Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed claims of a “territorial battle” amongst ministers Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Gwede Mantashe and Pravin Gordhan.
Reports suggested that Minister of Public Enterprises, Gordhan and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister, Mantashe refused to hand over some of their responsibilities to Minister of Electricity, Ramokgopa, in order for him to execute his duties, EWN reported.
But speaking outside the home of the late lawyer, businessman and former student activist Tiego Moseneke on Saturday, Ramaphosa maintained that there was no power struggle amongst the ministers.
“There is no territorial battle on this matter. When I appointed the minister of electricity, I made it absolutely clear what the role of the three ministers would be. I made it clear the minister of electricity is going to focus his attention on ridding our country of load shedding.
“Therefore he is going to focus on the generation of the energy that we need so that we reduce and eliminate load shedding. That’s his task, that is his mandate,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “The task of the minister of DMRE is on an energy side to be the repository of the regulation, the laws that we have on regulating energy while the Minister of Public Enterprises will be dealing, as I said when I made the announcement, with the issues of Eskom in relation to governance, in relation to the restructuring of Eskom so that we deliver precisely what we would deliver, a restructured Eskom which will effectively become a well-governed organisation.
“So, there is no conflict and of course in the media, there’s a talk of this conflict and that conflict… there is no conflict as far as I am concerned and I know exactly the delineation of the tasks of these three ministers and truth be told, the ministers themselves are surprised that there is this talk of conflict.”
Ramaphosa said having the three ministers enhanced good governance.
“They work well together.
“And for me, this is a good architecture because it enhances integrated government so the three of them are able to address the challenges. There is no conflict or crisis,” he said.
According to Sowetan Live, Ramaphosa’s remarks came hours after Ramokgopa tabled his plan to ease load shedding during ANC’s national executive committee meeting held in Boksburg.
On Friday, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula also came to Ramokgopa’s defence, saying Ramaphosa needed to run his cabinet and not the other way around, the report said.
“We are not interested in fighting a territorial battle. Anyone who is doing that, the ANC will deal with them. We didn’t appoint the electricity minister for him to struggle for power for whatever reason. We want a working relationship that is smooth and that intervenes,” the report quoted Mbalula as saying.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
