ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has defended his decision to call out Minister of Public Enterprise Pravin Gordhan and the later withdrawing his remarks saying Gordhan shouldn't be moved, meaning he should not be fired from his position. Mbalula called for Gordhan's head last week at the Woman's League conference in Nasrec. He said the country's rail infrastructure needed to improve for most trucks to be removed from the roads. 

But yesterday, he sang a different tune. "We have done commendable work in improving our logistics. Earlier this month, Transnet announced the completion of the construction of the Mamathwane crossing loop, in the Northern Cape, 30 days ahead of schedule, unlocking extra rail capacity of manganese exports," he said.

"So comrade Gordhan we don't have to move you, when I said we need to move comrade Gordhan the media reported that I mean that the comrade must be reshuffled but that wasn't the case," he explained. "So I had to issue a statement in behalf of the ANC," he said.

He said the buck stops with the ANC in South Africa."We urgently need our ministers to move with speed. Those who are sleeping on the job, we are watching you."

He then turned his attention on state of the economy."Comrades, we have nonetheless made serious strides in the last seven months to turnaround the economic situation in our country and some of the positive results are beginning to show. In June, Statistics SA reported that the economy is operating in positive terms and was growing at the modest rate of 0,4%. Similarly, Consumer Price Inflation fell to 5.4% in June from 6,3% in May," said Mbalula.

"Statistics South Africa further reported that the Annual Producer Price Inflation fell to 4,8% in June from 7,3% in May and the overall Producer Price Index fell by 0,3% month-on-month. This means that the cost of producing goods in the country is beginning to fall sharply.

Both these trends in Producer Price Inflation and Consumer Price Inflation are positive indications that we are beginning to turn the curve in terms of stabilising the cost of living. This trend tells us that we are at the end of the current cycle of a sharp rise in the cost of food in the country."

He said one the main focuses has been to tackle the crisis of loadshedding.

"We have seen good improvements at Eskom so far. Already the severity of loadshedding has fallen a great deal as we see improvements in plant performance across Eskom. More work remains to be done to raise the availability of energy to levels equal to and beyond the levels of national demand for electricity around the clock." He reiterated that loadshedding will end by December.

"We are convinced that we can put loadshedding behind us by the end of December 2023 if comrades in government remain true to the Energy Action Plan adopted by the ANC NEC in February 2023."