L. Boyce Sebetela has now been officially appointed Chief of Staff at the Office of the President.
From that top office we can now confidently expect fireworks, drama and indeed intrigue.
Make no mistakes, Sebetela will bring new ideas.
He will strive for efficiency.
And will immediately make his dislike for incompetence known.
What little information has been shared with the public so far makes it clear that Sebetela will be accountable to one man – President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
His interaction with the Permanent Secretary to the President will be largely incidental.
In a way Sebetela’s situation is not much different from Sidney Pilane’s when the latter was Special Advisor to the then President Festus Mogae.
As we now know, relations between Pilane and the then Permanent Secretary to the President Eric Molale were far from seamless.
Like Pilane, Sebetela is no diplomat.
He can be tenacious and even vicious. And like a pit bull he does not let go of his convictions without a fight.
And that makes conflict at Office of the President almost inevitable.
He is expected to be a link between ruling party and government.
Yet as a civil servant fully paid for by government, it is difficult to see how he can openly attend the Central committee meetings and other party functions.
But we know he will be attending cabinet meetings – or at least some of them.
These cabinet meetings already have in them a national Chairperson of the ruling party – Slumber Tsogwane.
The Chairman is also Vice President of the Republic.
Still in the same cabinet is the Secretary General of the ruling party, Mpho Balopi who sits in there as a senior minister.
At least at face value there should be no shortage of clear connections linking party and government. But there is much more to it than that.
First things first. Exactly why has Boyce Sebetela been appointed?
His appointment is not about optics. This is a panic appointment but an immensely substantive one meant to achieve real goals to save a presidency that has lost a lot of grip and ground.
At least the president is no longer in denial. That is a good starting point to save himself, his government and his party. For a man of his pride and intellectual arrogance, just the mere fact of accepting the deep trouble he is in shows immense courage on his part.
The president has lost a lot of faith with his inner circle.
He is feeling alone and isolated at the top. And according to former president of the United States, Bill Clinton, the presidency can often feel like prison.
Many of them are clueless on government, on politics and indeed on policy.
Some in the president’s inner circle are engaged in a fatalistic cold war-like ventures with him mainly on account of the president’s thin skin.
A change of PSP is taking too long to turn the fortunes around.
In fact the situation might be getting worse.
The president’s popularity has hit rock bottom.
The Covid pandemic has exposed astonishing lack of depth.
And the long running battles with former president Ian Khama are taking a heavy toll on government machinery.
The president’s small circle of confidantes that accompanied him to electoral victory has largely been banished into the wilderness.
Sebetela comes in having watched the incompetence at Office of the President from outside. It is his bounden duty to change that.
And would want to make his presence felt with immediate effect.
Few should expect equanimity from him.
As minister he was less mesmerized by factions as by ideas.
After leaving cabinet he spearheaded parliamentary motions – especially on citizen economic empowerment.
Having previously run an IT company, his tone was to present himself as a victim too – which he really was not.
There will be tricky and awkward moments ahead.
And the new Chief of Staff will most likely be picking fights at the earliest opportunity.
His relationship with minister in the presidency will be tested early.
Kabo Morwaeng has so far made the public service his orbit.
There is now a new czar in town.
Morwaeng is a smooth political backroom operator, who really shines behind the scenes.
We shall know very soon if these two strong-willed men are cable of sharing space.
Sebetela has immense intellect. He is also a showboat.
A job of saving a presidency, a government and a ruling party necessarily involves going on an ego show.
And Sebetela will soon want to be seeking to be allowed by his boss to be allowed to produce an evaluation report on his views about the quality of each cabinet minister.
This is because Sebetela has always harboured big ambitions. At the very least he has expressed interest in becoming ruling party Secretary General. It also cannot be ruled out that he has his eyes on the ultimate trophy.
These ambitions will pit him against Mpho Balopi, a fierce and war-hardened operator who shall invariably be averse to any encroachment on his territory.
Balopi controls much of the BDP and is increasingly moving towards becoming the first Secretary General to totally do so since the days when the position was held and dominated by Daniel Kwelagobe.
Then there is yet to emerge the relationship between the Chief of Staff and the two presidential advisors; Mpho Molomo and Kaelo Molefe.
What exactly remains of their relevance to the president now?
The two university professors were appointed amid fanfare. Does the arrival of Sebetela signal to them that the president now wants to take a new turn? That too we shall know quite soon.
Boyce Sebetela is an interesting pick.
At a technical level you can be sure that he will add depth to the thinking inside government.
This government is struggling to find footing exactly because it has lacked strategic depth at its core.
At civil service level, he might want to break a few bones and take a few people head on.
There will definitely be some casualties – may be not fatalities. Time will tell.
Expect drama everyday.
The current PSP is yet to assert herself. Her long term survival will partly depend on her readiness to defer and even subjugate herself to Sebetela.
Like Elias Magosi before her there is not as yet irrefutable proof that she fully comprehends the strategic level of her job.
Maybe she still needs more time, which is by the way in terribly short supply. But so far, she gives an impression of a person who is drowning rather swimming.
Its hard to see how she will have any sway over a seasoned politician like Sebetela who in any case reports directly to the State president.
She might just become an easy picking for a predatory Chief of Staff éager to mark his territory.
The trouble with President Masisi is that he can be annoyingly impressionable on these key appointments.
It is exactly for that reason that we are yet to see any one of his key appointees who has been an easy shoo-in for their jobs.
Another area of interest is going to be how Sebetela interacts with ministers.
At the moment the Vice President is a defacto head of government business.
This means that he generally supervises ministers even as the buck stops with the president.
Sebetela will definitively want to become not only a gatekeeper to the president but also a supervisor of ministers.
This will potentially put him at cross paths with Slumber Tsogwane.
When all is said and done, Sebetela will certainly bring the much needed discipline at OP.
The office had been turned into a fiefdom for a few lower level scheming officers.
Insiders say it often resembled a chaos chamber, with these officers often openly defying their superiors.
Boyce and Sisboy; its game on boys! The nation is watching.
