GNU Ministers: Who will be the new electricity boss in parliament?
The big question lingering in the minds of many as to who will be appointed the Minister of Minerals & Energy, the Minister of Electricity, Minister of Public Enterprises, Minister of Environmental Affairs etc and finally, let us not forget the Minister of Finance.
This is a question that is going to stir quite a bit of emotions in the coming weeks due to the recent formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The 7th government Administration is composed of bizarre partners made up of previous political opponents who at some point were sworn enemies in the political sense.
Never in the history of South Africa has the former ruling party, the ANC, gone into bed to share a government administration coalition with the DA, IFP and PA, ACDP and the likes.
Eskom is recovering at a pace that has shocked many people who previously held the view that it was a “dead horse” which had no future in the SA energy landscape.
The current program generation recovery plan championed by the Board and Executive leadership of Eskom has shocked the nation in achieving such remarkable results, of maintaining a no load-shedding status for almost 3 months counting over 80 days without load-shedding.
The energy crisis that gripped SA has seemingly disappeared into the shadows of the past and packed up and left with the previous mediocre leaders of Eskom.
Will Eskom survive the current pace and sustain its newly earned status of dishing out such record breaking performance in driving its generation recovery plan?
I am not so sure given the new developments in the 7th administration.
The main concern lingers around the formation of GNU core leadership. The 4 mentioned departments namely DMRE, DPE, MoE, DFFE are intrinsically directly linked to Eskom in such a way that if there were to be any radical changes to the current departmental leadership and Ministers, it will trigger major instability in the way Eskom has been performing over the previous months.
We have to remember that for Eskom to reach this level of leadership confidence and policy certainty these four ministries were directly responsible for delivering such stability.
The co-joint line functionary ministries responsible for Eskom were directly linked to the improvement in Eskom generation turn-around and performance over the last 18 months.
I am also not sure if the incoming Ministers of Minerals and Energy, Public Enterprise and Electricity and Environmental Affairs will share the same common values, and understand how to lead Eskom energy policy priorities in order to support the ongoing turn-around strategy in Eskom.
Historically, the biggest challenge that Eskom had to navigate was always around the policy environment.
The government of the outgoing 6th administration finally learnt the hard lesson when load shedding nearly collapsed the economy of SA.
The government learnt a lesson to never interfere with the key strategic importance of the economy which is energy generation, transmission and distribution.
When the ANC previously fiddled with Eskom and lost focus on energy policy and leadership matters, that interference action crippled Eskom and caused the biggest energy crisis ever seen in SA in the 30 years of democracy.
The country in 2024 had to endure 335 days of load shedding, collapsing everything in the process while triggering the highest ever seen retrenchment and unemployment in South African history.
Before President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced the Energy Action Plan and appointed the Minister of Electricity in the Presidency, Eskom was in a totally broken state, on autopilot mode unable to keep up with operations, maintenance and refurbishment of power plants, and its financial commitments to creditors and the management of its core debtors namely municipalities.
The ANC’s last administration learnt way too well the dangers of interfering with energy generation space.
Until President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced the Energy Action Plan and appointed the Minister of Electricity in the Presidency, Eskom was in a totally broken state, on autopilot mode unable to keep up with operations, maintenance and refurbishment of power plants, and its financial commitments to creditors management of debtors namely municipalities.
It was a time of such proportional crisis where Eskom's failures impacted the economy while throwing this country into a near failed state category.
Now its certain that there will be changes in the new GNU Ministers line-up. The big question lingering in the minds of many is who will be appointed the new ministers of the various departments in charge of Eskom.
Are we going to see a complete overhaul and amalgamation of line departments in charge of Eskom? Or will the GNU government retain the old regime departmental structure that was in charge of Eskom.
We all know the conflicts that ensued previously as to which was the main ministry directly in charge of Eskom.
At the time, during the previous 6th administration, the ANC leadership within the NEC was even suggesting policy alignment and implementation of the NASREC policy resolutions, which stated that the Department of Minerals and Energy take over complete control and strategic management of Eskom, while moving it away from the Department of Public Enterprises.
The main contest for the control of Eskom was between Minister Gwede Mantashe and Minister Pravin Gordhan, and this contest was later resolved through compromise by appointing a line-function Minister in the Presidency partly in charge of Eskom.
This is how the Eskom ministerial battle was resolved, bringing clarity and direction in how the various ministries would jointly share legislative sections of responsibility on how to manage and lead Eskom, and the energy sector and industry.
This challenge regarding which ministry will have complete control of Eskom and will be in charge of implementing the IRP and overall energy policy of SA, remains a big lingering question and a major challenge for President Cyril Ramaphosa as the leader of the GNU government.
The configuration of the new ministries in the GNU and selection of key ministers will be a make or break for the new government under the GNU administration, given the fact that the ANC no longer enjoys complete autonomy of power.
How will the ministers mainly in charge of Eskom be selected and other departmental line functionary ministries?
The GNU government is not going to be an easy administration. All the parties that undersigned the agreement to rule under the GNU coalition government mostly have different and at times opposing views on their policy stance. How will those divergent policy interests be harmonised and synchronised towards the formation of a new government of national unity?
Eskom is currently enjoying relatively unencumbered operational freedom.
This question of who will rule Eskom is an intricate web of complexities. Will the recent improvements in Eskom's performance under the current leadership of Dan Marokane and Nyati Mteto be headed for a bumpy ride? Or will they sail smoothly through the incoming GNU confirmation storm?
Whoever will rule over Eskom will determine the success or failure of our economy in the coming years.
We have seen in the past years how soon a country can be plunged into a self- made energy crisis and chaos, due to executive negligence and political interference.
Eskom did not nearly collapse because it was broken and unfixable. No, to the contrary.
The Eskom energy crisis showed us that if as a country we neglect proper management of our energy resources and energy generation capital assets, most certainly things will fall apart and collapse to unrecoverable levels.
Economic turmoil and total destruction of the economy is not a child's play. We have witnessed how easy things can go wrong if we lose our grip on the wheel of government.
The voters have warned South Africa’s leaders not to ever again interfere with matters pertaining to energy generation, especially interference in coal and nuclear. We have seen the devastating economic effect of the rushed move to implement the Just Energy Transition and phasing out of coal, and how much it has cost the economy.
SA cannot afford to transition away from fossil fuels and rush the end, closure and use of coal. The new government must make sure that this time around it does not lose focus, and start once again meddling and interfering in the strategic objectives and policy of Eskom and its executive operations.
If it wasn't for the current astute leadership at Eskom for standing strong, resolute and seeing through it's generation recovery plan strategy, today SA’s energy crisis could have been worse.
There would be no ANC and the Government of National Unity coalition to talk about in SA.
The ship would have sailed straight into the middle of the ocean, while crippled by the energy crisis thereby hitting into rogue ocean waves leading to the maiden RSA ship crashing in the middle of the ocean, sinking all of us 62 million citizen passengers aboard.
We congratulate President Cyril Ramaphosa on being elected the leader of the seventh GNU administration, and we wish him the best of success in his administration.
Crown Prince Adil Nchabeleng is the president of Transform RSA and an independent energy expert.
* The views in this column are independent of “Business Report” and Independent Media.
BUSINESS REPORT