MK Party sends Ramaphosa ultimatum over decision to appoint interim police minister
The party believes the decision is unconstitutional.
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On Sunday night, Ramaphosa placed Police Minister Senzo Mchunu on special leave and announced that Wits law professor Firoz Cachalia will act in the role from August.
This is while a commission of inquiry investigates allegations of corruption within the police.
Ramaphosa invoked Section 93 of the Constitution, allowing him to select two outsiders to serve in ministerial positions, to appoint Firoz Cachalia as the interim police minister.
But the MK Party said, read with Section 98 of the Constitution, this provision cannot be used to make an interim appointment.
'We are seeking legal advice in order to challenge these announced decisions. In the meantime, we call on Ramaphosa to withdraw his decisions by no later than 10am Wednesday, 16 July, failing which we will take our fight to the courts, the Parliament and if needs be, to the street,' said MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela.
Like the majority of political parties in Parliament, the MK Party is not in favour of a commission of inquiry to investigate the claims of infiltration and collusion within the South African Police Service (SAPS), saying it's political patronage to protect Ramaphosa from facing charges related to the Phala Phala scandal.
The party said it has mandated its parliamentary caucus to table a motion of no confidence in Ramaphosa.
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Daily Maverick
an hour ago
- Daily Maverick
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The reality is that South Africa's post-apartheid economic story isn't just about presidents making speeches about transformation – it's about distinct economic eras, each with their own policy frameworks, promises and ultimately, their own report cards written in stunted GDP growth rates and lamentable employment statistics. Starting from the negative An uncomfortable truth for many apartheid apologists is that the old regime did the country no favours. In 1994, the newly democratic South Africa inherited what was referred to as a 'technically bankrupt' economy. FW de Klerk's administration had been shielding R86.7-billion in foreign debt (about $14-billion at the time), an economy crippled by sanctions, and the worst 10-year growth performance since World War 2. More fundamentally, decades of exclusionary policies had created what would become known as the 'triple challenges' – poverty, inequality and unemployment. 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Eyewitness News
2 hours ago
- Eyewitness News
A Call for coherent, inclusive and just reform of the Draft IRP 2023
Anda Bici 14 July 2025 | 13:00 Picture: © vencavolrab78/ South Africa's energy planning must be grounded in national sovereignty, constitutional justice, and developmental realism. Yet, the Draft Integrated Resource Plan 2023 reflects none of these imperatives. At a time when the world's most powerful economies are recasting energy as an enabler of industrial advantage and national resilience, South Africa is adopting externally influenced decarbonisation targets that ignore its endowments, institutional capacity, and socioeconomic fragility. Globally, countries such as China and the United States continue to pursue energy strategies that safeguard their resource sovereignty and industrial competitiveness. China has expanded coal capacity as a means of economic insurance. The United States has ramped up LNG infrastructure and fossil approvals while framing climate commitments in flexible, nationally determined terms. Both have embedded their energy policy in sovereign development logic. By contrast, South Africa finds itself mimicking first world climate frameworks while grappling with third world energy insecurity. The country sits on vast coal reserves, faces prolonged grid instability, youth unemployment, collapsing infrastructure, and underperforming state utilities, yet continues to subordinate national development to externally defined climate metrics. These contradictions are not simply poor planning but legally unsound, constitutionally inconsistent, and socioeconomically dangerous. The Constitution affirms the right to basic services, obliges public administration to be accountable and equitable, and protects the dignity of all persons. Any energy plan that fails to provide reliability, access, and equity in the face of mass energy poverty and economic exclusion cannot be justified under a constitutional or developmental mandate. The draft IRP 2023 offers ten hypothetical scenarios but refuses to commit to a single enforceable direction. It relies on language that is conditional and technocratic, avoiding political and legal responsibility. It fails to inform binding procurement, bypasses the obligations of ministerial determinations, and weakens planning certainty. In a nation already experiencing rolling blackouts, municipal fiscal stress, and institutional erosion, such ambiguity is reckless. The draft IRP's failure to incorporate the legal enforcement of Minimum Emission Standards compounds the danger. The likely decommissioning of non-compliant coal capacity, potentially exceeding 60% of Eskom's fleet, is not modelled, not planned for, and not politically acknowledged. This omission is not merely a policy oversight but a direct threat to grid stability, water systems, industrial continuity, and constitutional service delivery obligations. To mitigate the MES compliance cliff, which was March 2025, government must immediately publish a legally binding Decommissioning and Retrofitting Roadmap, including prioritised flue gas desulphurisation retrofits at select high-yield coal stations. Plants with low emissions upgrade potential or nearing the end of life should be scheduled for phased closure, with generation capacity replaced by flexible gas generation. Eskom and National Treasury must jointly and urgently ringfence capital for MES compliance retrofits through blended climate finance and the draft IRP must transparently sequence decommissioning with guaranteed capacity replacement to avoid grid collapse. Equally concerning is the plan's assumption that Eskom's coal fleet will return to a 70% Energy Availability Factor, despite years of sub 60% performance and no credible investment