Mandisi Mpahlwa passionate about small business
April 29, 2004
 By Quentin Wray
Johannesburg - Mandisi Mpahlwa's appointment as minister of trade and industry in place of Alec Erwin, who has moved to public enterprises, was the main surprise in yesterday's cabinet appointments.
Mpahlwa has served as finance minister Trevor Manuel's deputy since Gill Marcus moved over to the Reserve Bank in 1999. Prior to this he headed parliament's portfolio committee on finance, which oversees the national treasury.
Although well connected and likeable, Mpahlwa never emerged from under Manuel's shadow.
However, senior national treasury and ANC sources said that as a committee chair and then as deputy minister he made a good impression and they were not surprised that he was promoted by President Thabo Mbeki yesterday.
"Having a low profile is just the nature of being a deputy minister," one source said.
Part of Mpahlwa's duties at the treasury included overseeing the financial sector, the Public Investment Commissioners (PIC), part of the treasury's relationship with the Reserve Bank and some of its international relationships.
He was seen as passionate about small business and was likely to push the empowerment agenda very hard, something that had been seen in some of the PIC's investment decisions, insiders said.
Mpahlwa will be inheriting sound policies and strategies from his predecessor, but he is also taking over a department racked by capacity constraints and struggling to meet service commitments to business.
Apart from the motor sector, which has performed very well under the motor industry development programme, many manufacturers, especially in the clothing sector, are suffering the effects of the strong rand.
Brian Brink, the executive director of the Textile Federation, said Mpahlwa would have to put safeguards in place to protect South African industry from cheap imports, especially from China, before more jobs were lost and more factories closed.
Industry sources complained that even though there had been repeated restructuring in the department, it was very difficult to get anything done quickly.
"This is not because of a lack of willingness or bureaucratic bloody-mindedness," a textile industry source said. "It's because of capacity constraints and skills shortages."
Cosatu economist Neva Makgetla said Mpahlwa would need to gear policy more towards job creation and equity.
The department would have to "fundamentally change the way it did things" and take overarching responsibility for microeconomic policy, in the way the national treasury had overall control of macroeconomic policy, she said.
But the new minister will have to hit the ground running.
SA Chamber of Business chief executive James Lennox said: "We need stability ... the programmes that have been put in place should not be put in abeyance while new people find their way."
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