Johannesburg - While the DA picketed and marched to the ANC at Luthuli House on Wednesday, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, State Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, and Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe held their own energy-focused dialogue.
Mbalula, who was among the speakers at the ANC-led event, said the ruling party is working overtime to find sustainable solutions to the country’s persistent load shedding, while Mantashe suggested that the country should import excess energy from neighbouring countries as one of the solutions.
He said this would greatly improve the country’s energy availability factor, adding that creating legislation for emergency energy procurement from IPPs would also improve the current state of paralysis.
"We need to facilitate an accelerated import of energy from other neighbouring states we are connected to ... we must import that energy unashamedly, and we must not be afraid of doing it," Mantashe suggested.
The party’s energy dialogue, held at the University of Johannesburg, coincided with calls by the DA for the ANC to vacate office as it had failed to find lasting solutions to the country’s energy problems, which have seen the country plunged into various stages of load shedding for the better part of last year and this year.
Mbalula said if the country worked together, a lasting solution to the Eskom crisis would be found, adding that the objectives of the dialogue were to create a broader platform for an ANC-led process.
The ANC said it had consulted widely on the issues surrounding the country’s energy problems and was on the brink of finding lasting solutions to the crisis.
Mbalula said it was unfair that certain sections of society were attacking leaders of the ANC such as Gwede Mantashe and Pravin Gordhan, adding that instead these leaders should be protected.
"There is general anarchy in the organisation. When you have problems, you have people who think they have an opinion. I have already addressed Derek Hanekom. I said, ‘This is how you want to thank us in retirement — that you have an opinion about Mantashe. It might be an opinion that is profound to you, but don’t you think it belongs somewhere, so that we resolve it?'," he said.
The Star