• During a tour of the Kusile Power station, Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that technical faults were the reason for its failures.
• The minister refuted the fact that widespread corruption lead to these technical failures.
• The comments stand in stark contrast to statements made by Eskom itself which admits to corruption at the utility during State Capture.

The newly minted Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is currently on a two-week long tour of South Africa’s power stations and during a media briefing on Tuesday, the minister chose some interesting words.

Talking about the persistent issues with the country’s energy supply, Ramokgopa said that corruption wasn’t the reason Eskom was failing to meet its mandate.

“The problems and challenges that we have here are technical problems, they have nothing to do with so-called corruption,” the minister was quoted as saying by SA News.

Now, we’re not on the ground at Eskom but this statement makes little to no sense when looking at the wider environment. Sure, there are technical problems at South Africa’s power stations but to ignore that those problems arose given a lack of will in lieu of a hunger to take money under the table is disingenuous of the minister.

Less than a year ago, the Zondo commission reported that Eskom entered into irregular contracts worth R14.7 billion. These contracts were for entities linked to the Gupta family and President Cyril Ramaphosa estimates that during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure, R500 billion was stolen.

The corruption included sub-standard coal being used to fuel power stations, the aforementioned irregular contracts and a lack of maintenance at power stations. All of the above and other instances of corruption were responsible for the failings at Eskom. Passing the buck to say that technical problems are the reason for loadshedding without acknowledge that corruption brought those problems to light is ignorant to say the least.

The comments from the minister also stand in stark contrast to the comments made by Eskom Board Chair, Mpho Makwana just this month in a piece published in Engineering News. In that statement Makwana notes that 26 Eskom employees have been accused of fraud and corruption at the utility.

It’s incredibly jarring to have such different messaging during a time when South Africans really need government to be forthright in its communications.

Ramokgopa says that loadshedding will be addressed and that government will “be honest and transparent about where we are now in as far as resolving the problem”.

However, with loadshedding having been suspended for most of the weekend, Monday and Tuesday this week, South Africans are scratching their heads at the fact that loadshedding is back at higher stages than they were at the weekend.

What the country needs is clear, honest communication from government and right now. Statements such as this from the minister are disingenuous and assume that South Africans aren’t fully aware of the issues that have plagued us all for years.

Not only is this insulting to the intelligence of South Africans, it’s reminiscent of the talking points that have been fed to the public for years as officials have lined their pockets with ill-gotten gains.