By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed the claims suggesting there is a conflict between the ministers tasked with addressing South Africa’s energy crisis.
Addressing the media outside the home of the late Tiego Moseneke, the younger brother of former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, on Saturday, Ramaphosa said Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s task is to ensure that load shedding is ended.
“The task of the minister of DMRE is on an energy side to be the repository of the regulation, the laws that we have on regulating energy while the Minister of Public Enterprises will be dealing with the issues of Eskom in relation to governance, in relation to the restructuring of Eskom so that we deliver precisely what we would deliver, a restructured Eskom which will effectively become a well-governed organisation.
“So, there is no conflict and of course in the media, there’s a talk of this conflict and that conflict… there is no conflict as far as I am concerned and I know exactly the delineation of the tasks of these three ministers and truth be told, the ministers themselves are surprised that there is this talk of conflict,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the three ministers work very well together, saying in many ways, this is a good architecture which enhances integrated government which will address the national challenge of load shedding.
“There is no conflict and there is no crisis, government goes on and work is underway,” Ramaphosa added.
When announcing Ramokgopa’s appointment, Ramaphosa said he would transfer certain powers and functions contained in relevant legislation to the new Minister in the Presidency in line with Section 97 of the Constitution.
The country’s electricity crunch has been years in the making, a product of delays in building new coal-fired power stations, corruption in coal supply contracts, criminal sabotage and failures to ease up regulation to enable private providers to swiftly bring renewable energy on tap.
African National Congress (ANC) is recommending that utility Eskom delays the decommissioning of its ageing coal-fired power stations to help minimise rolling blackouts.
However that this did not mean the country would abandon its climate commitments under the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) plan.
The United States, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union have pledged a combined $8.5 billion investment to back South Africa’s plan to phase out fossil fuel use, but Ramaphosa has said that the total cost could prove ten times higher.
South Africa is the world’s 12th biggest emitter of climate-warming gases and is heavily reliant on coal – the most polluting fossil fuel – for electricity generation.