Following two days of harsh criticism of his Sona speech from opposition MPs (Members of Parliament), and an endorsement from members of the ruling party, the President had a chance to reply to the debate and provide further clarity on some of the issues raised in the speech.
During his reply to the debate, the President reiterated government’s commitment to tackle corruption in the public sector, and the plans to restructure Eskom.
The announcement to unbundle the electricity company into three entities – generation, transmission and distribution – had created fears about possible retrenchments, especially from labour unions.
He reassured parliamentarians and the country that government had no intentions of privatising the company and no jobs would be lost during the restructuring
The restructuring will not solve the immediate crisis at Eskom – enable the company to stabilise in the future.
“The restructuring does not mean retrenchments, and it is not a path to privatisation, we are saying in its current form Eskom is too big and too difficult to lead and we have to look at a business model which will best work – it is not a path to privatisation,” said the President, adding that the restructuring will align Eskom with international electricity trends.
Also, he corrected the narrative that the announcement to establish a new investigative unit in the National Prosecuting Agency (NPA) was the revival of the Scorpions, which was disbanded through an Act of Parliament. “The Scorpions are not back –we are setting up a new unit – which was allowed by the NPA Act to deal with specific investigations,” he said.
“The breakdown of six units which resulted in Stage 4 load shedding by Eskom has had an overarching impact on the economy and the lives of our people. We accept that we have not brought on board some of our important stakeholders, especially labour, and we are going to correct that,” he said.
A special Cabinet committee to be chaired by the Deputy President has been established to look into the crisis at Eskom – and will provide daily reports to the President. The government was doing everything possible to secure reliable energy supply for the country and make sure that the power supply crisis doesn’t do damage to the economy.
The President also spoke about the environmental changes that were happening as a result of climate change, also known and global warming.
We are all affected by the environmental changes, it is time we take climate change seriously, unless we tackle climate change, we will not realise some of our developmental commitments.
Those who squander and misappropriate public funds will be dealt with by state law enforcements organs, including the Auditor-General with added powers through the Public Audit Amendment Act.
By Sakhile Mokoena
14 February 2019
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