The ANC is not in favour of privatising the country’s power system, despite problems with parastatal Eskom, secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.
“Electricity remains a public good and therefore, if you totally privatise it, it will have problems,” Mantashe told reporters at the ruling party’s headquarters at Luthuli House, in Johannesburg.
“Privatisation of electricity supply is not a panacea,” he said.
Eskom resorted to rolling blackouts at the weekend and declared a power emergency with large industrial customers on Sunday. It has said the country’s power supply is likely to remain “constrained for the foreseeable future”.
Mantashe said the ANC acknowledged there were problems at a number of state-owned companies (SOCs).
“What we are registering is that, as the ANC, we are concerned about what is happening in a number of SOCs. We must pay attention to that and try to address the problems that are emerging there.”
He was giving a report back on the ANC’s national executive committee meeting in Irene at the weekend. — Sapa