Deputy minister of mineral resources & energy (DMRE) Nobuhle Nkabane says the ANC’s decision to move Eskom from the department of public enterprises to the DMRE still stands and will include operational and policy management.
Nkabane was addressing the Southern African Coal Conference in Cape Town on Thursday amid an escalating crisis at Eskom.
Despite criticism of the proposal to put Eskom under the energy department, which would also regulate the entity, Nkabane said the decision would be implemented and the struggling power entity would be in good hands.
“Let me take this opportunity to reaffirm the decision of the ruling party that aligning Eskom with the DMRE as a department responsible for energy was long overdue and the department is fully capable and capacitated to oversee the affairs of Eskom.
“Once this process is completed, the department will be made to account for energy from policy to infrastructure generation capacity,” he said.
Nkabane said though South Africa remained committed to the just energy transition and efforts to reduce carbon emissions, coal would continue to be a vital part of South Africa’s energy mix. She said coal accounted for 90% of the electricity generated by Eskom.
Nkabane said President Cyril Ramaphosa remained committed to a programme to resolve the load-shedding crisis and that more details on the government’s interventions to help Eskom would be announced soon.
Watch this space. We are going to turn around the situation
— Deputy minister of mineral resources & energy Nobuhle Nkabane
“Watch this space. We are going to turn around the situation,” she said.
Vice-president of McCloskey by OPIS John Howland told the conference Eskom’s load-shedding crisis and Transnet's constraints hurt South Africa’s ability to export coal and the country's economic performance.
Officials at Eskom and the presidency told reporters at separate briefings this week that they have been working to fix operational problems.
Eskom head of generation Thomas Conradie said its coal fleet suffered from delays in necessary refurbishment.
“Our nuclear plant is performing well. We’ve got open cycle gas turbine doing well. Yet our coal fleet is not in a good state. If you look at the investment and underinvestment that we have done at these plants over many years, that’s where we find ourselves,” said Conradie.
Rudi Dicks, head of project management in the Presidency, said a declaration of a national state of disaster could help Eskom procure and produce power without the need to wait for lengthy approval processes.
“We are bureaucrats and not politicians. I’m not going to discuss elections. It doesn’t matter to me. We need to develop solutions and get political backing and make progress on those. The president has said to ministers and departments that we have to move faster. Why can’t we have permits and authorisations move faster? He has asked us these things,” said Dicks.
Eskom board member Mteto Nyati said at a briefing on Thursday a key management decision was that the COO position would be scrapped once the incumbent, Jan Oberholzer, retires in April.
He said the decision was in line with the government ’s plans to break Eskom into three separate entities — responsible for generation, transmission and distribution — as management plans their leadership structure.
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