or operational recovery roadmap. As of July 2025, Eskom's year-to-date EAF stands at approximately 58.2%, with recent weekly fluctuations in the 61–64% range. This remains well below the IRP's assumed 70% baseline and reflects no structural recovery. Planning based on a recovery that lacks both technical and financial foundation creates the illusion of future baseload that will never materialise. It distorts procurement signals, undermines investor confidence, and sets up policy failure by design. The plan's use of outdated cost assumptions further discredits its reliability. Since 2020, global prices for renewables and battery storage have declined substantially, making them the cheapest and most scalable generation options. The draft IRP's continued reliance on inflated nuclear and coal cost scenarios ignores global trends and distorts South Africa's least-cost trajectory. Moreover, the draft IRP grossly underestimates future demand. It fails to account for the electricity needs of green hydrogen, EVs, battery manufacturing, data centres, and SEZ-linked beneficiation. South Africa's Hydrogen Valley, Saldanha, and Coega initiatives, along with emerging digital infrastructure, will require gigawatt-scale grid access. The assumption that such developments will remain 'off-grid' contradicts technical feasibility and industrial logic. If left uncorrected, this underestimation will lead to transmission underinvestment, missed localisation opportunities, and strategic bottlenecks. The draft IRP demand forecasting model must be recalibrated to include scenario-based forecasts that account for green hydrogen, digital infrastructure, beneficiation and EV uptake. A dynamic demand model would improve procurement agility and transformation investment alignment. This is missing or severely outdated if it exists. This failure to model demand is matched by the IRP's failure to articulate the socioeconomic dividend of a credible energy transition. With an optimised IRP, South Africa could create hundreds of thousands of new energy-sector jobs, drive inclusive industrialisation, and dramatically reduce energy poverty. Yet the plan lacks any quantified employment outlook, infrastructure delivery timeline, or spatial targeting strategy. It does not link to Treasury's fiscal planning, nor to DTIC industrial incentives. Without these, it is not a development plan rather modelling exercise divorced from execution. To achieve fiscal realism and investor credibility, these interventions must be aligned with Treasury's Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and funded through a blended finance model combining sovereign guarantees, concessional climate finance, and private sector risk participation. A minimum R600 billion transmission and storage investment over 10 years must be allocated to achieve national energy security and spatial equity. South Africa possesses over 10 billion tonnes of recoverable coal reserves, among the top seven globally, yet the draft IRP fails to present a modernised coal strategy. The United States and China, despite their clean energy ambitions, are doubling down on coal as a buffer against volatility and as a base for industrial policy. China is commissioning over 300 GW of new coal generation capacity. South Africa's approach must mirror this strategic realism, using its coal endowment not as a liability, but as a sovereign asset for affordable, reliable energy and job preservation, with MES compliance and retrofitting for lower emissions. By comparison, countries such as Vietnam, Chile, Morocco, and India have demonstrated what credible planning can deliver. Vietnam installed 16 GW of solar within three years through feed-in tariffs and policy certainty. Chile attracted $20 billion in clean energy investment via auction transparency and transmission sequencing. Morocco's CSP success was delivered through coordinated PPPs and blended finance. South Africa's REIPPPP, once globally praised, now faces credibility erosion due to irregular bid windows, lack of bankable timelines, and grid uncertainty. The IRP also neglects South Africa's regional obligations. As the backbone of the Southern African Power Pool and a founding economy in the African Continental Free Trade Area, South Africa's energy reliability underpins regional industrialisation. Grid collapse and institutional inertia in Eskom directly undermine cross-border trade, SADC energy corridors, and regional growth. A national IRP that ignores this regional dimension fails in its continental responsibility. The plan remains misaligned with foundational energy legislation. It contradicts the Electricity Regulation Act by failing to guide ministerial determinations. It bypasses the National Energy Act's requirements for integration and cross-sectoral coherence. It abandons the 1998 White Paper's priorities of access, equity, and participation. And it disregards the National Development Plan's commitment to infrastructure-led industrialisation. In short, it is legally hollow, structurally fragmented, and economically incoherent. To enforce accountability and coordination, a Presidential Sub-Committee on Energy Transition must be mandated under the Presidential Coordinating Council to monitor IRP implementation quarterly. Operation Vulindlela should house a Grid Reform Task Force with legal authority to unblock project delays, standardise land approvals, and align permits across spheres of government. South Africa's energy future can still be rewired. A hybrid pathway must be adopted, combining the best elements of the draft IRP's more grounded scenarios. This must include a phased and legally sequenced MES-compliant decommissioning plan, the additional 5,000 – 8,000 MW of flexible gas generation located near ports and industrial zones, the accelerated deployment of 15,000+ MW of renewables with 6 - 8 hour storage capacity and the commissioning of 2,000 MW of Small Modular Reactors under strict regulatory and cost transparency. An Independent Energy Planning Authority must be institutionalised to professionalise modelling and forecasting, and a Grid Command Centre under Operation Vulindlela must fast-track project approvals, land access, and IPP pipelines. Transmission expansion must be embedded in the National Infrastructure Plan and aligned to SEZs, ports, and mineral corridors. Procurement timelines, localisation targets, and land permitting rules