Mantashe must be fired for Eskom crisis – Steenhuisen

Interim leader of the DA John Steenhuisen told reporters outside the Eskom power station on Tuesday morning that President Cyril Ramaphosa could show his leadership and seriousness in ending the Eskom crisis by removing Gwede Mantashe from his position as minister of mineral resources and energy.

Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa was next to denial while Mantashe was in denial and unable to deal with the basic elements of the crisis. He called for the minister to be fired and the president to return from his trip to Egypt and address parliament to provide concrete reasons for the Eskom crisis.

“I don’t think South Africans are being given the full story, and we call on the president to return to the country and take charge.”

Eskom announced stage 6 load shedding on Monday and Steenhuisen said this had brought the economy to its knees as Eskom faced imminent collapse. He added there was no political will to turn the crisis around, and “the President is gravely mistaken if he thinks the crisis can be managed via phone or through his iPad”.

Eskom announced that load shedding would move from stage 4 to stage 6 from 6pm on Monday, a first for the country due to a “regrettable” technical problem at Medupi Power Station.

Later in the evening, they confirmed that the blackouts had gone back to stage 4.

As a result, the DA has written a letter to speaker of parliament Thandi Modise to recall parliament for Ramaphosa to tell MPs what his Eskom turnaround plans are.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.