Ramokgopa must come back from Kenya and fix the loadshedding mess
5 September 2023
Two months after he confidently said that the recovery in generation capacity at Eskom was sustainable and enduring, the Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has today made a sudden u-turn and told South Africans, who have once again been plunged into another painful bout of stage 6 loadshedding, that there is “no shortcut to end loadshedding”.
Ramokgopa’s lies have finally caught up with him and instead of facing the unfolding electricity crisis head-on, he has jetted off to Kenya for a summit that he could have assigned a senior official in his Department to attend on his behalf.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) demands that Ramokgopa cuts short his trip to Kenya and comes back to South Africa to fix the loadshedding mess that the ANC government created. Taxpayers cannot pay for Ramokgopa’s jet setting lifestyle and five star hotel stays while they sit in the dark.
As soon as he lands back in South Africa, the first order of business for Ramokgopa is to make sure that he provides clarity, together with the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, on why Eskom still has no substantive CEO – six months after the former CEO Andre de Ruyter left the organisation.