must be harmonised across departments. NERSA must fast-track generation, wheeling, and storage licences, with a single-window application process. The IPP's planning, procurement, and modelling functions must be institutionally separated to improve transparency and reduce the risk of political interference and capture. A national wheeling tariff methodology must be in standardised by NERSA to ensure predictable, fair and cost-reflective charges for private generators. This will enable embedded generation and open access wheeling to municipalities and industries, unlocking over 20 GW of latent project capacity. This is partially in place already, but inadequate. Section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act must be harmonised with municipal procurement regulations to enable cities and metros to legally and efficiently procure their own generation. National Treasury must issue model PPP guidelines tailored to municipal IPPs to de-risk local implementation. This is fragmented and often missing. To enhance Independent Power Producer bankability, government must operationalise an Independent Transmission and System Market Operator with ringfenced revenue flows, neutral dispatch control and creditworthy off-take arrangements. This will ensure Eskom's balance sheet limitations and credit downgrades do not cascade into future II risk profiles, enabling bankable long-term contracts for generation developers. Critically, energy justice must be made central. A Township Microgrid Programme must be launched to electrify millions of low-income homes by 2030 using solar PV and battery systems, financed through public-private mechanisms and delivered via Eskom Distribution, metros, and licensed social IPPs. A fixed rental scheme, complemented by a solidarity fee for high-consumption off-grid users, can ensure equity in infrastructure access. With youth unemployment and women-headed households disproportionately affected by energy poverty, this programme must become a pillar of redistributive justice and local industrialisation. The Township Microgrid Programme would deliver clean, affordable energy to over 10 million people, primarily low-income, women-headed, and informal households, cutting paraffin dependency by over 70%, improving respiratory health, and creating over 30,000 new installation and maintenance jobs. This would significantly narrow energy inequality and support a redistributive just transition. TVET colleges must align with grid, battery, solar, gas and SMR workforce needs. A National Just Energy Skills Task Team under the DHET and DMRE must map supply–demand mismatches and align bursaries, artisan development and SETA grants to IRP delivery timelines. This is partially in place with a very slow execution. A Just Energy Transition Fund must be properly structured under Developmental Finance Institution's co-governance, with targeted concessional capital for microgrids, grid modernisation, and socially anchored IPP schemes in municipalities. This fund must explicitly support projects that combine public service delivery outcomes with private sector operational efficiency. All future procurement rounds must be pre-disclosed publicly with detailed cost assumptions, local content rules, and timeframes published online by National Treasury and the Independent Power Producer Office. This will ensure transparency, prevent state capture, and restore investor and public confidence in procurement credibility. The revised IRP must form the cornerstone of South Africa's updated Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement and should be tabled at COP30 as the country's central just transition instrument. This will align national planning with international climate obligations and unlock critical climate finance flows at a responsible pace and scale without any burden to overcommit to the international bodies on emissions reduction. The Draft IRP 2023 fails the globally accepted Energy Trilemma test, energy security, affordability, and sustainability. It privileges decarbonisation pathways while ignoring the constitutional obligation to ensure reliability and affordability. No scenario within the draft IRP addresses how to balance low-cost energy access for the poor with climate targets and grid resilience. South Africa requires a planning model that optimises all three trilemma pillars, like those used in Germany, Vietnam, and the US, not one that sacrifices energy justice for external validation. If these reforms are implemented in full, South Africa will, as it should, become one of the most bankable and investable emerging market energy jurisdictions globally. In their nature, these reforms remove regulatory ambiguity, derisk infrastructure finance, signal long-term policy stability and embed investor rights into the fabric of national planning. For private developers, development finance institutions and grid-linked manufacturers, this would not just give policy certainty, but commercial security rooted in law, execution and constitutional alignment. Section 27(1)(b) of the Constitution guarantees the right to sufficient energy services for health, dignity, and development. Section 195 requires a public administration that is accountable, equitable, and developmentally oriented. Section 152 places energy access at the centre of local government mandates. The IRP must therefore be assessed not only on technical grounds but against these foundational legal standards. The IRP must be more than a bureaucratic requirement. It must become a binding national social compact, one that is constitutionally defensible, fiscally sustainable, investor credible, and socially just. South Africa's energy future cannot be defined by Excel models, techno-speak, or political evasion. It must be defined by clarity, commitment, and courage. To ensure institutional memory and implementation continuity beyond political cycles, a permanent Energy Policy Office must be established in the Presidency under Monitoring and Evaluation Ministry to house planning, legal and monitoring experts to sustain IRP execution through successive administrators. Government and all Stakeholders must extensively work the current draft IRP and ensure that it aligns with fiscal capacity, legal mandates, industrial imperatives, and the lived needs of the energy-poor of our country more than it seeks external validation. Anda Bici is an ANC Activist
