A 32-Minister Cabinet is sure to end in a mess. Through the years, many books on management, written by the whole spectrum from hatchet man hirer-firers to industry nice guys caution against large numbers of decision makers. About management itself, who can forget The Peter Principle, nor Parkinson's Law? EF Schumacher believed that any enterprise of less than 360 people should not even need a manager. Discussing the ideal number of members on a board, one author found that 9 was the most effective. For any membership exceeding 9, the board became proportionally less effective.
I completely agree with Rob Hersov in a Biznews video, (and probably a whole generation of businessmen) on lean boards. Cabinets are decision panels just as boards of directors are: "The more the messier". How thirty plus people can even keep track of what they all decide will take enough time to outmode whatever they said. More is less. Hersov says Javier Milei slashed his cabinet from 18 to 8, then added one: a Ministry of Deregulation, the post he avers he would desire.
At one stage, the ANC government was big on the phrase Batho Pele: People First. They, as we know, practise party first. I think there should be only one portfolio in the cabinet, called "People First" it can comprise Defence, Energy, Transport, Health and Education, and those should each need only a director. Those are the only things government needs to provide for the good of people. The rest is for them to butt out of and stay away. If you think those portfolios are too much for one person to handle, you may be right.
I agree with OHM on scrapping provincial government, along with their own and other political parties. Presently, parites are not known for talent: rather for school-level debate: one party's pre-election promise was to open health clinics 24/7, saying kleva crap like "We are allowed to get sick only during working hours". They clearly have no idea how health care unions will react, for a start, let alone finding the staff and the money for extra shifts.
As for parties, the government gives big money to them: Two Hundred Million Rand is about the going rate. Now wonder there are nearly thirty of them! FF van Zyl Slabbert, in a private conversation, revealed that the majority of MP's realise that they need do nothing but sit tight for two parliamentary terms to earn a parliament pension for the rest of their lives. Now you know why the place is packed with talentless drones thunderously bursting out of their clothes from free tea and cakes in endless plenary sessions. They are dozing their time away, waiting to collect their public ibonsela. Phakamisa Mayaba has written about ex-MP's, reluctant to vacate parliament village, even though they have been shown the door by their parties.
Who wants to even dwell on how eye-watering is the cost of nine separate parliaments? Just getting rid to the blue light cavalcades alone will save billions. The bigger things are, the slower they work. On a local level, as long as local is not hobbled by national, things can get done fairly quickly. You are in for a very thin time if you try to persuade a Howick resident from any group there that local government fails, with a mayor like Chris Pappas at the helm.
Public Health is a number one priority. There is no sense in waiting for pandemics to school us on that again. In our current system, health is provincial, not national. I know this from bitter experience, as will be read below. I don't knock good admin. I was an admin donkey for enough of my life to know how dysfunctional poor admin can render any entity, but admin needs vision, not blinkers. Good service delivery is not seen as good, or interesting. It is seen as a right. Government has one job: to share the money out better. That is purely about tax. Cutting waste helps. but it has to be the right waste. Too much is grabbed before it ever reaches the poor. Am I saying we must cut government people? Yes, I am. The top cats, not the bottom ones.
I agree in principle with the need for free healthcare. I think anything less is (pandemic) false economy, but most of us have trust issues with the NHI Bill. It is thought to be merely a planned party feeding trough, more fleecing of the public.
Some data is captured and made available nationally, but it is
woefully inadequate in places. Helen Joseph Hospital has hundreds of
PCs lying idle: appointments are made in hard cover A4 ledger books,
1900s style. They do make it work, but my experience in George and
local Garden Route clinics is that computing and SMS reminders work
better. If there were any real leadership at HJH, promotion would be
impossible without computer literacy.
For one example, after hours of queues, at Helen Joseph Hospital, the screening for my eye treatment was with a difficult, unhappy and combative young blonde female who was determined to reject me if at all possible. She started by asking for my address, averring that I was surely not in the hospital's intake area, then flatly rejected the optometrist letter diagnosing cataracts. I had to keep a very cool head to resist a fight and keep focussed to get tested. Tests confirmed the optomtrist's findings, and I was given a date 18 months later for the procedure.
Then, circumstances forced my relocation from Jhb. My next of kin, on whom I depend, moved to the Garden Route and I followed shortly, after waiting out 15 of the 18 months for eye care. Phoning HJH, my request to get the appointment transferred to George Hospital drew a brusque "I don't know what you are talking about" and the phone was slammed down. Charming.
I had to re-apply at Hoekwil Clinic. The first attempt failed: it was found six months later that no-one at George Hospital had phoned me to tell me my procedure date. I missed it, and had to re-apply. Luckily, the doctor was proactive. Pointing out that, at close to 80 years old, I feared going completely blind without being treated. He responded firmly, and I got a second date on the spot, proving it can be done, where there is will. There is no place for doing health province by province. In these high tech days, so much can be done easily with IT and phones. If Netcare can run clinics on phone software, so can amyone else. It is beginning here and there, but it needs a shove. If there were supervision, peope would not be skiving off at half day, as I have seen.