South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended his decision to appoint minister of electricity, telling a joint sitting of parliament on Thursday that the appointee will be charged with ending the country’s power crisis “as a matter of urgency”.
The South African leader appeared to have torched a storm when he announced during a State of the Nation Address (SONA) in parliament that he was going to appoint a new minister of electricity to be under his office with the responsibility to address rolling power cuts that have worsened over the past year.
Responding to debate on Thursday on his SONA address, Ramaphosa said the current electricity challenges facing South Africa required “the undivided attention of a political principal who does not need to split their time and energies among different important responsibilities.”
“The reality is that the resolution of the energy crisis requires effective coordination across several departments and public entities,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “This appointment will ensure that there is a minister who is ultimately responsible for resolving load shedding and who is able to work with all fellow Cabinet ministers, departments and entities to do so,” he said.
There has been a lot of criticism over the establishment of the new office from the opposition, which seemed united in arguing that there was no need to set up such an entity when the country already had a minister of energy.
Ramaphosa, however, dispelled the notion that the new minister would cause fragmentation in the light that the Minister of Public Enterprises takes charge of state power utility Eskom and that there is a Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy.
“With the focus that the Minister of Electricity will have on load shedding, and the work that is being done by Eskom and its board, I do believe that we stand a much better chance to address this overriding challenge and crisis that our country faces,” Ramaphosa said.
NM/jn/APA