Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe says the new electricity ministerial position does not affect him because the new minister, Kgosientsho “Sputla” Ramokgopa, will focus on Eskom, which was never under his authority but rather that of the public enterprises department.
Mantashe added that although he works with Eskom, it does not report to him, but to Minister Pravin Gordhan.
But on Monday night, during the announcement of the new cabinet, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he will use section 97 of the Constitution to transfer “certain powers and functions” to the electricity minister so that he can do his work.
“To effectively oversee the electricity crisis response, the appointed minister will have political responsibility, authority and control over all critical aspects of the Energy Action Plan,” he said. “This will help to deal with the challenge of fragmentation of responsibility across various departments and ministers which, while appropriate under normal circumstances, is not conducive to a crisis response.”
Mantashe was briefing reporters on the sidelines of the Africa Energy Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday where he said he hoped the duties between Ramokgopa and himself would be complementary instead of overlapping.
“We are keen to work with that ministry; it has nothing to do with taking away power from the department of mineral resources and energy but about reducing and eliminating load-shedding,” he said.
Ramaphosa appointed Ramokgopa as the electricity minister to deal with the recurring power cuts disrupting the country’s economy. The announcement came amid severe load-shedding with reeling power outages of up to eight to 10 hours.
Statistics South Africa released GDP statistics that reflect the effect of load-shedding on the economy. It linked the GDP results to the sharpest contraction since the third quarter of 2021 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Potential for conflict
Last week, during a media briefing, former minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele said the powers given to the new electricity minister will be closely watched, because there is concern about overlapping responsibilities and the potential for conflicts, particularly with Mantashe and Gordhan.
Last month Mantashe said the electricity minister was “only a project manager”. But Gungubele said the appointee would have the last word on anything related to power.
On Tuesday, Mantashe said Ramokgopa’s appointment was a critical step towards resolving the energy crisis. He also expressed confidence in the minister, calling him a “capable human being”.
“The appointment of this ministry will give us space to focus on paying attention to energy availability in particular. Number two, we will have to focus on emergency procurement of electricity … not ruling out the Karpowerships that have been pushed from pillar to post in South Africa,” Mantashe said
He added that although the Karpowerships works in countries such as Ghana, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire and Brazil, South Africa, “has chosen morals over energy and has opted to reject the Karpowerships”.
Mantashe was referring to the Karpowership company that is awaiting a decision from the forestry, fisheries and the environment minister, Barbara Creecy, who has put the Turkish company on hold after it failed to reach financial closure because of environmental and legal challenges.
There were concerns about the harmful effects on fishing, ocean ecosystems and potential greenhouse-gas emissions. It also faced criticism because the proposed 20-year power-purchase agreement was estimated would cost the country more than R200 billion.
The company has also been taken to court by environment activists. The Karpowership project has the support of Mantashe.
Karpowership was named a preferred bidder in the risk mitigation independent power producer procurement programme. It was to supply 1 220 megawatts of energy out of the 2 000MW to be procured through the programme.
Amid fears that the state of disaster declared by Ramahosa during his State of the Nation address would force Creecy to neglect environmental laws and approve the Karpowership licence, Creecy said during a media briefing last week that the state of disaster does not force her hand in making decisions.
“Whether all environmental law will be swept aside, and I think the answer is no, and it is not our intention to start producing blanket exemptions from those provisions,” she said.
Mantashe said he believed the power ships could be critical to resolving the energy crisis and, “at R1.17 per unit, would be less expensive than the cost of continued load-shedding, even if it rose”.
Ramokgopa is treading carefully. In an interview with SAFM on Tuesday, the electricity minister said he would wait for 14 days to hear what his job specs are.
“The president did announce to the country that there will be powers that will be given to the minister, but I think it is important that in the next seven to 14 days, and once we have engaged with the major players in this space, both the generation side and also the demand side … to come back and say what are those powers that we require to enable us to discharge the responsibility,” Ramokgopa said.
Mandisa Nyathi is a climate reporting fellow, funded by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa