By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa continued to consolidate his hold on the ANC with his ally Mxolisi Dukwana being elected as the new Free State ANC provincial chair.
Dukwana garnered 346 votes, trumping his opponent Sisi Ntombela, who received 306 votes at the provincial conference in Mangaung.
Ramaphosa has appealed to the board of cash-strapped power utility to suspend its biggest electricity-price increase in more than a decade as the nation faces two more years of rolling blackouts.
Ramaphosa was addressing the closing session of the provincial conference at Imvelo Safari Lodge in Mangaung.
Eskom won approval by the national energy regulator to raise electricity tariffs by an inflation-beating 18.65% and 12.74% for the next two years on Jan. 12. The first increase is set to take effect in April.
“It will not be fair to impose the tariff on our people while there is load shedding,” he said, using a local term for power cuts.
Ramaphosa’s comments come after Eskom said the country could face two years of persistent blackouts as it overhauls its ageing power stations. He spoke in the central Free State province.
The tariff increases are a key input in the National Treasury’s plan to shift a portion of Eskom’s debt of about R400 billion onto the state’s balance sheet. It’s expected to announce the quantum of the transfer in February’s budget.
South Africa is suffering from an energy crisis, with Eskom implementing blackouts for more than 200 days last year and every day so far in 2023. The rolling outages are needed to protect the grid from collapse when the company’s ageing, mostly coal-fed plants, can’t meet demand.
An additional 6,000 megawatts of capacity is needed to stabilize the grid, and a “great deal of progress” is being made in unlocking logjams to close the shortfall, Ramaphosa said.
In addition to procuring extra capacity, the government will ensure Eskom’s diesel-fed power stations at Gourikwa and Ankerlig have enough fuel to boost power output when the coal-fired plants can’t meet demand, he said. That would reduce the severity of outages.
Eskom produces almost all the country’s electricity, and blackouts curb output in Africa’s most industrialized economy. Intense outages imposed earlier this month have taken a toll on industry and agriculture, and there’s a 45% chance of the nation slipping into a recession this year, a Bloomberg survey of economists shows.
Ramaphosa has also lambasted disgruntled delegates who walked out of the 9th Free State conference in Bloemfontein. The group left the conference after they disputed the top five leadership results.
They have also threatened to take legal action to challenge the outcomes of the conference.
At one stage it seemed like this conference would not happen. You have held a conference that has been successful. There were some who did not want this conference to sit but you did an amazing thing,” said Ramaphosa.
The people of Free State wanted the conference to succeed, he said.
“It has been a long and arduous road to come to this point of holding the conference and I want to congratulate the leadership you have elected and the leadership you are going to elect as additional members to the provincial executive elective.
“I am sure you are going to elect leaders who will take renewal forward because this conference is about renewal. As I said during the January 8 rally, renewal this time around is irreversible, irrevocable and the only way forward.
“That’s exactly what this conference is about. It is a conference for renewal because you have built a very good foundation to revive the ANC and wake it up in the Free State.
“Many of your branches met and that showed the beginning signs of the revival and renewal of the ANC. You are the ones who woke the ANC. This conference shows the ANC is truly standing and will be revived in the Free State.”
While three regions have yet to hold their conferences, Ramaphosa said he had no doubt they will be successful and will be able to rebuild the branches of the ANC.
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