Johnathan Paoli
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said one of the main outcomes of the recent NEC meeting was taking stock of the current state of SOEs, particularly Eskom and Transnet, in light of the current achievements and setbacks.
Mbalula was speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday at Luthuli House, Johannesburg, in which he said the government is set to restore the public’s confidence in its ability to turn the crises around.
“The NEC has directed its deployees in government to stabilise SOEs as a matter of urgency and to proactively undertake actions that inspire public confidence in the capacity of the state to manage and deliver on the mandate of public entities,” Mbalula said
Mbalula told the media NEC has welcomed the reconfiguration and stabilisation of the Transnet Board, in a drive to help accelerate the rail challenges and the consequent challenges of constrained transportation of bulky goods out of the country, particularly mineral resources such as coal.
He also welcomed the report on the imminent deployment of over 8 000 security personnel to protect passenger rail infrastructure; and said that the advances in rolling out trains in various corridors, will assist in the reduction of travelling costs of commuters, including the installation of safety and logistics measures such as signalling systems.
The committee has received various interventions from Eskom and the Gauteng Provincial Government to replace those transformers and re-energise township households and businesses, Mbalula said and called on Eskom and the provincial government to align their efforts at replacing stolen and vandalised transformers.
Regarding electricity distribution within municipalities, Mbalula said the introduction of the Electricity Amendment Bill would help consolidation in light of vandalism and theft of transformers in areas such as Soweto and Sedibeng, resulting in blackouts affecting thousands of households over several years.
And with the staggered admittance into the grid of generation units from Kusile Power Station adding over 3000 megawatts of power to the grid; load shedding is beginning to ease. So is the precise schedule to increase the energy availability of all power stations per unit on their installed capacity now available in furthering greater generation and distribution.
“On the critical aspect of load shedding affecting households and businesses to the detriment of economic growth and development, the NEC acknowledged that the appointment of a dedicated Minister of Electricity was beginning to pay dividends,” Mbalula said.
The feedback follows rumours arising during the meeting of NEC members feeling underwhelmed over Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s report on SOE performance.
Both Transet and Eskom have recently experienced multiple resignations and financial difficulties, with rumours of Gordhan’s persistent interference being a main bone of contention with the management of the entities.
Transnet
