Kgosientsho “Sputla” Ramokgopa, the minister of electricity, is yet to be given the powers to do his job.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan are hampering attempts to expand Ramokgopa’s powers.
Ramokgopa presented his electricity emergency plan to last Wednesday’s urgent Cabinet meeting. Mantashe and Gordhan, assisted by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, dismissed him and sent him to the National Crisis Committee to get support there first.
Mantashe, as ANC chairperson, cracks the whip on the NEC and saved the President’s job last year.
However, Ramaphosa is also under pressure from the business sector, which sees Mantashe as the obstacle to opening up the market for renewable energy to be generated and added to the grid.
Ramokgopa has told the president that he could not tackle the structural issues around power supply if the powers to do so lay with other ministries.
Without such authority, Ramokgopa cannot communicate directly with the Eskom board. He cannot even visit a power station without Gordhan’s permission.
His hands are also tied regarding the reform of the industry – unbundling Eskom into generation, transmission and distribution companies, as well as the establishment of an independent market operator and system operator.
Eskom is still without a CEO, which is Gordhan’s responsibility.
To remove the obstacles in the way of new storage and generation capacity, Ramokgopa has to get past Mantashe, under whom the large-scale purchase of new generation capacity has virtually ground to a halt.
Against the background of this ministerial infighting, Eskom no longer has regular press conferences.
Ramokgopa said on the sidelines of the ANC’s NEC meeting in Ekurhuleni on Sunday that Eskom’s plans to alleviate load shedding in winter would rely largely on its open-cycle gas turbines. The buying of diesel, however, lies with Mantashe.