Patel appointments

Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel’s seemingly moribund department has sprung to life with the appointment of two key members of staff who will be transferred from the Department of Public Service and Administration and the Treasury.

Public Service and Administration Director-General Prof Richard Levin will become the Director-General of Economic Development from next month.

The National Treasury loses its Chief Director of the Financial Sector Development Unit, Olano Makhubela, who will become Chief Director of Policy under Patel.

The appointments announced yesterday will, to some extent, quieten mounting concern that Patel’s department was drifting without a structure, strategic capacity and a clear sense of its role and direction.

It has taken more than six months for Patel to take the first public step in establishing a fully functioning office.

The concerns were heightened by the departure at the end of last month of Patel’s special adviser, Neil Coleman, who was seconded from the Congress of South African Trade Unions and who left amid speculation of a fall-out with Patel over the latter’s alleged tendency to micro-manage, though this was denied.

Since President Jacob Zuma created the new ministry last May, there has been a great deal of controversy over whether Patel would be able to carve out a niche for himself in the realm of economic policy making when this has been the domain of the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry. There were suggestions the appointment of former trade unionist Patel to the Cabinet was a sop to the labour movement that lacked substance.

Levin will bring with him a wealth of knowledge about public policy making and the internal workings of government gained over more than a decade in the department and as Deputy Director- General of the Public Service Commission.

Makhubela, who has been with Treasury since 2000, has a masters degree in development economics from the University of London.

A joint statement by Patel and Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi said Levin’s priority would be “to take the establishment of the Economic Development Department into its second phase”.

This would include staffing and the transfer of the department’s financial management function from Trade and Industry.

Source: Business Day