The ANC recently handed Mmamoloko Kubayi one of the party’s toughest assignments: chairing its economic transformation subcommittee.
This is one of the most contested aspects of policy discussion in the ANC. The position is a hot seat, especially in the build-up to the party’s policy conference this winter and the elective conference in December, at which policy arguments are often used as proxies for power battles.
Kubayi replaces long-serving Enoch Godongwana, who became finance minister last year. It is tradition in the ANC that a minister does not chair the corresponding portfolio in the party. The timing could not have been tougher for Kubayi, with unemployment at a record high and the party under pressure to respond to growing poverty and inequality.
At 44, Kubayi is one of the youngest politicians to occupy the position, which has had luminaries such as Max Sisulu in the past. “It’s a very serious responsibility,” she says. “But I think it [shows] confidence in a younger generation of the ANC.”
Kubayi rose through the ranks of the ANC Youth League, and reached cabinet level, where she has occupied five ministries to date, from energy to tourism. She became human settlements minister last year. She is also the co-chair of the cabinet’s economic cluster, which pulls together the government’s broad thinking on economic policy.
She becomes the first female to chair the economic transformation committee, which is a subcommittee of the national executive committee (NEC), the highest decision-making body between the party’s five-yearly national conferences. “It’s overwhelming in terms of appreciating the recognition, and also of understanding the responsibility to operate on the shoulders [of my predecessors],” she says.
As the ANC’s economic policy tsar, she will rely on people like Godongwana and Tito Mboweni, the former finance minister, who also served as governor of the Reserve Bank. Though Mboweni is not a permanent member of this committee, his expertise is often called upon. The committee also relies on professionals aligned to the ANC, who are often assembled to serve as the technical base for the politicians.
“So it’s a team of people with various experiences and with knowledge gained over time, both in terms of the work in the cluster and in terms of their studies,” Kubayi says. “As a subcommittee, you are allowed to bring in skills that you need to assist you to be effective. So you find people who are outside the NEC — some would be senior leaders.”
In a draft policy paper, the ANC has identified a number of areas of the economy that need urgent interventions. These include better management of state companies and the participation of private companies. It has identified Eskom’s debt problem to be in need of urgent attention. Land ownership patterns and new ways to finance agriculture are also priorities, especially among new, mainly black, farmers, as ways to distribute wealth. The paper highlights the education system’s outcomes, especially as school and university graduates struggle to get jobs.
Kubayi says the party needs to act decisively in fighting unemployment. Key institutions, including higher education facilities, would “lose credibility” if their graduates continue to struggle to get jobs. “There is a need for SA to pay attention to the high rates of youth unemployment. You look at statistics — paying attention to the numbers of graduates who are unemployed — it kills the credibility of a system that is producing people over time.”
Kubayi emphasises the role of the entire committee, whose policy stances are presented to the NEC and then become positions of the senior committee. Chairs are the ones who articulate the policy to the public, at party gatherings, in the media and in investor briefings. This is where Kubayi may start to feel how big Godongwana’s shoes are.