Minister, please stop treating South Africans as though we are stupid

You have to hand it to the ANC: The party’s apparatchiks have developed the “Fire pool excuse” to a fine art. And none more so than our newly appointed Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Speaking at Kusile power station, he said: “The problems I see here are more technical than corruption taking place.”

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In a sense, he is correct. A failing unit may have an immediate technical cause. But the broader picture is that the Kusile and Medupi power station projects went hideously over their budgets and completion deadlines.

At the core of that was, guess who? The ANC.

In 2015, the US Securities and Exchange Commission entered into a $19 million settlement with Hitachi, which scored the tender for the construction of the two plants’ boilers.

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The settlement agreement revealed how Hitachi landed the $5.6 billion contract, while partnering with the ANC’s investment front Chancellor House Holdings, which made a 5 000% return on its investment into the plants that never worked properly.

Minister, the very Kusile project itself was a way for the ANC to loot – and its example was followed by many of its top people lining their pockets. Please stop treating South Africans as though we are stupid.