POLL | Are you willing to give a minister of electricity a chance to prove themself?

President Cyril Ramaphosa's plans to appoint a minister of electricity in the presidency have met with mixed reactions, with many saying it would be a waste of taxpayers' money and would not yield results.

Ramaphosa, delivering his state of the nation address on Thursday, said he will appoint a minister in the presidency to deal specifically with the electricity crisis. The decision effectively moves the embattled Eskom to his office.

“The minister will focus full-time and work with the Eskom board and management on ending load-shedding and ensuring the energy action plan is implemented without delay.”

Eskom's energy crisis has put a huge dent in Ramaphosa’s leadership, with concerns from many about whether he can end load-shedding.

The crisis has put a sharp focus on Eskom, which has a debt of almost R400bn.

Ramaphosa also declared a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis with immediate effect.

He said the state of disaster will enable government to provide practical measures it needs to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply.

“Where technically possible, it will enable us to exempt critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment plants from load-shedding.

“And it will enable us to accelerate energy projects and limit regulatory requirements while maintaining rigorous environmental protections, procurement principles and technical standards,” he said.

The auditor-general will be brought in to ensure “continuous monitoring" of expenditure to guard against abuse of funds needed to attend to the crisis, said the president.

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