Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe.
- The DA has warned against transferring the electric power company Eskom to the Ministry of Energy.
- The party says there is an obvious conflict with an energy ministry being an Eskom shareholder while also overseeing competition and regulation in the sector.
- An ANC resolution will make some state entities move away from the Department of Public Companies.
- For more financial news, go to News24 Business Cover.
The Democratic Alliance has criticized an ANC plan to move Eskom away from Public Enterprises and move it to the Ministry of Energy.
“The DA is implacably against this move and will fight it, tooth and nail, with all the levers at our disposal,” said Ghaleb Cachalia, spokesman for the opposition Public Enterprises party.
Last week, the ruling party concluded its 55th National Conference, where it resolved that state-owned companies in specific economic sectors should be supervised by their corresponding government departments. This means troubled entities such as Eskom and Transnet would be moved to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and the Department of Transport respectively.
there is a mandate
President Cyril Ramaphosa said this week that the resolution was a clear mandate from ANC members and that it would be implemented. In an interview with Newzroom Africa, he said: “Like all other resolutions, we have to look at it very closely… we have to look at effectiveness, timing and everything else. The resolution will be implemented, but [we] need to look at an integer number of things [like] regulatory processes… it is not easy”.
In a statement, Cachalia said there was an obvious conflict of interest for an energy ministry to be an Eskom shareholder and at the same time have responsibility for competition and regulation in the sector.
“There is a clear and present danger that if this happens, Eskom will never fully unbundle, as is necessary. Furthermore, it will retain its dominant position in the market, and the anticipated open market and energy exchange will, in all likelihood, they will not be implemented,” he said.
“Private investment will be relegated to the background and… corruption and burden reduction will flourish again. The move also has potentially significant financial implications, which we are busy unraveling.”
Cachalia speculated that the development was the result of a “political deal” to keep President Ramaphosa in power for another term.
Energizing support
Ramaphosa had the strong support of Gwede Mantashe, Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources and ANC National Chairman, when he was re-elected as ANC leader last month.
In the run-up to the resignation of Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, Mantashe accused the utility’s management of “actively agitating for the overthrow of the state” by failing to address load reduction. Mantashe also made earlier statements that De Ruyter was acting “like a cop” in the corruption-plagued entity.
“It would therefore be a serious mistake to move the utility, despite some ostensible reasons from an administrative and operational perspective, into the dirty hands of an ambitious bully who will use the coal lobby (with all its warts) and their allies in the cabal …to make the case for saving jobs under the guise of Eskom’s power availability factor fixing [a measure of plant performance]Cachalia said.
Along with the need for stable baseload power, the DA said there is a need to explore and accelerate generation from multiple other sources “on a lower-cost, source-independent basis, while exploring the most suitable, least invasive, and dense”. solution”.
