My colleagues and I often speak of the need to trim down our massive and expensive cabinet. At 35 ministers and 37 deputy ministers, ours is one of the largest cabinets in the world, and costs the taxpayer close to R150-million a year in salaries alone. Then you still need to add perks such as car allowances, travel and accommodation.

For a developing economy with a small tax base, this simply cannot be justified. Without sacrificing any productivity, we can do away with all deputy ministers and cut the number of ministries to just 15. This will be one of the first changes a government led  by the Democratic Alliance (DA) will introduce.

But reforms should not stop at a leaner and more efficient cabinet. Over the course of President Jacob Zuma’s term in office it has become very clear that the Presidency needs to be urgently reviewed and reconfigured.

Our president sits at the apex of government and possesses a staggering amount of power. This ranges from powers of appointment and removal to policy influence to the power to set up commissions of inquiry. But the Presidency has no formal oversight mechanism.

The Presidency has no parliamentary portfolio committee. It has a policy document that supposedly regulates how much public money can be spent on the president and deputy president’s travel, accommodation and entertainment, but no one is allowed to see this “Presidential Handbook”. There also appears to be no limit to the spousal support available to the president, and no opportunity for interrogation of this budget.

The Presidency has a lot of power, influence and big budgets, but zero checks and balances.

In the hands of the wrong person, the president’s powers of appointment can be extremely dangerous and damaging to our democracy. And right now, the Presidency is headed up by the wrong person.

Zuma’s defenders (most of whom are simply trying to hold onto their jobs) will point out that these powers were bestowed on the Presidency through our Constitution, and that this hasn’t changed since it was drawn up two decades ago. Our former presidents had the exact same powers to appoint, among others, ministers, judges, police commissioners and heads of Chapter 9 bodies.

But here we need to remember where and when our Constitution was written. Or perhaps more importantly, with whom in mind. At the time, Nelson Mandela was our president. No one – not even the staunchest critic of the African National Congress – could have foreseen the extent to which a future president would abuse this power and secrecy to enrich and shield himself.

To give you an idea of just how far-reaching these powers are, allow me to list some of the appointments the president makes – either directly, or following consultation. (And keep in mind that the power of appointment often includes the power to remove the individual, should the president deem it necessary).

Our president appoints ministers, deputy ministers, the chief justice, the deputy chief justice, the judge presidents, all judges (on advice from the Judicial Service Commission), ambassadors, the reserve bank governor, the head of the defence force, the head of the police, the head of intelligence, the heads of our public oversight institutions (including the national director of public prosecutions, the public protector, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the auditor-general and members of the Human Rights Commission) as well as the boards of public entities such as the SABC and the South African Revenue Service.

If our president were an honourable man with good intentions, we could trust him to make these appointments in the best interests of the nation – selecting only the most capable and committed men and women for the job. But our president has other priorities, chief of which is to stay out of court and in the Union Buildings, and entrenches this patronage network long after his second term comes to an end. And so, to be considered for appointment by Zuma to one of these key positions, a candidate must first and foremost be loyal and pliable – a true cadre.

By deploying cadres to crucial positions based primarily on their willingness to look the other way, he has come close to destroying the credibility of just about each of the positions listed above. The notable exception, of course, is the public protector. But her term comes to an end next year, and you can rest assured the president won’t make the same mistake again.

But the threat isn’t limited to the president’s power of appointment and removal. The primary function of the Presidency is to direct government business through both planning and monitoring of government policies. The Presidency is the custodian of the National Development Plan (NDP) – the government’s blueprint for all policy and future projects. Within the Presidency sits the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. This department is tasked with looking both ahead to guide our future policies, as well as back to see how well we’re doing in implementing current policies. Currently it does neither.

Instead of policy clarity and a unified backing of the NDP, we’re seeing more and more contradictory policy documents such as the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan, while the NDP lies all but forgotten. And when it comes to monitoring its implementation, no one seems to know which indicators to use. The president, along with Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, was meant to have signed off ministerial performance agreements aligned with the NDP, holding ministers to specific deliverables in the Medium-Term Strategic Framework. Unsurprisingly, we’re still waiting for this.

Between the department’s ineffectiveness at assessing its own progress and the aimless leadership of both the president and the minister in the Presidency, the Presidency has lost all cohesion and direction. It is failing at its core task of plotting our country’s future and making sure we stick to the plan.

Also within the Presidency sits the National Nuclear Energy Executive Coordination Committee – the body that oversees our ill-advised nuclear power station procurement. It is clear that the president aims to use this position to drive the nuclear deal while deliberately obscuring the process from public accountability. It should also be pointed out that this nuclear procurement will not only contradict the NDP, it will also render it obsolete as we cannot spend R1-trillion and still hope to roll out the NDP.

Another power of the Presidency is that of setting up commissions of inquiry. And, as we’ve seen recently with investigations into Marikana and the Arms Deal, these commissions are only useful when it comes to deflecting blame and protecting the government from public outrage. Seldom do these commissions ever point the finger at individuals in power, which is precisely why our president is in favour of them.

And finally, the Presidency is also home to the National Youth Development Agency – a body that is meant to address the critical issues of skills development and youth unemployment, but in reality does little more than gobble up precious budget funds. It spends almost half its enormous budget – R189-million out of a total of R409-million – on its own salaries, and has very little to show for the rest. In a country where two-thirds of the unemployed are below 35, this is a travesty. If we are serious about tackling youth unemployment, this money will be ploughed straight into a Youth Wage Subsidy.

The Presidency is not the same as it was 20 or even 10 years ago. It is failing to provide planning and policy coherence, and its integrity is now threatened by the power and protection enjoyed by the man at its helm – a man who is an ordinary politician and previously a private citizen. Democracy enjoins him to be accountable and transparent in his elected role.

It is our duty to safeguard the Presidency, and the only way to do so is through a constitutional review.

And before anyone accuses me or the DA of wanting to change the Constitution whenever it doesn’t suit us, I’d like to point out that we’re not alone in calling for a review. Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has also criticised the unhealthy concentration of powers in the Presidency and called for a review of the powers of the national executive. According to him, “this uncanny concentration of power is a matter which going forward we may ignore, but only at our peril”.

The Presidency, under a DA government, will look a lot different. The president’s powers of appointment and removal will be substantially limited, with independent bodies conducting public interviews with candidates for positions such as the public protector and the heads of the NPA and the SIU (similar to the way the Judicial Service Commission interviews judge candidates). There will be transparency around the Presidential Handbook and the limitations of spousal support.

But most importantly, the Presidency will get its own parliamentary portfolio committee. Because you never know who your next president is going to be. And a government entity this big and powerful with no oversight and no accountability is the worst thing we can do for our fragile democracy. DM