South Africa\u2019s governing party is pressuring President Cyril Ramaphosa to bring an end to territorial battles among his senior ministers over energy policy as the nation continues to battle crippling power cuts.<\/p>\n
Two months after Ramaphosa appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as electricity minister, the president has yet to clarify what powers he\u2019ll be assigned. That decision will affect the energy and public enterprises ministries, which respectively oversee energy policy and state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t appoint a minister of electricity for him to struggle for powers,\u201d African National Congress Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula told reporters Friday at the start of a four-day meeting of the party\u2019s top leaders.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa \u201cis the president of the country and the president of the ANC. He must intervene and he can\u2019t allow anarchy in this moment when we need to keep the lights on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Africa\u2019s most-industrialized nation has been subjected to rolling power cuts almost every day this year as Eskom, which supplies about 90% of the country\u2019s electricity, fails to meet demand from its dilapidated plants. The crisis is eroding the nation\u2019s economic-growth prospects, disrupting supply chains and stoking inflation.<\/p>\n
Eskom is currently implementing so-called stage six load shedding \u2014 removing 6,000 megawatts from the grid and effectively leaving residents without power for at least 10 hours a day. In a worst-case scenario, South Africa faces five months of more severe outages \u2014 or stage eight load shedding \u2014 unless there is an intervention, a government official said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa\u2019s decision to appoint an electricity minister was widely seen as a way to avoid dealing with ongoing tensions between Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Mineral and Energy Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe \u2014 two of his close political allies \u2014 over who has ultimate responsibility for electricity provision.<\/p>\n
Mantashe is the ANC\u2019s chairman and Ramaphosa risks alienating him should he curtail his powers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect the president to run his cabinet, not his cabinet running itself,\u201d<\/strong> Mbalula said. \u201cIf he has a problem with that, then we will have a problem with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramokgopa was due to present a proposal to the ANC\u2019s National Executive Committee on Friday on how to end the outages. The panel will insist Ramaphosa allocate powers to the new minister as a matter of urgency, Mbalula said.<\/p>\n The ANC\u2019s handling of the power crisis is likely to impact its performance in elections scheduled for next year. The extreme power cuts have caused Ramaphosa\u2019s approval rating to plunge in recent months, a Social Research Foundation poll published this week showed.<\/p>\n The NEC may also receive a report from its ethics committee on Ramaphosa\u2019s handling of a theft at a game farm he owns, Mbalula said.<\/p>\n The president considered resigning in December after an advisory panel found he may have breached the constitution over his handling of the burglary, in which at least $580,000 of cash stashed in sofas at his Phala Phala game farm was stolen \u2014 a finding that parliament rejected.<\/p>\n
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