Sunday Times - Sunday, 19 September, 2004

Now, with integration the watchword, he has put the finishing touches to the administration that must deliver on the scores of promises he made in his State of the Nation address in May.

His matrix of ministers, analysts, planners, implementers and communicators must ensure that everything the government does matches agreed priorities.

The recent appointment of former United Democratic Front activist Murphy Morobe (who proved his administrative skills at the Financial and Fiscal Commission) as communications chief beefs up the Presidency's ability to sell its message.

And having the former Speaker in the Gauteng legislature, Trevor Fowler, as chief operating officer frees major-domo Frank Chikane from the drudgery of running an administration of up to 560 people.

Ideas can come from the ANC, Mbeki, ministers, advisers at home or abroad, analysts and civil society, but each is fed into the Presidency mill before it is implemented.

Increasingly, that implementation is monitored against timetables that must be part of the initial presentation.

The results are displayed in detail on a closed intranet that Mbeki can access anywhere in the world and, in less detail, on the Internet.

"That first five years was a creation around Madiba," said Chikane, who joined Mbeki's staff in 1995. "The deal was that the Deputy President would create the capacity to deal with the transformation from an apartheid society to a non-racial, democratic society." That "capacity" is the Presidency, a network of 370 people with a budget of R152-million in the year to March 2004, up from 287 people with a budget of R89-million in 2001. The full staff complement is over 560 but vacancies are still being filled.

Headed by Chikane, a practising clergyman with a master's degree in public administration from Harvard, the Presidency gathers data, vets and generates policy, manages implementation and then measures the effect of its work.

Former President F W de Klerk famously left Mandela's inaugural team nothing to work with when they arrived at the Union Buildings in May 1994 - no spoons, no cups, no copiers and, most importantly, no functioning government mechanisms.

The ad-hoc administration that had allowed the apartheid masters to construct toilets but not roads or houses in the bare veld of what was then the Eastern Transvaal offered little momentum on which Mandela could build.

At least partly as a result, delivery started slowly and the initial efforts of his fledgling team sometimes produced clinics without staff or power, schools without books and roads that went nowhere.

"The government can operate as a federation of ministers, but the line function of one minister more often than not impacts on the line function of another ministry and that was seen as a problem," said Goolam Aboobaker, a medical physicist who is now deputy head of the Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Service.

Known as the policy unit, this team in the east wing of the Union Buildings is the most influential section of the Presidency. On paper, it is outranked by many, but on the ground, its five chief directors have the authority to declare initiatives sound, incomplete or simply inappropriate.

It deals with what policy unit head Joel Netshitenzhe calls "transversal issues" and tests proposals mainly against the government's agreed strategies for the next three to five years and against the unbending Medium-Term Economic Framework.

Mbeki merged the separate offices of the President, the Deputy President and the Minister in the Presidency in June 1999. Recent additions have been just the latest refinements as he seeks to increase the government's ability to deliver on its promises.

"The legitimacy, credibility and popularity of this government in the coming decade will rise or fall on the basis of whether it is able to implement those programmes that were decided on and communicated to the public," said Netshitenzhe.

After the success of his pre-election tour this year, Mbeki has added a post to manage the izimbizo, public rallies at which he listens directly to the people at least twice a year and where his ministers hold separate meetings for at least two weeks of every year in April and September.

Based on documents and interviews, the Sunday Times has mapped Mbeki's Presidency in the unofficial organogram on the opposite page, showing the relationships between advisers, officials, ministers, working groups, the ANC and Parliament.

Mbeki's passion for information is reflected in the advisers, forums and working groups that keep him in touch with leaders of business, labour, agriculture, education and information technology, and key players in the world of international investment.

The policy unit is the engine room where proposals are most thoroughly scrutinised and new initiatives are generated. It produces confidential reports on economic and social issues and is currently finalising a five-year, medium-term strategic framework for the Cabinet. Several sections of the machine deal with logistics, security and the management of the President's diary and his wife Zanele's programmes on women's development across Africa.

Chikane is chairman of the Forum of South African Directors-General, all appointed by Mbeki, where the top-ranking civil servants in each government department process ministerial initiatives and policy unit guidance.

