Many looked forward to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address this year and when it was delivered, there was a lot in the basket for the Rainbow Nation, including the announcement of a minister of electricity in the presidency.
South Africa has been plagued with an electricity crisis that has dragged on for years, leading to load shedding and, as some people have observed, the closure of some businesses that could not afford to run amid the load shedding crisis.
Eskom, the power utility charged with managing South Africa’s energy needs, has not been living up to expectations and at some point, its CEO, Andre de Ruyter, had to resign. His resignation was something South Africa’s energy minister Gwede Mantashe had wanted all along because, according to him, de Ruyter had no technical background to handle the technical role he was sitting on.
But will the appointment of a minister of electricity in the presidency erode Gwede mantashe’s powers? That has been the question people have been asking. Mantashe has a clarifying sentence for those who care to listen.
The role, according to him, is like e project management approach to dealing with a crisis. He is neither intimidated nor has he lost relevance in the presidency.
