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The ANC’s traditional ally, the SA Communist Party (SACP), has warned that it will dump President Cyril Ramaphosa if Eskom is unbundled to benefit a new group of “opportunists” with business interests.
SACP first deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila told City Press on Friday at the party’s central committee’s three-day meeting in Johannesburg that a new group of opportunists with business interests had emerged around Ramaphosa since he became the president of the ANC.
The warning comes after Ramaphosa announced in his state of the nation address that Eskom would be split into three units – transmission, power generation and distribution.
“There are new opportunists that have arisen on the basis of comrade Cyril becoming president, with business interests who also think now is their time to eat. We want to tell them they won’t eat on the platform of killing state-owned enterprises,” Mapaila said.
He said the communist party would fight back.
“It is in that space that we are even prepared to cut links with Cyril, for instance if he allows them to eat. That is the strategic agenda. We are fighting to protect the interests of our country and state-owned enterprises.”
The SACP, which played a role in ensuring that Ramaphosa was elected as ANC president at the party’s national conference in 2017 in Nasrec, previously raised concerns about undue influence that the Guptas had regarding former president Jacob Zuma.
There have been claims that Ramaphosa’s proposal to unbundle Eskom was designed to benefit his brother-in-law, billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe.
Motsepe denied the allegations last week.
Mapaila said Ramaphosa’s proposal to unbundle Eskom was actually restructuring.
“We have seen the notion of unbundling, which we characterise as restructuring. In most instances, it has come with job losses, particularly as a model of big business. We should keep Eskom in the hands of the state. We should not privatise and we should retain jobs in Eskom.”
The state of Eskom formed part of discussions at the meeting, which kicked off on Friday.
Party leaders took turns to give their input on what was said to be a lengthy political report by party leader Blade Nzimande, which assessed the state of the power utility.
Although Ramaphosa has given assurance that Eskom, Mapaila said, would not be privatised, it was important that he provided more details on his proposal.
“If, for instance, any of these divisions that are spoken about is going to attract investment and keep jobs in the sector, workers should know about that. We are posing rather uncomfortable questions that we are discussing among ourselves while trying to seek solutions to the crisis as an economy and a country.”
Mapaila said the party had agreed that Eskom should start investing in the energy renewal space, and not necessarily buy electricity from independent power producers (IPPs).
“It should open itself up for a space to renegotiate power purchase agreements that they have entered into with IPPs.”
He said Eskom was a classic example of how to collapse a state institution.
“We went all out to build new plants. After building these new plants, there was no basis, for instance, to even have this recent load shedding. One of the disappointing aspects of the recent load shedding has been the fact that there were shortages of quality coal at some of the power stations. How is this possible when the country does not have a shortage of coal?”
South Africa decided to build the Medupi and Kusile power stations in an effort to alleviate the country’s power constraints. However, it has now emerged that the two power stations have design and technical flaws.
Mapaila also said that the loss of capacity and skills had contributed to the demise of Eskom.
“Irrespective of what the black professionals and so forth have mentioned, we presided over its demise. When we took over government in 1994, we were not sure what to do with this entity.”
Last week, ANC head of organising Senzo Mchunu told City Press in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, that “fake” black managers were responsible for Eskom’s load shedding troubles.
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