Johannesburg - ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has blamed the energy crisis in South Africa on state capture and not the party.
Mbalula said the ANC plans to end load shedding by the end of this year.
He was speaking at a media briefing at Luthuli House in Johannesburg yesterday, on the outcomes of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting and lekgotla held from January 20 to 30, 2023.
Mbalula repeated President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of a move to declare the current energy crisis a state of disaster to deal with the rolling power outages.
Delivering a closing remark at the ANC NEC lekgotla on Monday, Ramaphosa said work was under way within the government to ensure that legal requirements are met to declare a state of disaster over the country’s energy problems.
Mbalula said they needed a mechanism that they could use that will focus government in dealing with the crisis.
“First, you have to admit that this is a monumental disaster that they need to deal with. To seek to be philosophical about it will not help us to get to the point…
Mbalula was in a rush to conclude the media briefing because Eskom announced it was going to implement load shedding Stage 5 and 6 respectively, yesterday and today.
“As we are here now we are told we are moving to load shedding Stage 6… That’s not how you move the country forward. This is an emergency. It's a monumental disaster for business, small and big,” Mbalula said.
He said the issue is where and how they are going to mobilise the resources to support emergency interventions at Eskom.
“So that’s why we then said state of emergency no, we don't want any mechanism that is going to infringe on the rights of people. We don’t want well written, well documented now in what we call ‘state capture report’. We are not there now.
“The key question and this is what the lekgotla had to answer. If we say this is a crisis, what mechanism you undertake to deal with a crisis, you can’t be ad hoc… There are committees. Netcom is there dealing with the intervention, you’ve got the crisis committee and all of that.
“You need a holistic mechanism to intervene and reverse load shedding, among others. But at the same time, you need to deal with this particular challenge decisively by way of ensuring that it is stabilised and and everything is moving forward,” he said
Mbalula said the party called on all society to work with them in progressively solving energy problems because it affected everyone.
“In solving the energy crisis, the NEC lekgotla encouraged Ramaphosa to declare a national state of disaster, which will also require that the ANC reconnects with our communities and society, as the party does not have the monopoly of ideas.
“We therefore call on all society to work with us in progressively solving the challenge since it affects all of us, in particular the poor and the working class,” Mbalula said.
He said the lekgotla also directed the Cabinet to study in detail the obstacles in delivering infrastructure, vandalism and counter-revolutionary tendencies, with a view to increasing infrastructure investment while strengthening the capability and capacity of the state.
Mbalula said Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan had told the Lekgotla that an additional 46 000 megawatts was required to be added to the 26 000MW current capacity.
He said in trying to build and maintain capacity, key concerns remain vandalism, which has posed a risk, further compounded by the fact that six power stations are not in operation.
Economist Dr Iraj Abedian said the declaration of state of disaster is a shallow approach from politicians.
Abedian said it is a matter of record at the Zondo Commission that Ramaphosa himself said accused number one is the ANC.
Speaking in an interview with one of the broadcasters, Abedian said he thinks that people can point fingers at each other… But there is a need for the nation to leave that to the law enforcement agencies.
“The immediate issue that we have is we have an energy crisis, and the declaration of a state of emergency in my view is putting the cart before the horse.
“The horse has to be a technical solution. Remember, energy is not an ideological or factional fight between the ANC or any other part of the society.
“It is a technical issue that has been allowed, by, as Mbalula articulated clearly, a decade of state capture and even longer and up until today, which degenerated Eskom organisationally, technically, financially and in every other way,” he said.
Abedian further said: “So we need to say what should be done at Eskom and what should be done to the national energy… They are not necessarily the same thing. But as far as Eskom is concerned, the state of disaster is not going to sort it out.
“Eskom is a cancer of corruption, a hub of abuse and network, a mafia-style of looting of public resources, so we need to not declare a state of disaster but treat it as a state of disaster which means the president and the Cabinet must stay out of the way.
“They must appoint four groups of interrelated complementary expertise engineers, logistic managers, financial managers, and administrators to turn the power utility around, but not to be told by this minister and administer turn right, turn left. No!” said Abedian.
He said the president must use the constitutional power vested in him to get every obstacle out of the way of this team.
DA leader John Steenhuisen welcomed the move, saying it is a step in the right direction, however, he emphasised that there is a need for more details on the plan.
Steenhuisen said what they don’t want to see is another turn to the Covid-19 command council which was vested will all powers.
The EFF rejected the call by the ANC.
“The call, which the incompetent Ramaphosa made at his political party meeting is an empty pretence of doing something about the electricity crisis, and will not end the crippling electricity blackouts,” said EFF national spokesperson Sinawo Tambo.
The Star