ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has defended the intended appointment of a new minister of electricity in the Presidency, saying he would be a project manager at a political level.
He said the new minister will also need to hit the ground running.
The country has been battling load shedding for a long time and the new minister will not have to be someone who has no understanding of issues at hand.
The year 2022 saw South Africa reach unprecedented levels of load shedding, while the situation in 2023 has shown little to no improvement.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to name the new minister when he announces his Cabinet reshuffle within in the next few days.
Mbalula said the minister would have to focus solely on Eskom and load shedding as this was a monumental crisis that threatened the country.
Ramaphosa has said in the past that Eskom was a financial risk to the economy and it needed to be supported.
Mbalula said on Friday that the minister of electricity will have to be on top of the issues at Eskom.
“This minister will be given a mandate and it will be further refined so that he is not handicapped by intolerant territorial bullies in the system who will want to say ‘no this is my territory, don’t come close’.
“The president will resolve those issues. The minister of electricity will sleep at Eskom, eat Eskom, wake up at Eskom and brief the country,” said Mbalula.
He said they wanted to fix load shedding as quickly as possible.
The ANC welcomed the appointment of this minister as he will move with speed to address this crisis.
The minister will ensure that things that need to happen at Eskom do happen.
Political parties have criticised the appointment of the minister of electricity saying this will further add to the number of Cabinet ministers.
But Mbalula said they needed someone who was going to deal with this problem on a daily basis as it was done during Covid-19 when it started in 2020.
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