Noting that the salary of the newly appointed Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is paid by taxpayers, the Democratic Alliance (DA) says an ad hoc parliamentary committee is needed to oversee the execution of the new Minister’s brief.

This involves dealing with issues that straddle the energy and public enterprises portfolios and the DA has proposed an ad hoc committee comprised of Members of Parliament (MPs) who are currently dealing with these portfolios.

The DA believes that there is an oversight vacuum owing to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula's apparent refusal to grant the DA’s request for parliamentary committees to exercise oversight over the Presidency and the National Energy Crisis Committee.

The DA sais the African National Congress was part of the problem as it protected its Cabinet members from Parliament’s scrutiny.

The DA remains sceptical over the current details surrounding President Cyril Ramaphosa’s creation of this new Ministry. 

DA MPs Kevin Mileham and Ghaleb Cachalia said although Ramaphosa announced the creation of the Electricity Ministry a month ago, he had still not provided a clear course of action.

Further, they contended that “carrying out more consultations over a problem that is widely known and that has been widely articulated is not a strategy”.

Due to the cataclysmic effects of the loadshedding crisis, the new Minister’s role could not exist in a veil of ambiguity so there was a need for a parliamentary structure to hold him accountable, the DA argued.