It’s a busy time in parliament, with ministers presenting their budgets to their corresponding parliamentary committees this week.
The departments of defence and public enterprises will present their budgets for 2022/23 on Tuesday, while the department of tourism will present the following day.
The minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, will on Monday return to Kusile power station. Eskom has recently been granted an exemption at Kusile from complying with air-quality regulations which could cut the need for load-shedding by about 2,000MW, equal to two stages of load-shedding by November.
“During the visit, the minister will receive a status report on the measures taken to bring back the four units at Kusile by December. This will be followed by an inspection of the construction project taking place at Kusile,” the department said.
Five municipal ward by-elections are taking place on Wednesday in the key provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and DA leader John Steenhuisen have held separate election campaigns in Chatsworth in a bid to woo voters. Chatsworth ward 73 is having a by-election after the resignation of former DA councillor Ronnie Pillay, who has since joined the ANC.
In Gauteng, the by-elections will be held in Ekurhuleni, where the ANC and the EFF recently formed a partnership to oust the DA. As part of its power-sharing deal with the ANC and other political parties making up the “people’s government”, the EFF holds five crucial portfolios on the mayoral committee: finance, water, sanitation & energy (Leshaka Manamela), community services (Bridget Thusi), infrastructure services (Kgopelo Hollo) and environment & waste management (Eunice Matloga). The five politicians were appointed to the mayoral cabinet on April 6.
By-elections are a litmus test of the mood of the electorate and take place if a representative’s seat becomes vacant in between the local government elections, which happen every five years.
EFF Gauteng chair Nkululeko Dunga, who serves as political head for the finance portfolio for the city of Ekurhuleni, will on Thursday present his inaugural budget to the council. The metro has a budget of R51.2bn for the 2022/23 financial year. The metro’s previous mayor, Tania Campbell, told Business Day in November 2022 there is “definitely a strain” on the metro’s finances, adding it had lost about R2bn due to load-shedding.
The ANC top brass, including party president Cyril Ramaphosa, will visit the North West as part of its nationwide assessment of the party’s provincial structures ahead of the 2024 elections. The province is considered to be one of the ANC’s strongholds but recently political infighting within the party’s provincial structures led to the deterioration of services. This could potentially result in the ANC losing its status as a majority party in the 2024 elections in the province.
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