Mantashe being ‘economical with the truth and selective with his historical memory’

A raging storm sparked by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe controversially blaming the private sector for South Africa’s continuing load shedding crisis has seen him being lambasted by experts, with one analyst saying he was being “economical with the truth and being selective with his historical memory”.

Responding to a question during an interview with Radio 702 this week on what had led to the current energy situation in the country, Mantashe said: “When the Eskom board said to the state: ‘Listen, there will be the end of the electricity surplus by 2007, please start the build programme’, they (government) delayed it because they banked on the private sector taking an interest. No private sector took an interest.

“If the private sector has the appetite, well and good. But the state cannot wait for that appetite for a public good to be provided to society.”

Mantashe’s claims ‘disingenuous’

Independent political analysts Dale McKinley and Sandile Swana refuted Mantashe’s claims as being disingenuous.

Lambasting Mantashe for being “economical with the truth and being selective with his historical memory”, McKinley said: “Not only was the December 1998 White Paper on Energy Policy clear in setting out what was going to happen, as the roll-out of electricity from the state was happening at a much larger scale, it was a time when a decision had to be taken on whether the build programme was necessary.

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“The issue about the private sector involvement was dependent on the state coming up with the plan.

“If one remembers, at the time there was a very clear position articulated by the ANC and the presidency, that Eskom would remain within the public sector and the private sector would be expected to support that – through a public,-private partnership (PPP).

“The nature of those and the involvement of the private sector would have been contingent upon the state coming up with its own programme, own plan and meeting with the private sector to clarify its involvement.

“Shifting this off to the private sector and saying they did not show any interest is economical with the truth, to say the least.”

McKinley said the South African public was faced with a situation “where the minister and the ANC are trying to deflect what has clearly been failures of the ruling party and the [department of mineral resources and energy] to deal with this”.

He added: “They (the ANC) sat on their laurels and did nothing, thinking that this was going to solve itself and that Kusile and Medupi ) (power stations) would solve their problems.

“Of course, they were engaged in mismanagement and corruption at the same time. It has become a pattern of behaviour from ministers – particularly Mantashe – to not take responsibility and to adopt an overly aggressive and arrogant attitude, which has been displayed internally within the (South African Communist Party) and the ANC.

“Anyone who has dealt with him knows his general approach is like a bull in china shop and a bit of a bully – fitting with his behaviour.

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“He now needs to answer for the failure of his own department, not only to put [in place] an alternative energy plan that is feasible, but also about the running of the department efficiently – in addressing massive backlogs in environmental impact assessments, mining licences and a whole range of other things.”

Information on Eskom ‘incomplete’

Swana said: “The information Gwede Mantashe is giving us about Eskom is incomplete.

“(Former president) Thabo Mbeki’s administration was pursuing some form of privatisation, which was done with Iscor.

“Nothing was said about the lack of appetite when it came to private sector interest. Citibank published a notification (last year) that the Eskom bonds were very attractive. In terms of buying Eskom bonds, the private sector would invest because they still have the appetite.

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“Eskom still has an opportunity to bring private sector investment, which they have had since 1998 to do, like they did with the toll roads, to run PPPs, such as the N3 and N1.

“They can do the same with power stations and network distribution infrastructure – easily, with private sector money.

“Mbeki went public on being stunned by Eskom not outsourcing the building of power stations. Eskom decided to manage this internally when they knew they had no technical or management capacity to do so in Kusile and Medupi.

“There is a public record of ANC-sponsored corruption in procurement processes on Medupi and Kusile contributing to a failure to build new power stations.

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“Companies contracted to build these power stations are from the private sector. To say there was no private sector appetite is incomplete information.

“Mantashe needs to back his statements with records because the African Development Bank has also put in money in the building of power stations.”

– brians@citizen.co.za