Blame game won’t solve power problems, says Mabuza

DEPUTY President David Mabuza yesterday has said playing the “blame game” wouldn’t help to solve the problems facing embattled power utility, Eskom.

Speaking during an oral question session in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), Mabuza said the focus should be on solving the problems.

“We would be failing the nation and our people if we continue to point fingers at each other and not resolve the problem.

“Our duty of putting a helping hand is to (help) Eskom deliver on its mandate,” he said.

“The country must have reliable energy supply so that we can create the necessary jobs and allow business to grow and in turn deal with unemployment, poverty and inequality,” Mabuza said.

The deputy president was responding to a question posed in connection with Eskom board member, Busisiwe Mavuso, who put the blame on the ANC for failures at the utility.

Mabuza said the board and the management should play their roles.

“The board must do its work. They must ensure they deal with problems that are affecting Eskom. Let us all work together.”

Pressed on whether he would acknowledge the responsibility of the ANC and the party’s cadre deployment for poor workmanship at Medupi and Kusile, Mabuza said they could only acknowledge responsibility of the ANC government.

However, he said at every point in the life of Eskom there had been CEOs and directors.

Mabuza said what was experienced at Eskom was a lack of maintenance of the power stations and overruns of new-build at Medupi and Kusile.

“We incurred a lot of overruns and there are design problems, which were supposed to be the responsibility of the engineers working in Eskom and directors to avoid the unnecessary costs and defects.

“This is not a way of running away from the responsibility of the government of the day, of the ANC, but there were people who have been appointed in different positions to do certain specific jobs,” he said.

Mabuza also said that the problems at Eskom would not be permanent. “It needs all our efforts and a positive mindset,” he said.

The deputy president said government remained concerned that Eskom may have somewhat inadequately addressed Scopa recommendations regarding fixing defects at Kusile and Medupi power stations, especially the shifting of the projected completion dates.

He blamed the shifts in deadlines to the Covid-19 risk adjusted strategy.

“All of this resulted in the interruption of construction and the supply of technical parts, which affected the maintenance work and meeting the completion date.”

Mabuza defended the government’s initiative to introduce an office in the presidency to try to respond to the challenge of red tape in doing business with the state.

He said the move was not a show of no-confidence at the Small Business Development Ministry led by Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams as some have suggested.

“I don’t see it as a move showing a vote of no confidence against the minister. This move is trying to address the real problem, which is not really what happens in the ministry of small business development.

“There are a number of other ministers that must deal with red tape,” he said before citing the Department of Environment where there were also concerns.