Ramaphosa is available to discuss energy crisis with opposition, says presidency

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, says he has not received a letter from leader of the opposition John Steenhuisen requesting an urgent meeting with the president to discuss the energy crisis.

“As things stand, I am not aware of a letter from Mr Steenhuisen. Maybe our office has received it, but information has not reached me.”

Speaking to the media from the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday, Magwenya said the practice is that the president allocates time to meet leaders of political parties represented in parliament.

“This has happened before. Last year in the build-up to the announcement of the national energy plan, there was an engagement between the president and leaders of political parties represented in parliament. I would imagine that should there be a meeting with political parties, it would take on a similar format,” he said.

“Is the president available to engage with leaders of political parties on matters of national interests? The answer is yes. He always makes time available for those engagements and should there be a need for such an engagement, the president will accommodate that need.”

In his letter, Steenhuisen said he requested an urgent meeting with Ramaphosa to discuss the growing power crisis after the country was placed on stage 6 load-shedding indefinitely this week.

“I want to hear from him first hand why his government refuses to implement the very obvious solutions to this crisis,” he said.

Steenhuisen said together with energy experts, his party has for years called for:

• The unbundling of Eskom;
• The hiring of skilled engineers; and
• The beefing up of security.

“But instead of announcing progress on any of these, Ramaphosa’s first act in his second term as ANC president was to deal yet another blow to Eskom by announcing the utility will be moved from the ministry of public enterprises to the ministry of energy, under coal dinosaur Gwede Mantashe.”

He advised all households and businesses in SA, whether poor or rich, small or large, “to do everything you can to shield yourself from load-shedding”.

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