ANC’s Mbali Hlophe was left out of the Gauteng provincial executive council despite ranking in the top three of the party province-to-province list ahead of the May elections.
According to PEC insiders, Hlophe shot herself in the foot by being defiant when corrected during her time as social development MEC in the previous term.
The ANC has seven seats in the new provincial cabinet announced by Premier Panyaza Lesufi this week, with the three other seats going to the IFP, Patriotic Alliance and Rise Mzansi.
Our sources within the ANC leadership in the province said Hlophe had herself to blame and that no one was willing to fight for a stubborn person.
“The NGOs in our province are in disarray and have a frosty relationship with the provincial government because of her attitude towards them. No one was willing to advance her name because she listens to no one,” said an ANC leader.
Lesufi, during his announcement of the new MEC for social development, Faith Mazibuko, appeared to confirm that Hlophe was at odds with NGOs.
The relationship between social development and NGOs had degenerated so badly that Lesufi apologised to the sector.
He promised a new dawn with the placement of the energetic Mazibuko, who has the task to correct Hlophe’s wrongs.
“Our relationship with NGOs is a very serious relation that unfortunately there were serious missteps [in the previous term],” said Lesufi.
“We need to rectify this; our NGOs are doing work on behalf of government, and they must be treated with respect. They are not doing us a favour.
“It is within this context that I sincerely want to apologise to this sector for the pain and the misery that they are going through.”
Hlophe said it was not true that she antagonised NGOs and added that her job was far bigger than NGO and that her scorecard speaks for itself.
Social development, under Hlophe, last year scored 83% on its performance targets, the highest score in half a decade.
“There is no beef between me and NPOs. The forensic investigations and restructuring we conducted was in line with the mandate given to me by the Premier as articulated in his State of the Province Address,” she said.
“As it relates to the work, we did and achieved on, it’s disingenuous to limit the work to NPOs, when I was an Executive of two Departments (the Department of Social Development and the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment). NPOs therefore are a fraction of the work we were tasked with, and to date our performance in both Departments remains the highest in five years. And this is an achievement I and the teams pride ourselves in. We will continue to contribute meaningfully to the legislature tasks.”
Hlkophe said she was not bitter as appointing MEC was the sole prerogative of the Premier. She committed to support the new executive council and play her oversight role at the provincial legislature.
Mzi Khumalo is another MEC who did not return to the provincial executive. He was, however, outside the safe one of an ANC without a majority as he appeared on eighth position.
Morakane Mosupyoe was promoted to the position of provincial legislature speaker, a decision she is apparently livid with as she preferred being a MEC as was the case in the previous term, according to her close confidantes.
She is said to be feeling undermined since she is among the ANC provincial top five officials but was deployed to a position she did not want.
Hlophe had not responded to an enquiry at the time of publishing.
Only because, this madness. You will hope that our leaders are more sensible than that. Why people are not emotional intelligent? Does it mean she cannot do the job. Being defiant on one issue why does that is important than her capabilities. This is embarrassing to say the least.
Mbali rocked the boat. The Premier could clearly not risk tarnishing his image with NGOs. For those of us who have experienced her (Mbali) arrogance, it was only a matter of time. As for Mosupyo being unhappy, the Premier chose the best person for the job based on performance. The arts and culture department is rampantly run by non performing and arrogant bureaucrats that need to be kept in check and she was too aloof to citizen complaints in her position as MEC.