President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to appoint minister of electricity in South Africa

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that President Cyril Ramaphosa wants to appoint minister of electricity in South Africa.

It will enable the government to accelerate energy projects and limit regulatory requirements while maintaining rigorous environmental protections, procurement principles and technical standards, the president said.

The auditor general will be brought in to ensure continuous monitoring of expenditure. This, Ramaphosa said, will guard against any abuses of the funds needed to attend to this disaster.

“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures,” Ramaphosa said.

“The energy crisis is an existential threat to our economy and social fabric. We must spare no effort, and we must allow no delay in implementing these measures.”

In a brief statement, Eskom said it would study the detail in the government gazette on the state of disaster “to understand the implications of the declaration”.

“Our intelligence programme has already resulted in a number of people (43 and growing) being caught.“

The president also said that the government would be going to proceed with roll-out of roof-top solar projects.

Ramaphosa said that the country’s finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, will outline in his upcoming budget how the government will be assisting in these projects and tax relief and other benefits for businesses.

Ramaphosa says he will also appoint a Minister of Energy under The Presidency who will focus on the implementation of the energy plan.

The Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, the president said, will remain the shareholder representative of Eskom and steer the restructuring of Eskom.

The Minister of Electricity will be appointed in the Presidency, and that minister will focus “day and night” on this crisis.

“To deal more effectively and urgently with the challenges that confront us, I will appoint a Minister of Electricity in the Presidency to assume full responsibility for overseeing all aspects of the electricity crisis response,” Ramaphosa said.

In order to avoid confusion, Ramaphosa said, the minister of public enterprises, currently Pravin Gordhan, will remain Eskom’s shareholder representative and will steer the power utility’s restructuring. This is despite a proposal by the ANC that state-owned entities be moved out of Gordhan’s department and into their relevant policy departments.

“The state of disaster,” Ramaphosa said, “will enable us to provide practical measures that we need to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including for the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply.”

Where technically possible, the freshly gazetted regulations will enable the government to exempt critical infrastructure and institutions such as hospitals and water treatment plants from load-shedding.

He also said that the government will support Eskom to secure additional funding to continue purchasing diesel.

This will help ease load shedding so the power utility is able to operate their diesel-run plants.

On the issues of corruption that theft that the power utility faces, he said that it is being dealt with. Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Julius Malema alleges that there is a state-sponsored threat existing against him.

Malema added that he had received a warning that he was going to be stabbed during the SONA23.

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius S. Malema says the national assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula wrong to expell them,citing she was supposed to warn them three times.

Malema says he will be taking legal actions against national assembly speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. 

The EFF was expelled from the parliament after storming on the stage,resulting in the disruption on the SONA.