Mabuza accuses Gordhan of misleading Ramaphosa on load shedding

Deputy president David ‘DD’ Mabuza told a group of journalists on Thursday that he believes Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Eskom board have misled President Cyril Ramaphosa on load shedding.

This after Ramaphosa assured South Africans there would be no load shedding until January 13, only for it to start up again on January 4.

“They’ve misled the president, but right from the day we went there with the president I insisted on maintenance. Maintenance of these power stations is very important,” said Mabuza, who was appointed head of an Energy War Room tasked with solving the crisis at Eskom.

He added that he did not believe there should be promises of no load shedding, given the condition of Eskom’s power stations.

“You can’t say there won’t be any load shedding if there is no effective maintenance of these power stations, some are old, of course, and we must rebuild these power stations, of course, we must also get the new ones running to full capacity,” he said.

Mabuza said the Eskom board had been “struggling to get things right” and noted that the period the struggling utility spent without a CEO was a factor.

According to the deputy president, the period in which Jabu Mabuza played the dual role of acting as both Eskom board chairperson and CEO was “unfortunate”.

READ MORE: Did Eskom CEO De Ruyter ‘destroy’ Nampak or save it from ‘going under’?

Former Nampak CEO Andre de Ruyter was appointed to the unenviable task of taking over as Eskom’s CEO in November last year.

Mabuza said he wanted to give the new CEO a chance to settle into his duties.

“Soon I am going to meet with him in order for him to tell us exactly where can we assist him.”

Presidential spokesperson Khusela Diko said Mabuza had not meant to insult Gordhan or Mabuza.

“We have no doubt that the deputy president did not seek [to] nor did he, in fact, infer any malicious intent on either the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan or the Eskom board chairperson Jabu Mabuza.”

She also denied Ramaphosa had broken his ‘January 13’ promise, claiming Ramaphosa had only said there would be no planned load shedding, and the load shedding experienced early in January has been unplanned.

“You will remember that the system was stable during the December period. Now what has subsequently happened could not have been planned and that’s why we keep saying that there’s been no planned load shedding as Eskom had committed,” she said.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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