ANC will seek practical solutions to Eskom’s debt crisis: Ramaphosa

African National Congress (ANC) president Cyril Ramaphosa says the governing party will spend a great deal of time finding practical solutions to Eskom’s debt crisis.

The government has enlisted the private sector in an emergency plan to tackle the worst-ever rolling blackouts in Africa’s most industrialised economy.

Ramaphosa has announced the scrapping of controls on companies generating their own power as well as plans to allow households to generate solar power and sell it back into the grid.

He said on Monday that a wave of new private generation was needed to rescue the country’s grid. Ramaphosa conceded that the rolling blackouts have caused immense damage to the economy.

He says the revival of renewable energy and lifting of the threshold for licensing will increase the electricity supply.

“Earlier this week government announced additional measures to tackle the electricity crisis that we have been facing and that (Solly) Mapaile also spoke bout. The measures that were announced will help to fix Eskom and improve the availability of existing supply accelerate investment and maintenance at Eskom and also accelerate investment by other operators to ensure that there is increased electricity generation capacity. It will also accelerate procurement of new capacity from renewable from gas, storage and enable businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar energy.”

SA’s economic trajectory expected to top the agenda:

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Poverty

The ANC president says the ruling party still has a lot to do in the eradication of poverty, inequality and underdevelopment.

South Africa is dealing with rising inflation, sluggish economic growth and declining business and consumer confidence that are attributed to the effect of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

While addressing ANC delegates at the Nasrec Expo Centre South of Johannesburg, on Friday, Ramaphosa says the discussions in the ANC policy conference need to send a clear and positive message on the plight of South Africans, insisting that service delivery, COVID-19 and state capture have contributed to the major challenges facing the country.

“These discussions must also be underpinned by finding solutions to the challenges that our country and our people face. I would like our approach to go beyond lamenting the challenges that our people face but coming up with solutions. In accordance with ANC traditions where we have different views and approaches on different views, we are always able to emerge with policy coherently so we promise to come out here with clear policies. Here in this conference, we will reflect on the state of unemployment in our country. We will reflect on the state of our economy but more importantly, we should then come up with what should be done.”

Newly-elected SACP General Secretary SACP Solly Mapaila says the ANC’s policy conference has the mammoth task of rescuing the governing party from the crisis of public confidence it faces.

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