Economics cluster ministers are set to appear before the National Assembly on Wednesday when MPs will quiz them on issues pertaining to job creation, Eskom, the public sector wage bill, eVisas and the SABC’s funding model.
DA MP Kevin Mileham is set to ask electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa what steps he has taken to ensure Eskom, which has applied for a 36.1% tariff increase from April next year, “provides greater financial transparency and accountability to the people [of SA] for its years of mismanagement and corruption”.
Mileham noted the power utility had not yet submitted its annual report and annual financial statements for the 2023/24 financial year to either parliament or the JSE.
Eskom, praised widely for relief from load-shedding in recent months, has applied to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) for tariff hikes to net it revenue of more than R1.4-trillion for 2026 to 2028. The state-owned power utility, which is owed about R85bn by municipalities, is seeking total revenue of R446bn for 2026, R495bn for 2027 and R537bn for 2028.
Eskom has said the proposed average price increases for its direct customers are 36.15% for 2025/26, 11.81% for 2026/27 and 9.10% for 2027/28. The increases are well above inflation, which eased to an annual rate of 2.8% in October from 3.8% in September.
MK party MP Moses Mbatha plans to ask Ramokgopa the reasons for the delay in publishing the integrated energy plan.
EFF MP Omphile Maotwe is set to ask finance minister Enoch Godongwana how he envisages building state capacity while the government “is privatising Transnet, Eskom and water and sanitation”. Moatwe will ask about the number of jobs Godongwana seeks to create “while taking the key state functions to the private sector”.
She also wants to find out from the finance minister how allowing foreign nationals to work in SA would strengthen the economy and foster “much-needed job creation, and how... the introduction of the eVisa [will] affect his target of 1-million jobs”.
DA MP Mark John Burke is expected to ask Godongwana whether he is able to guarantee that the increase in the public sector wage bill “will not exceed the amount budgeted for in the medium-term budget policy statement”.
The employer has revised its wage offer to the country’s 1.3-million public servants from 3% to 4.7% for 2025/26. The Public Servants Association has spurned the offer and plans to return to the negotiating table to announce the rejection.
Burke’s colleague, Tsholofelo Katlego Bodlani, will ask communications & digital technologies minister Solly Malatsi how his department plans urgently to address the SABC’s funding model. The minister controversially withdrew the SABC bill from parliament because it did not address its funding model. He said it would be reintroduced once concerns had been addressed.
On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court will hear the EFF’s challenge to the National Assembly’s decision not to hold an impeachment inquiry into Phala Phala, where thousands of dollars were found stuffed in a couch at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s game farm.
Parliament’s standing committee on finance is due to be briefed on the same day by the pension funds adjudicator and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority on the implementation of the two-pot retirement system and failure of employers to pay pension contributions.
Also on Tuesday, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke will brief parliament’s standing committee on public accounts on the national and provincial government audit outcomes for 2023/24.
On Wednesday, the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on electricity and energy is expected to be briefed by Ramokgopa, and the department of mineral resources & energy on the integrated national electrification programme.
Social development minister Sisisi Tolashe will brief the media on Wednesday on the outcome of an independent investigation into the Covid-19 social relief of distress grant following allegations that the grant is susceptible to identity theft.
On Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to give his annual address to the National Council of Provinces.
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