Patel loses key labour voice

The special adviser in the economic development ministry, Neil Coleman, has left the post, leaving the yet-to-be set up ministry without a key voice from labour.

His departure will hobble efforts by the left to use the ministry as a weapon to change SA’s economic policy.

Coleman yesterday confirmed he did not want his contract to be renewed, and that he had stopped work at the end of last month.

“I did not resign, my contract came to an end. I was seconded to the department, and do need to return to my work in Cosatu (the Congress of South African Trade Unions),” he said.

But sources in the department suggested that Coleman had “resigned” the post amid talk of differences between him and Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel.

“The question that has to be asked is why … the department still has so very little strategic capacity? It’s almost one year since the administration took office , and given the challenges in the economy both globally and domestically, why is the department not getting off the ground?” a source said.

Coleman was Patel’s right-hand man. The labour movement was keen for Patel to take the lead on economic planning in the Cabinet. Although a novice in the executive, he won a significant turf battle when he, and not Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, was made responsible for economic planning and co-ordination.

Patel said the department had made “good progress” since it was established as a legal entity.

“We are in the process of starting to hire people at senior policy and management level. We had to establish the ministry and the department from scratch, and until the end of March we will piggyback off the back of the department of trade and industry. All of this is now going to change because we have had sign-off on our staff structure and the budget has been approved,” Patel said.

“It’s no secret that officials in the Treasury were hostile to the creation on this new ministry, hence their efforts to frustrate efforts to get us off the ground,” an insider said.

Asked why he had not appointed Coleman as a policy adviser, Patel said he did not want to “strip Cosatu” of its strategic capacity and that Coleman was always going to return to his work as coordinator of Cosatu’s Walking through the Doors campaign — which aims to influence ANC and government economic policy.

Source: Business Day