WATCH | Gwede Mantashe says Andre de Ruyter’s book is ‘a novel and a diary’

Energy and mineral resources Gwede Mantashe has described former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter's book Truth to Power as “basically a diary”. 

Addressing energy leaders at the Enlit Africa conference in Cape Town on Wednesday, Mantashe quoted an extract about himself in De Ruyter's book, released on Sunday, which includes remarks about minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan, in his version of events at Eskom.

“In the ‘novel’ written by De Ruyter, which is basically a diary, there is nothing novel about it — it’s a diary of meetings he has had. In that diary, De Ruyter criticises me for identifying a 15,000MW gap in the ability of Eskom to supply energy. He says I lack understanding and so forth,” said Mantashe.

“No, I do lack understanding as I've never run a power station, but at least I did arithmetic. I can add one and one is two. For example, if we have a connected capacity at Eskom of 46,000MW and Eskom at best gives us 26,000MW, it means there is a gap of 20,000MW of connected capacity that is not giving us energy and we must pursue that. The only way you can pursue that … is to look at [the] energy availability factor in power station by power station and address it,” he said.

Mantashe also spoke about future plans that will be delivered from August.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gordhan criticised De Ruyter as being “arrogant, in need of humility and who views himself as an SA hero”.

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