President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended his decision to appoint a minister of electricity in his office, saying there will be no “confusion, turf wars and defragmentation” when he or she assumes the role.
“Some have suggested that the appointment of the minister will cause confusion and fragmentation, and that it might also result in turf wars among the ministers who deal with energy and Eskom. This is not the case,” said Ramaphosa on Thursday.
The president has for the first time told MPs and the country exactly what the minister will be responsible for and how this will not cause conflict between the ministers of energy and public enterprises and the national energy crisis committee, all which are working together to get the country out of the dark.
The announcement, which is said to have surprised many of his cabinet colleagues and which others have called a “project manager” role, has been widely criticised, with some accusing Ramaphosa of creating a “mega presidency” and “parallel structure” within his already bloated office.
He told a joint sitting of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces which debated his recent state of the nation address this week that topping the government’s list of priorities was resolving the electricity crisis and accelerating the energy plan he announced in July last year.
Minister of finance Enoch Godongwana will in his budget speech next week unpack how the government will boost the rollout of rooftop solar by businesses and households, he said.
To end load-shedding, Ramaphosa said the government must shift gears.
“A crisis of this nature demands a co-ordinated response, and it demands urgent action. That is why I am appointing a special minister in the Presidency and the reason a national state of disaster has been declared.
“As I said last week, this new minister will assume full responsibility for overseeing the various aspects of the electricity crisis response.”
The minister, he explained, would be responsible for driving the various actions being co-ordinated by the national energy crisis committee (Necom) to end load-shedding as a matter of urgency.
“The reality is that the resolution of the energy crisis requires effective co-ordination across several departments and public entities. It requires the undivided attention of a political principal who does not need to split their time and energies among different important responsibilities.
“This appointment will ensure that there is a minister who is ultimately responsible for resolving load-shedding and who is able to work with all fellow cabinet ministers, departments and entities to do so.
“The minister of electricity will be focused day in and day out only on addressing the load-shedding crisis, working with the management and board of Eskom.”
In addition, the minister will lead Necom, which is chaired by the director-general in the Presidency, Phindile Baleni, in interacting with all the relevant departments in the “spirit of co-operation or co-operative governance.”
“The minister of mineral resources and energy deals with matters of energy policy as well as mineral resources. Beyond the energy crisis that we face, the restructuring of government will be effected to enable entities that fall under various departments to be properly located in those departments,” he said.
He added: “The minister of public enterprises is executing the recommendations of the presidential review commission as well as the state-owned enterprises council that I appointed in relation to the ownership and the governance of state-owned enterprises. That function should be completed in time as we continue with the restructuring of government. The minister of public enterprises will therefore continue to work on the restructuring of Eskom as well as other state-owned enterprises until then.
“With the focus that the minister of electricity will have on load-shedding and the work that is being done by Eskom and the board, I do believe that we stand a much better chance to address this overriding the crisis.”
Through this effort, Ramaphosa said, he believed the country would see an end to load-shedding.
“As minister Mantashe said, urgency of execution and delivery is paramount. We don’t have the luxury of time. Several speakers in this debate have argued that the national state of disaster is unnecessary, or that it will allow for abuse of the system.”
He said several speakers criticised his declaration of a national state of disaster to end load-shedding and some had suggested it would allow the abuse of financial resources.
“This includes some leaders in the opposition — such as the premier of the Western Cape [Alan Winde] — who as recently as last month was writing me letters and holding media briefings calling for a state of disaster to be declared.
“The honourable [Cilliers] Brink [on Thursday] called the Disaster Management Act ‘a dangerous weapon in the hands of incompetent ministers’. This is the same Disaster Management Act that made possible our decisive, effective and agile response to successive waves of Covid-19 infections.
“It was this act that empowered us during that pandemic to save many lives and prevent even greater hardship. It is this Disaster Management Act that has on numerous occasions enabled us to provide urgent relief and support to people affected by floods and other natural disasters.
“The state of disaster that was declared last week will be used to mitigate the social and economic effects of load-shedding and accelerate the measures necessary to close the shortfall in electricity and nothing else.
“As I said in the state of the nation address, we will ensure that environmental protections and technical standards are maintained, and that procurement is undertaken with transparency and proper oversight.
“We will use the state of disaster to get rid of unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles that stand in the way of urgently bringing new generation capacity onto the grid. We will use it to ensure continuity in the provision of critical services and supply chains and to address the impact of load-shedding on businesses and households.”
He added: “As we build an electricity system that will meet our energy requirements into the future, we need to dispel some of the myths that have been circulating — and that have been repeated here — about the path we are taking. We need to dispel this idea that we are abandoning coal.
“We should all remember that coal-fired power stations provide 80% of our energy source and will therefore continue to provide the bulk of our ‘baseload’ supply into the future. We are committed to a future energy mix that consists of a diversity of energy sources, including coal, renewables, nuclear, gas, hydro, storage, biomass and other forms of energy.”
He told MPs he had told people in international forums that SA had built two mega power stations, Kusile and Medupi, that generate about 8,000 megawatts at great cost, and that there was no way t the government was going to shut down the power stations.
“We must dispel the idea that unbundling Eskom into three separate state-owned entities is out of step with international trends.
“The reality is that more than 100 countries, including China, Germany and Russia, have established independent transmission and system operation companies. We need to dispel the claim that creating a more competitive, efficient and sustainable electricity-generation market threatens the ability of the state to provide affordable electricity to its citizens.”
On the contrary, Ramaphosa said, the government’s reforms would improve the state’s ability to provide power to the people now and in the future.
He said the government’s priorities in 2023 were to decisively resolve the electricity crisis, reduce unemployment and root out corruption and crime.
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