Mantashe, Ramokgopa must focus on keeping lights on, forget ‘territorial battles’, says Mbaks

South Africa’s electricity crisis will be the main item on the agenda of the African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee (NEC) meeting, amid reports of power struggles over plans for Eskom.

The ANC’s NEC will convene a four-day meeting, starting on Friday, to discuss a number of issues regarding the country’s challenges, including load shedding.

‘Lasting solutions’

Addressing the media at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg on Friday, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula indicated the governing party was working to implement “lasting solutions” in order to solve the energy crisis “once and for all”.

“There cannot be any hope for prosperity, if our energy crisis is not addressed. Ours is not a desire to posture,” he said.

Mbalula said the NEC was expected to receive a report from Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa following his visit to various Eskom power stations across the country last month.

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“We are pleased with the evaluations of [comrade] Sputla, and look forward to mobilising all of society behind the decisive actions which we shall emerge from this NEC meeting with.

“Of course, the solutions related to energy are not an end in themselves, but are an important contributor to ensuring shared and lasting prosperity for all,” he further said.

“Indeed, the time for talk has long gone and we are an ANC in action. We will therefore spend some time considering key areas we need to unlock to ensure greater and faster growth.”

‘Territorial battles’

Mbalula also commented on reports alleging that Ramokgopa was at loggerheads with Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Ramokgopa wants to have his mandate extended by President Cyril Ramaphosa to deal with load shedding, but the Electricity Minister’s attempt was thwarted by Gordhan and Mantashe.

According to The Mail & Guardian, Mantashe gave Ramaphosa an ultimatum to fire him rather than take his powers and transfer them to Ramokgopa.

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Speaking on the matter, Mbalula said each minister should instead focus on keeping the lights on.

“The president can’t allow reports like there is a fallout… there [are] territorial battles as if this country is leaderless. We expect the president to run his Cabinet. Not his Cabinet running itself. If he’s got a problem with that, we will have a problem with him,” he said.

Mbalula seemingly agreed with the suggestion that Ramokgopa be allowed to resolve the energy crisis without any obstacles.

“South Africans are not interested about territorial battles. They are interested about what is it that we do to increase generation capacity in the country.”

Eskom power stations

Earlier this month, Ramokgopa proposed that government extend the life of some of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations to avoid losing megawatts (MW) in generation capacity.

“Something hanging in the air with Tutuka is that it’s meant to be decommissioned by 2030. So in the next seven years, the system is going to lose 3 654MW when in fact I’m standing before you saying the country is short of 6 000MW just to break even [and] get the economy going,” he said.

The electricity minister also lamented the fact that open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) were being operated at a much higher rate.

He said the OCGTs were running at a great expense to the country and that Cabinet needed to make “tough decisions” to reduce loading shedding.

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