“I was regularly astounded that this was the man driving our industrial policy,” he notes, referring to Patel. Having seen him in action there, I can attest to his grasp of the brief, and to his success in sowing the seeds for the establishment of the new Vaal Special Economic Zone - possibly the most impressive private sector initiative of recent years. This may partly stem from De Ruyter’s time before taking on the Eskom job when he chaired the Manufacturing Circle. Trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel is another who irritates the author and De Ruyter’s views on Patel border on contempt. While public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan was initially supportive of De Ruyter, he was too loyal to the ANC to continue to stand up for the former Eskom boss, who claims of the minister that “he is being hamstrung by his loyalty to the ANC”. “For your minister of energy to be the main cause of perpetuating an energy crisis that has been going on for 15 years is beyond words,” De Ruyter writes His book gives several examples of Mantashe’s apparent reluctance to scale back coal-fired generation. The chief villain in the author’s eyes seems to be mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe, whose foot-dragging on renewable energy helped to create the mess SA is in today - with citizens fearful of a 2023 winter of stage 8 load-shedding. And then, of course, President Cyril Ramaphosa more recently decided to appoint an electricity minister to further muddy the waters. “An organisation like Eskom sits at the nexus of at least five government departments that are all pulling in different directions like stubborn oxen,” he writes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |