South Africa’s logistics and supply chain industry is still absorbing the news that it has a new transport minister following Monday night’s reshuffled Cabinet announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Although Sindisiwe Chikunga is no newcomer to the Department of Transport (DoT), questions remain whether she is the right fit for such a crucial sector.
As the department’s previous deputy minister under Fikile Mbalula, Chikunga’s first stint with the DoT was in 2014, also as deputy.
She holds a Master of Arts degree in Curationis, the study of nursing care, its management and application of methodological research models in a mostly South African context.
Apart from this qualification from the University of Pretoria, Chikunga also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Curationis from the University of South Africa (Unisa), and Bachelor of Arts Curationis Honours, also from Unisa.
Early qualifications include a diploma in Nursing Science from the Edenvale Nursing College and a Midwifery Diploma from the Edenvale Nursing College.
It remains to be seen though how qualifications from the medical industry equip Chikunga to oversee a sector fraught by underperforming ports, a road freight industry often terrorised by labour destabilisation, and a host of unresolved issues that have dogged South African logistics for several years.
Yesterday it was remarked by a thought leader in the industry that the new minister of transport will be handed “a poisoned chalice”.
Considering Mbalula’s years of relative inactivity and his redeployment as leading court jester to Luthuli House, one can only hope that Chikunga comes as an antidote of sorts to a much neglected department.
South Africa also heard on Monday night that Dr Kgoshientsho Ramokgopa will be the country’s new Minister of Electricity, a transitory position created in the hope that whoever fills this post will steer South Africa away from its current energy malaise.
Apart from a rather underwhelming tenure as mayor of Tshwane, Ramokgopa infamously oversaw the introduction of a prepaid meter taxi scheme that was mired in corruption and incompetent implementation.
To his comrades and back-slapping acolytes he is still known as Sputla, a boyhood nickname he got for his deft ability at dribbling a soccer ball.
Said a Daily Maverick reader: “Good luck to him, he’s going to need it to overcome the entrenched interests of Gwede (Mantashe) and Pravin (Gordhan), not to mention the mafias and cartels, and this is the crux of the matter: in order to overcome rolling blackouts, he has to tackle the criminality at Eskom head-on, or else there is no point to plans, and mechanisms and strategies and masterplans and interventions and every other kick-the-can-down-the-road policy the ANC traditionally comes up with.”
