Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has doubled down on his characterisation of the proposed Minister of Electricity as that of a project manager but has denied that such a portrayal reduces the authority of the appointee.

In a speech made in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, in which the President announced that a new Minister of Electricity in The Presidency would be appointed as part of efforts to accelerate the implementation of the Energy Action Plan announced last year to tackle loadshedding, Mantashe argued that a project management approach emphasised “urgency of execution and delivery”.

“Many people have asked what this appointment means. We characterised it as a project management approach in dealing with a crisis,” Mantashe said, adding that “we don’t have the luxury of waiting for 24 months to resolve loadshedding”.

“In project management, one will have clear timeframes, milestones, and a critical path which we must not deviate from,” Mantashe explained, arguing that he was, thus, not being “reductionist” in highlighting the new Minister’s project management role.

Nevertheless, the proposed appointment has been heavily criticised, including by business, which has argued that it could blur lines of responsibility and could result in turf wars.

There have also been media reports that Mantashe himself had been blindsided by the President’s announcement; a point that Economic Freedom Fighter’s leader Julius Malema sought to exploit by suggesting that Ramaphosa had ignored a resolution of his own party, which said that Eskom should be placed under the Energy Minister.

The leader of the official opposition John Steenhuisen described the move as adding yet another Ministry to a “bloated Cabinet”, rather than “removing the incompetent Ministers of Energy and Public Enterprises who block reform”.

“By once again expanding rather than shrinking the role of the State, the President has all but guaranteed that loadshedding and all the other terrible crises we face will only get worse,” the Democratic Alliance (DA) leader asserted.

“Instead of deregulating and unleashing private sector electricity generation, he [Ramaphosa] centralised even more power in his super-presidency.”

Steenhuisen also rejected the declaration of a state of disaster for electricity, saying that the President had given “sweeping powers to the same Minister who abused the people of this country during Covid”, a reference to Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who signed the electricity state of disaster declaration on February 9.

However, Mantashe described Steenhuisen as talking from both sides of his mouth, noting his support for a state of disaster only days ahead of its declaration, which the DA was now opposing in court.

“In January 2023, the DA pronounced that they would support the declaration of the state of disaster on the energy crisis. When the state of disaster was declared on February 9, 2023, by the President, the same DA pronounced that they will take the ANC government to court and oppose the declaration of the state of disaster.”

Steenhuisen had since sought to clarify that the party was never in support of a generalised state of disaster as had been declared but rather a “ring-fenced” declaration that applied narrowly to Eskom and the electricity sector.