President Cyril Ramaphosa is showing signs of dictatorship with the continued centralisation of power in his office.

He has placed critical departments therein as he knows no parliamentary oversight committee can hold the Presidency accountable.

These were the bold assertions of EFF leader Julius Malema, who said his party wrote to National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Monday to request the establishment of such a committee to oversee the Presidency.

Malema’s statements come as Ramaphosa increasingly faces criticism about the size of the Presidency, with some arguing it is too powerful, with too many entities reporting directly to him and little parliamentary oversight.

There is also growing concern among political parties regarding how parliament should hold new departments in his office accountable.

The new ministries of electricity and planning, monitoring and evaluation fall within the Presidency, as do state security, the government red-tape reduction task team, investment and infrastructure and the presidential state-owned enterprises council.

“The concentration of too much power in the presidency is a sign of dictatorship, a dictator who can’t trust anyone with discharging government responsibilities and as a result he wants to run everything himself,” said Malema on Thursday.

“That’s why that office is too big now, to a point where we are even unable to track some of the things. So we have written to the speaker of parliament to establish a portfolio committee on the Presidency and matters have also been taken to the rules committee.

“We believe that if, for instance, tomorrow he wants to steal money from the water department, he might come and say there is a problem with water in South Africa and I want to run it, I want it close to my office. So it’s now a water department in the Presidency and it’s being shielded from that accountability,” said Malema.

“I don’t appreciate why, black and white, we are not alarmed by that, that so many departments get put under one office which has got no oversight committee and the president is not prepared to budge on the oversight.”

Ramaphosa is, therefore, “a law unto himself and the sooner we realise, the better for our country", the EFF leader said.

The DA and parties such as the IFP have long campaigned for such an oversight committee.

However, the ANC parliamentary caucus has consistently rejected the move, arguing that holding the president accountable through written and oral questions is adequate.

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