Pravin Gordhan rubbishes IPP conspiracy theories

He dubbed the theories "fake news" and stated that South Africa needs to develop a new business culture that relies on competence as opposed to connections.

Pravin Gordah discussing Eskom’s woes on eNCA’s The Fix | Image: YouTube

After “connecting the dots,” some members of the public are of the belief that politically connected individuals such as Jeff Radebe and Patrice Motsepe among others stand to benefit from the proposed unbundling of the nation’s power utility and the subsequent introduction of independent power producers (IPP’s) to the country’s electricity network.

Radebe, Motsepe and president Cyril Ramaphosa are all related by marriage and Mostepe is currently the single biggest South African investor in renewable energy.

eNCA’s Peter Bruce and Karima Brown posed this and other questions to Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan who rubbished the “connect the dots” theory )as it has come to be known).

“Let me make it absolutely clear, we are not interested in either those conspiracies or all those connections of one kind or another. We’re there to do a serious piece o work and that work is, as far as I’m concerned in the national interest,” said Gordhan.

He went on to say that we are “living in the age of fake news” and as such, widely publicised conspiracy theories are to be expected.

When asked what is being done to ensure that contracts are awarded fairly, Gordhan chalked it up oo good governance and transparency.

“You know, I don’t give the contracts but Eskom does. So our job is to make sure we have the right systems of governance, we have the right levels of transparency as far as the tendering processes are concerned and there’s a lot more that can be done in that regard, let’s admit that right now…” he began.

He went on to say the nation needs to develop a new business culture that relies on the competence of a candidate as opposed to connections.