Schools should only escalate to the district what they can not solve in the teachers’ lounge. Districts should only escalate to the MEC what they can not solve in the local boardroom. The MEC should only escalate to the minister what can not be solved at provincial level. Surely this is the way forward?
A reckoning
South Africa stands at the edge of a reckoning. Our budget deficit is widening, our economic growth is limping at under 2% according to the most optimistic of readings, and public trust is in freefall. The state, once imagined as the guardian of justice, now resembles an aging actor, long past its prime, desperate for a few more scenes on stage.
It is time to close the curtain.
The future does not belong to governments that hoard power, but to those who wield it wisely. Trimming the Cabinet is not just a cost-cutting measure; it is a test of seriousness. It is a referendum on whether we wish to continue performing the rituals of revolution, or whether we are ready to embrace the rigour of a republic.
We must choose. A state that serves—or a Cabinet that feasts.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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