- President Cyril Ramaphosa says the Presidency has been at the centre of ending load shedding.
- Ramaphosa was addressing the Presidency staff on Tuesday and also handing out long-service awards.
- He also spoke out about the culture of not implementing things in government, saying it held back South Africa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has lauded the Presidency for its central role in ensuring that the country no longer experiences load shedding.
South Africa has been without load shedding for more than four months now.
Ramaphosa was addressing the Presidency staff and handed over long-service awards on Tuesday.
He said since becoming president, he has worked to strengthen the Presidency.
The creation of a “super Presidency” has been criticised for bringing too much power into the Presidency and taking away tasks from other departments. But Ramaphosa said the strategy has worked.
“That has been the accusation. But all we know is that what we have been seeking to do is to make government work better. By so doing, we have sought to be the centre of government.
“The real centre that coordinates what happens in government brings together all the key role players in government, coordinates them and gets them to focus on what needs to be done,” said Ramaphosa.
The president said while credit must be given to Eskom, its board, and the Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, it is the Presidency that is the “real engineer” behind ensuring that the country is without the rolling blackouts.
“It has been the Presidency that has sat right in the middle of this. We have sat in the middle to enable the wheels of government to move … before that, you had a variety of departments. You can imagine that Eskom is a massive organisation, but in Eskom, there are many spokes that go into this wheel.”
He added:
The Presidency decided to sit at the centre and make the spokes join together and make the wheel work, and today we now have an energy process that is developing, transforming, getting better and operating better, and we see that with the results that we got. Load shedding is gone and we are improving the energy availability factor.
Ramaphosa said that when he appointed Ramokgopa, he faced backlash and criticism.
In the sixth administration, Ramokgopa’s office was also under the Presidency.
He said:
Everybody screamed and shouted, ‘Where did you get this from? Why do you appoint a minister of electricity?’ And you are now acting alone,’ and I said, ‘Right you are. I am acting alone because this is the way we will improve the country.’ Bingo. It has worked, and they are all quiet.
Ramaphosa told the Presidency staff that all efforts have been made to enable that office to have a feel and knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the government.
He said, however, this was not done for the office “to put our noses all over” but to get everyone to work together seamlessly and cooperatively.
“One of the things I said right at the beginning was that I want to break down the silos in government where every department thinks they can work on their own, and I said, ‘No, no, we are one government,’ and that is why we introduced the district development model which is seeking to get everyone in government to work together,” he said.
Ramaphosa said the Presidency has a skill of getting people to work together, even those who might have never wanted to work together.
“I say this, colleagues, to understand the important office you are all working in. You are working in the Presidency, in the centre of government, and yes, we don’t stand on rooftops as the Presidency and say, ‘We did it all, we did this, we finished load shedding’. No, we work at a low key, but we make things happen.
“We are the engine of the government of South Africa, the others are the wheels. We are the engine. Our task, therefore, is to ensure that we do things properly and be at the top of our game. And do things in such a way that we act out our very best,” said Ramaphosa.
READ | Eskom CEO hopeful of ‘comfortable’ summer without load shedding
He also spoke out against the culture of non-implementation in the government and said this is what is holding the country back.
Ramaphosa said South Africa can learn a lot from China, which he praised for being good implementors.
“I must tell you, as we interface with them, we sign agreements and all that, and as soon as we sign agreements with them, I have been told, just yesterday, that no sooner had the agreement be signed, they called and said, ‘When are we implementing’,” he said.
Ramaphosa and a delegation of ministers recently returned from China, where they attended the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit.
Ramaphosa added:
One of our weaknesses that pervades many of our institutions is lacking implementation, being slow in implementation, and this is a disease that I would like to get out of our system where implementation is always relegated to a long time or it never happens.
The president said one of his missions is to infuse the culture of immediate implementation in government once tasks have been given and targets set.
“We are slow, and sometimes I think we are afraid. We are afraid of our own ghosts when it comes to implementation. We tip-toe and we are afraid to talk to the one slightly above, the one higher up. I would like us to get rid of that so that we focus on implementation because, through implementation, we serve the people of South Africa better, meaning that we move even from postponing what needs to be done.
“Things must be done immediately. This is the big lesson that I have brought back from China. They reach an agreement with you, they set the targets, and they expect that there will be quick implementation,” said the president.
