Government hopes that the raft of new ministries created by President Jacob Zuma would be fully operational by November, Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said on Thursday.

"If we work flat-out, by the beginning of November we will be close to completion. Most of the work will be done by then," he told a briefing in Cape Town.

Chabane said the deadline had been determined by the need to provide Treasury with the budget requirements for restructured or new ministries in time. He declined to put a cost to Zuma's overhaul of government, which has been estimated by some as R1-billion.

Chabane, who was hand-picked to run a new monitoring committee in the presidency, said departments like his own and the new National Planning Commission headed by former finance minister Trevor Manuel may need new legislation to invest them with the power to do their work.

"As we put together the planning and the monitoring committees we will have to look at what instruments these institutions need to function properly so it does not get inhibited in its work, so we don't end up in court all the time to say there is a problem here.

"If the need for legislation is there, then we will set that up."

He conceded that the logistics of establishing new ministries ? there are now 34 compared to 28 in the past ? were daunting.

"In some areas it is going to take time to get office space because we need to know which personnel we are getting."

He said the restructuring of government into seven ministerial clusters has been two years in the making.

It has its roots in a 2007 planning conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. Its objectives were adopted in principle at the African National Congress's watershed national conference in Polokwane later that year where Zuma ousted Thabo Mbeki as party leader.

Change was necessary because it had become clear that the government was not able to deliver on its promises to the electorate.

'Problem with implementing'

"The ruling party has good policies per se but there is a problem with implementing these policies. There is a problem with our ability to monitor. We are not able to respond when we identify a problem."

The objectives that informed the changes Zuma made included a renewed focus on agriculture to ensure it contributes to economic growth and provides food security and a drive to generate enough energy to ensure the economy can grow.

Another vital concern was creating a new ministry that could focus on promoting job-creating economic activity at home, including boosting small and medium enterprises, "rather than focus on investment in the stock market", Chabane said.

But he declined to answer the recurring question of who would drive economic policy ? former trade unionist Ebrahim Patel's new economic development ministry, the Treasury or Manuel in his capacity of planning minister.

Chabane said his own commission was created because the state had been unable to intervene swiftly when government departments were failing to do their jobs.

Problem areas were dealt with in reports that took months to compile and still more months to reach Parliament.

He said his monitoring commission would create "an early warning system to identify and remedy" problems, but gave no further details.