Mbeki interacts directly with his Cabinet ministers and with Deputy President Jacob Zuma, but Chikane is responsible for ensuring that the Cabinet and Zuma's office function efficiently.

As leader of government business, Zuma is responsible for the government's relationship with Parliament.

He heads the Moral Regeneration Movement and the South African National Aids Council, which has played a controversially modest role both in driving the government's campaigns on HIV/Aids and in negotiating foreign aid for treatment.

Zuma is responsible for traditional, religious and cultural issues and is the pointsman in South Africa's peace-making efforts in Central Africa.

Minister Essop Pahad, an influential friend since Mbeki's university days, remains close, both as an adviser and as a fixer.

He is politically responsible for the Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS), the International Marketing Council (IMC), the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and the National Youth Commission. He is also political chief of the special offices on the status of women, children and the disabled.

Morobe's team communicates on behalf of the Presidency. The GCIS, with Netshitenzhe as CEO and a separate budget larger than that of the Presidency, gathers and disseminates information on behalf of the entire government.

The MDDA is designed to break the perceived stranglehold of the commercial media on the flow of information by encouraging community press and radio; and the IMC markets Brand South Africa abroad and reports back on foreign perceptions of the country.

Pahad and the policy unit work together through the offices on women, children and the disabled to ensure they are addressed in policy and legislation. Former Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico is Mbeki's parliamentary counsellor, keeping him informed about issues in the legislature.

The real power-brokers, though, are Netshitenzhe, Chikane and Mbeki's four special advisers. Some insiders cite Pahad as a key power-broker but others say his influence has waned.

Chief among the advisers is Advocate Mojanku Gumbi, formally legal adviser but, in fact, involved in everything from immigration policy to peacekeeping.

She sees Mbeki more than anyone else, with the possible exception of Chikane, and she has the most informal relationship with the President.

She and political adviser/speech-writer Titus Mafolo have the offices closest to Mbeki's.

Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu is still economic adviser, but has been delegated mainly to the Nepad secretariat and has asked to be released, so Mbeki is looking for a new economic guru.

Billy Masethla, with a background in ANC intelligence, is Mbeki's security adviser and a regular emissary to troubled regions of Africa. Lorato Phalatse, head of the Private Office of the President, says the four advisers, Chikane and Pahad are about the only ones who can walk into the presidential suite hoping for an unscheduled word with Mbeki. Phalatse runs the logistics of Mbeki's life and keeps his diary, but Chikane is the primary gatekeeper.

Soft-spoken and unfailingly gracious, Netshitenzhe's style belies the extent of his influence. He has direct access to the President when he needs it, but prefers to stay in the background.

Sometimes named as a possible successor to Mbeki, he is everywhere. He sits with Mbeki on the ANC's top committees, he sits in on budget-planning meetings, the Cabinet and its committees, meetings of directors-general and all the panels that advise the President.

Though he is at pains to play down his role, Netshitenzhe has the power to veto policy initiatives that don't match the government's strategy. "It is not difficult to understand the President's marching orders because there would be that overall strategic thing that he says needs to be achieved and he would leave you to work on the details," he says

The starting point for government strategy is the ANC's election manifesto. The party can give mid-term direction, but it cannot intervene directly in the government.

"The understanding is that you need to create as much space as possible for those in the government to manoeuvre within the parameters that have been set out by the party," says Netshitenzhe.

Broad strategy is refined mainly at two Cabinet breakaway sessions, the makgotla, in January and July, where ministers, the President's advisers and, since this year, the departmental directors-general discuss the way forward, often on the basis of research by the policy unit and the Forum of South African Directors-General (Fosad).

Ministers and departments take their cues from the makgotla, discussing initiatives within the clusters of Chikane's Fosad, submitting them for comment from the policy unit and for discussion in the committees that team ministries with similar roles.

"In the past, things would come to Cabinet and get bounced back because one minister would bring a memo and another would object and the President would say: 'Go and talk'," said Chikane.

"What we have done with the machinery we have created is to integrate so that by the time something hits Cabinet, it is done - everyone has bought in."

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