Mkhize weighs in on solving the energy crisis in South Africa

Presidential hopeful Zweli Mkhize has joined a list of high-profile  

ANC leaders who have spoken out against President Cyril Ramaphosa’s failure to hold cabinet ministers accountable for the rising Eskom crisis. 

In an in-depth interview with the Mail & Guardian, Mkhize said it was embarrassing for the country to have dysfunctional parastatals, insinuating that, in past administrations, the country would have heard a cry for those in leadership positions to be removed.

“From where we sit, we believe they have not been much accountable on Eskom,” he said. 

The utility recently ramped up load-shedding to stage four because of continual breakdowns at its power stations.

Ramaphosa was forced to return from his trip to the United Kingdom last month when load-shedding was taken to stage six, 

the highest stage the country has ever experienced.

Following a  public outcry over the Eskom board’s lack of qualifications to deal with the crisis, Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan announced a new Eskom board which would be chaired by previous chief executive Mpho Makwana.

Gordhan and energy minister Gwede Mantashe have been criticised for failing to attend to the crisis. Both leaders are key allies of Ramaphosa and are reportedly at loggerheads over the direction of the power utility. 

In a July interview with the M&G, Mantashe said “alpha CEO” Andre de Ruyter — a Gordhan hire —was not the best person to handle the ailing state entity, suggesting that Eskom needed a “fixer”.

Mantashe’s sentiments were shared by national working committee and national executive committee member Nonceba Mhlauli, who said De Ruyter and the board should resign. 

Mkhize said the government must take into account that the restrictions in terms of utilisation of coal needed to be commensurate with the negative impact on the environment.

He said the country should have a baseload that created energy security and stability, adding that only then could the government tap into its integrated resource plan, which allows for additional sources, including clean energy — solar, wind and water — and nuclear. 

“We need to actually stabilise the energy security in the country and use the extra energy for growth in the energy-generation capacity, as a basis on which to lead industrialisation in the country,” he added. 

In 2017, former president Jacob Zuma’’s vision of energy expansion towards trillion-rand nuclear power stations was thwarted by NGOs, which turned to the courts to declare the joint project between South Africa and Russia unlawful. 

At the time, opposition parties and civil society challenged the Zuma administration’s plans to impose a financial burden on the country’s fiscus which it could ill afford, having been downgraded to junk status.

There was also a call for the country to move towards cleaner energy sources. 

Mkhize said there was no rationale for opposing South Africa’s expansion to nuclear power. 

“I think people were fighting over interests as to where this can be driven from, not whether it’s correct to have nuclear energy as part of clean energy,” he said. 

He said China’s fleet of nuclear power stations was partly based on South African intellectual property. 

“So, I’m saying as far as I’m concerned, sometimes when there is enough noise made about something, people actually start believing that it is wrong, when we don’t quite know what the motive was for the noise. 

“There is no way you can say nuclear power is a wrong source of energy,” he said. 

“We were running nuclear here. I think that is responsible for probably about 5% of our supplies. If we had it, what was wrong with expanding it? The issue, as far as I was concerned, was whether it should be done by Russia and so that was what caused the fight — the other issues that were linked  to that, more than the primary wrongness of the nuclear technology. That is not the case,” he said.

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