President Cyril Ramaphosa has cut short his working visits to the US and the UK following growing calls for him to deal with South Africa’s power crisis
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has cut short his working visits to the US and the UK following growing calls for him to deal with South Africa’s power crisis.
Ramaphosa met his American counterpart Joe Biden in Washington for bilateral talks last week, before flying to London to attend the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Ngwenya said: “The president will no longer be travelling to New York from London. Instead, he will head home to deal with the current Stage 6 load shedding.”
The president was sent to visit the United Nations.
Load shedding was downgraded to Stage 5 at midnight last night, Eskom said on Monday, after implementing Stage 6 on Sunday morning.
Political analysts and politicians are in agreement that Ramaphosa’s decision to cut short his international commitments is a good thing.
Political economist Daniel Silke said he thought that it was “critically important” that Ramaphosa return as soon as possible.
“After all, he is president of the country and the country faces an energy crisis that is reaching critical and crisis proportions,” he said.
Silke said despite the fact that there were ministers responsible for Eskom’s oversight, such as Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and his Public Enterprises counterpart Pravin Gordhan, the buck would ultimately stop with Ramaphosa.
He said: “The theatrics of being back in the country and being at the helm of a very rocky ship, which South Africa is currently, is a very important optic for the president.
“Perhaps the president could even improve on the Covid-19 meetings model by taking questions from journalists from time to time, because questions abound.”
Political scientist Shingai Mutizwa-Mangiza said there was also an economic dimension to the president’s return and that even though it was unlikely that the mere fact of his returning would do anything to stop the crisis, it would serve as a reassurance to the public.
GOOD Party MP Brett Herron said that on his return, Ramaphosa should call a “family meeting” to inform South Africans of progress.
Herron said the announcement of well-intentioned measures in the teeth of a crisis must be followed through with reports of real progress and explanations for Eskom’s shortcomings.
DA MPs Kevin Mileham and Ghaleb Cachalia said: “With Eskom announcing Stage 6 load shedding due to a system-wide failure of generation units across its generation fleet, Ramaphosa is now duty bound to heed the DA call and declare a ring-fenced State of Disaster around Eskom.
“Eskom’s plant performance has continued to deteriorate substantially in the past week, confirming a power plant maintenance plan that is in crisis.”
Meanwhile, Eskom is asking the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) to approve a 32% tariff increase for the 2024 financial year and a 9.74% increase for the 2025 financial year.
Virtual public hearings are taking place throughout the week in the various regions with presentations from concerned businesses, individuals, civil society groups and other organisations regarding Eskom’s tariff application and what the increase could mean for the sectors they represent.
Eskom said its arrears, environmental levies, depreciation of assets, increases in diesel and fuel oil prices, and the cost of Independent Power Producers (IPP) were all major contributors to the tariff hike, which would be determined by Nersa on November 7.
Eskom CFO Calib Cassiem said: “Eskom believes this is what is required to not put any further burden on the fiscus because, effectively, what is not recovered through the electricity tariff, we have to approach the government for via the national Treasury.
“They have to then deal with and support us to reach our debt service commitments in terms of the R400 billion for the equity that we are currently getting, and even in this financial year there is another R22bn of equity support.”
Cassiem said it was a choice between the electricity consumer and the government to ensure Eskom’s financial sustainability.
“Eskom’s financial sustainability requires Nersa’s decision on the retail tariff plan and four pillars of cost exemplarity: migration to cost reflective revenue levels, recovery of debt owed to Eskom together with needed debt relief,” he said.
However, Agri Western Cape CEO Jannie Strydom said a tariff increase of 32% would deliver a killer blow to the economy at large and the agricultural sector in particular.
Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute executive director, Francesca de Gasparis, said they believed the methodology of the revenue application process needed to be revised because it did not reflect the reality of what the country was facing.
