– The reshuffle is clearly driven by ANC internal politics, not by a need to improve the performance of the provincial government.
– Pule Shayi is promoted to oversee municipalities after five years in which Mopani failed to achieve a single unqualified audit.
– Both Mopani and Fetakgomo-Tubatse had equitable-share funding withheld by National Treasury for persistent and serious financial-management non-compliance.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) condemns Premier Phophi Ramathuba’s reshuffle of the Limpopo Executive, which is clearly designed to accommodate narrow ANC political interests rather than improve the performance of the provincial government.
Premier Ramathuba had an opportunity to strengthen the Limpopo Executive. Instead, she has used government to accommodate the political interests of the ANC.
A Provincial Executive exists to serve the people of Limpopo, not to reward ANC leaders.
The test for any reshuffle should be simple: does it improve government, strengthen accountability and put capable people where they are needed most? If appointments instead follow the outcome of an ANC elective conference, then party interests have been placed ahead of the public interest.
ANC office is not a qualification for provincial office.
The question is therefore not whether Pule Shayi and Eddie Maila secured senior ANC positions. The question is what their records in government demonstrate.
In five years under Shayi’s mayoral leadership, Mopani District Municipality produced two disclaimed and three qualified audit opinions. It did not achieve a single unqualified audit during that period.
Mopani has also faced persistent water-service failures. In 2023, the South African Human Rights Commission found serious failures by Water Services Authorities in Limpopo, including Mopani, to comply with their statutory obligations.
Then, in July this year, National Treasury withheld R300 million of Mopani District Municipality’s July 2026 equitable-share allocation as part of an intervention against municipalities guilty of persistent and serious non-compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act and related regulations.
At the time, Mopani was reported to have a R2.4 billion budget deficit, with roughly R300 million owed to Lepelle Northern Water and R384 million to the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Yet Shayi has now been elevated to head the Department of Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs — the very department responsible for supporting and overseeing municipalities.
It is difficult to imagine a clearer contradiction, and the DA finds it unconscionable.
National Treasury took the same drastic action against Fetakgomo-Tubatse Local Municipality, where Maila has served as mayor.
The people of Limpopo are entitled to ask why municipal leaders whose administrations required intervention by National Treasury are being promoted to the provincial Executive.
If this reshuffle was about performance, Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure and the Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism should have been obvious places to start. Yet, despite persistent failures in these two departments, their political leadership remains unchanged.
Limpopo does not need an Executive designed around ANC internal politics. This is the antithesis of ethical governance, which requires putting the interests of the people above narrow party-political interests.
It needs an Executive built on competence, performance and accountability.
Provincial government belongs to the people of Limpopo, not to the ANC.