President Cyril Ramaphosa is tipped to reshuffle his cabinet in the coming weeks, a move people familiar with his thinking say will put minerals & energy minister Gwede Mantashe on the chopping block amid severe power outages.
Mantashe, whose department is responsible for energy generation, will be among the high-profile ministers in the major shake-up, which is also likely to see Ramaphosa name his second in command in the ANC, Paul Mashatile, as a replacement for David Mabuza, who has already offered “to resign” as deputy president, the people said.
According to several sources close to Ramaphosa, the president knows that it would be “unjustifiable” to keep Mantashe as energy minister following high-level meetings last week with business, labour and other civil society leaders.
“The ministers of energy, public enterprises and finance have got to work together to try to solve load-shedding in the short term. This is not happening,” a source in Ramaphosa’s office said. “Other ministers, those in Eskom and those in the renewable sector, all see Mantashe as a stumbling block.”
Analysts say Ramaphosa may be reluctant to fire senior ANC leaders such as Mantashe, a close ally whose strong standing in the party could turn him into a powerful adversary.
Speaking to an ANC Free State conference at the weekend, Mantashe hinted at the possibility of losing command over energy generation.
“Within the ANC there is a new debate that says energy and mining must be split. They will split energy from my department [of mineral resources & energy],” he said. “Then say they are taking Eskom to energy in terms of the resolution from the conference of the ANC.”
Business Day understands Ramaphosa feels that finance minister Enoch Godongwana “was doing a good job” and he wants public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan “to complete the project” of reform of state-owned enterprises by 2024.
‘Last opportunity’
“The ANC polling says the party, even with CR, is going to do badly in 2024. This reshuffle is our last opportunity to act — we all know that,” a minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
“The president has got to do what is in the ANC’s and the country’s interest and Gwede is a stumbling block.”
With the ANC having lost electoral support in successive elections, it is on track to lose its majority in the 2024 general elections. This can only be exacerbated by the worst load-shedding SA has seen since blackouts began in 2008. Ramaphosa as deputy to former president Jacob Zuma from 2014 to 2017 was in charge of the Eskom war room to try to turn things around and publicly declared in 2015 that load-shedding was a thing of the past.
Speaking at the ANC provincial conference on Sunday, Ramaphosa acknowledged that anger about power cuts had been compounded by a recent decision by the energy regulator to grant Eskom an 18% tariff increase. “I have said to Eskom it will be an injury to our people if we implement this 18% [tariff increase] now when we are going through load-shedding. Put it in suspense for a while. So, [the] Eskom board is going to discuss that,” Ramaphosa said.
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