Ramaphosa weakens his pit bull Mantashe

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday stripped Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe of some of his powers under the Electricity Regulation Act – something which will threaten his alliance with his political “keeper” ahead of elections, according to experts.

Two months after appointing Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Ramaphosa finally announced what his functions and responsibilities would be.

Mixed reactions

This was, however, met with mixed reactions from experts, who claimed the president might lose his internal party support structure. Mantashe has acted as Ramaphosa’s keeper and pit bull, standing in his corner and protecting him when he faced an attack by the ANC’s national executive committee over the Phala Phala saga.

“The president is in a very difficult position because the mere creation of the department to start with was just an indication that the president is trying to avoid a confrontation with Mantashe when it comes to energy policy and transition,” political analyst Ralph Mathekga said.

“And to avoid the confrontation, the president decided to form the [new department], but that also brought back that question as to how we have public works that has became responsible for Eskom, mineral resources and energy responsible for the energy policy and now he added a third player.

“And the third player is created, not because the two are not adequate, but because the two most important departments, of public works and [of] energy, just couldn’t cooperate to solve the problem.”

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘Somebody didn’t want Kusile and Medupi to be finished’ – Mbeki

Cabinet lacks coherence

Mathekga said this just added to the problem, “so the introduction of this [department] is an indication that Cabinet lacks coherence and does not share similar ideas because the president is supposed to be the commander in chief”.

“But now the minister of electricity has been given powers, showing the president is now going to ignore the role of minerals and energy in relation to transformation in the energy transition, and also dealing with electricity crisis,” he added.

“It weakens the president because, no doubt about it, Mantashe is a powerful ally who has helped the president fight off many fires within the party. And this weakens him more ahead of the elections next year.”

Alliances

Another political analyst, Dr Bernard Sebake, said although the president would have loved to keep a balancing act politically to ensure the allies who ensured he emerged from the ANC conference were happy, he was also challenged by the issue of load shedding, which had worsened in the hands of his ally, Mantashe.

“It will probably affect their alliance because politics is relatively about the power an individual yields”, but the introduction of a new department made it clear some of Mantashe’s responsibilities would be taken over, Sebake said.

“What will comfort and console him is his area of focus, minerals and mining, still remain under his care. “In essence, he was not completely kicked to the kerb because his work was already bloated.”

Blackouts and tariffs

Meanwhile, energy analyst Tshepo Kgadima argued the practical meaning and effect of the proclamation was that the “economically catastrophic and financially ruinous rolling blackouts are here to stay, unfortunately”.

“It is apparent the presidency has not duly considered that Section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act violates Section 217 of the constitution, procurement provisions in the Public Finance Management Act and Energy Regulator Act,” Kgadima said.

“The purpose of Section 34 was for liberalisation of the electricity market and to thus create competition and usher new players in the electricity market.

“As matters stand, Section 34 has been misapplied in that its implementation arbitrarily and unlawfully imposes financially onerous conditions on Eskom as the buyer of … electricity purportedly produced by privateers.

“Consequently, Eskom has had to pass on the Section 34-related costs to consumers in the form of unsustainably high and unaffordable electricity tariffs which have, in turn, caused devastating harm to the economy.”

ALSO READ: Eskom pushes load shedding to stage 5 ahead of weekend – here’s the schedule