- President Ramaphosa has said that the biggest risk facing South Africa right now is that the country relies on Eskom as the sole generator of electricity. Addressing a press conference on Monday, the president said that the country simply does not have a choice of moving from one provider to the other. “The independent power producers are pumping in whatever they can, but the majority of them are still under construction,” he said. “The direction that we now need to move towards is to restructure Eskom to have a separate generation entity that can purchase power from other producers.” With this split, Ramaphosa said that a separate government-owned transmission unit would provide power to citizens.
- Coalition talks among South Africa’s political parties are heating up, with the ANC now hitting back at the opposition parties who say they will not work with them. The DA and ActionSA have publicly boasted that they will not enter into any partnerships with the ANC in hung councils. ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, however, said that the party was not on its knees and desperate to work with the opposition anyway. Ramaphosa reiterated that the ANC was the biggest party in every metro except the City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay, though conceded that it was a difficult election. He said the ANC would be open to coalition talks but wouldn’t make casual agreements, opting for formalised contracts.
- Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has called on African nations to urgently form a united front to resist global pressure to rapidly abandon fossil fuels. Addressing the African Energy Week conference in Cape Town on Tuesday, Mantashe said there had been a preoccupation with Africa to move away from its rich oil and gas resources, yet the continent is one of the least polluting. “This is a sign of unsettlement by the rich countries, where we are converted into conduits of ideas of developed economies,” he said. Mantashe’s speech was the first he has made since South Africa secured a R131bn coal phase out deal with the United States, Germany, Britain and France at the UN Climate Change Conference known as COP26, which is ongoing in Glasgow.
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