With long years in the civil service behind him, and yet still fairly young, we regard the appointment of Ramakgathi as a step in the right direction.
We welcome it because for some time now, the Office of the President has been functioning as though it was the nub of a secretive society where conspiracies against the public are hatched and kept under a tight lid and flow of public information suppressed. We applaud it because the appointment should – of a certainly lead to perestroika, transparency and accountability, in the running of government; for what purpose would it serve otherwise. We are heartened by the appointment because we believe it opens a new chapter in the vision of a President who has been decidedly hostile to the media, especially the county’s private media, preferring – as he does, to give yards and yarns of interviews to foreign journalists who describe his distinctly right-wing posture as right of centre. This is the President whom has never held a press conference on home soil inspite of describing himself as a democrat.
