How powerful and untouchable is Pravin Gordhan as the Minister?
Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s)
As one of the political analysts once said; “Malema knows more about the ANC affairs than the ANC members themselves”. Maybe this might be true.
Julius Malema once said that President Matamela Ramaphosa is just a face for the country who is being controlled somewhere where only he knows, he said the real president is Public Enterprises Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan who never gets backlash. Never mind from his party but from the media as well.
Many of our State Owned Companies have been going down and performing badly but you seldom hear anything about Gordhan sleeping on the job.
Just recently, ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula was addressing the ANC Women’s League conference and he said Minister Gordhan must move fast in fixing Prasa and the rail road, failure to do so he will be removed.
Hardly 24 hours after saying that, Mbalula ended up releasing a statement saying there was a misunderstanding about how his criticism about Gordhan was taken after also receiving some comments from former NEC member Derek Hanekom on Twitter who was pretty much in Gordhan’s defense.
Earlier this year Presiden Ramaphosa decided to appoint Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the Electricity Minister to specifically look at anything and everything Eskom to fix loadshedding.
The ministry is placed in the office of the President.
“The Minister of Electricity will, as the President indicated in the State of the Nation Address, oversee all aspects of the electricity crisis response, including the work of the National Energy Crisis Committee. This will provide a single point of command for Government’s efforts to close the shortfall in electricity supply.”
“The Minister will work full-time with the Eskom board and management to end load-shedding and ensure that the Energy Action Plan announced by the President is implemented without delay” said the Presidency
One would assume that having been appointed as the electricity minister, the power utility Eskom would fall under him but surprisingly enough when asked about the replacement of former CEO Andrè de Ruyter, Minister Ramokgopa said the appointment falls under Gordhan.
Having said that, the question now is where does Ramokgopa’s power ends and starts with regards to Eskom.
It is also alleged that Minister Gordhan is on the mission to privatizing Eskom and the ANC released a statement this past week saying they are against privatization of the utility.
The question still remains; Is Pravin Gordhan really that powerful that he does as he pleases?
