If memory serves, the ANC puts itself through a torturous political ritual every January, starting with the January 8 statement, to mark its founding. This year the ringing promises to “strengthen capacity”, “mobilise social partners” and “improve delivery of basic services” were joined by bigger ambitions.
Some worthwhile: “The ANC will also ensure that it raises more funding from its own members ...” Some just foolish: “We will continue implementing the Integrated Resource Plan 2019, which includes the procurement of over 18,000MW of new generation capacity.”
Flushed with its apparently unkillable revolutionary resolve, the ANC forgets. The 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), drawn up by mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe, is already obsolete. Under the plan we still have to build a new coal power station. It contains targets for renewable energy generation that now simply cannot be met.
January is unstoppable though. Later in the month the party’s newly elected national executive committee (NEC) meets for a lekgotla. This meeting is supposed to rubber stamp the January 8 statement. The NEC lekgotla is then almost immediately followed by a cabinet lekgotla, to which in the past President Cyril Ramaphosa has invited not only ministers but also department and institutional leaders and premiers, including those not from the ANC.
It’s exhausting. Before the NEC meeting this year, or perhaps between it and the cabinet lekgotla, Ramaphosa must appoint a new cabinet. It will involve a reshuffle. It is simply unthinkable (though this is Ramaphosa we are talking about here, not Speedy Gonzales), that he would not reshuffle before the first cabinet meeting of the year.
How much time does he need? The failures are there for all to see — at local government Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has been pathetic. Her much-touted District Development Model is utterly without substance or consequence. And she is openly critical of Ramaphosa. But we’re talking about the cyrilverse here. She may survive.
Bheki Cele is a poor police minister and not only should he be fired but the whole department could go too. The police (and intelligence, to kill off another expensive political luxury) should fall under home affairs, where the current occupant, Aaron Motsoaledi, has so badly cocked up immigration, and so monumentally underestimated the centrality of his department to our economic welfare, that he fires himself on the grounds of manifest inadequacy.
Fikile Mbalula is no longer transport minister, a job that, to be kind, he was useless at. But as ANC secretary-general he will, sadly for the opposition, not be useless at all. If anyone can get the ANC vote out in 2024, it is Mbalula. Underestimate him at your peril. Of course, Lindiwe Sisulu goes. Princess and windbag, no-one epitomises the epic lethargy and hubris of the ANC in power better than she does.
And of course there’s the daddy of them all, Mantashe. Ramaphosa won’t fire him, but as the man single-handedly responsibly for (not) adding generating power to the grid, he must be removed from energy. As we sit in stage 6 load-shedding only half of the country’s unsolvable energy problem is maintenance at Eskom’s plant. The other half is Mantashe’s epic failure to add enough new capacity to the grid.
Renewable power auctions through bid windows 5 and 6 have failed on his watch. There’s no other word for it. They should have added more than 7,000MW to the grid (or be in the process of building it), and less than 1,200MW has been nailed down. It is a disaster. So is he. A battery storage tender planned for last September has not taken place. Ramaphosa should give him local government, where things are so bad they simply can’t get worse.
Just how deeply Ramaphosa cuts is obviously conjecture. We will know when we know. He is not sitting atop a heaving mass of intellect from which to choose ministers and, like Jacob Zuma before him, he will be careful to reward as many people in the new NEC with well-paid jobs — if not in cabinet then running vital state institutions, whether they are suited to them or not.
That’s called patronage, and it’s why the ANC still exists. Ramaphosa has a big majority in the NEC but he needs to keep it that way. Paul Mashatile, his new deputy in the party (and, once a seat in parliament is arranged) in the state, is ultimately a rival, not an ally, and will work his own way around the NEC in the months ahead.
Load-shedding and the slow extinction of SA as a serious economy aside, Ramaphosa and his party will from February throw themselves at getting re-elected with a parliamentary majority next year. A CEO will be found for Eskom who can throw caution to the wind and keep the lights on so Ramaphosa can go to the country having “solved” the power crisis.
The effects of even worse maintenance and not spending enough on installing new renewable generation and strengthening the grid — that can all be dealt with after the election. The World Bank is desperate to lend us more money. The opposition is nowhere and the revolution is in full cry.
• Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.