DA calls for decisive action on Eskom 

12 April 2022

Note to Editors: Please find an attached soundbite by Ghaleb Cachalia MP 

The DA will write to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, and the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, requesting that they motivate for a Cabinet resolution that addresses impending disaster looming in the country’s electricity sector, almost exclusively under the failing aegis of Eskom.

Eskom has now proved beyond any doubt that it is not able to solve South Africa’s 14 year old loadshedding crisis. The entity’s old generation fleet is on life support and is constantly tripping, resulting in power outages being announced at short and debilitating notice.

Beyond deceiving South Africans into a false sense of assurance, ‘Eskom war rooms’ and ‘Ministerial Task Teams’ have dismally failed to provide a clear strategy to pull South Africa out of the electricity crisis. The economy cannot be held to ransom.

Cabinet needs to reprioritise efforts to address this national emergency. At the bare minimum, must it focus on lowest cost, accelerated solutions to solve the crisis. This will require:

Creating specific timelines on all new and supplementary energy projects that have been approved thus far, and ensure their accelerated implementation and connection to the national grid;

Investigating without delay additional measures to mitigate the crisis in the short term while embedding sustainable medium and longer term solutions;

Lessen or remove the costly regulatory burden that is standing in the way of self-generation, especially at household level and in discrete industry environments;

Compelling NERSA to conduct its regulatory approach within an emergency frame to help lessen red tape and approve generation projects in shorter timelines;

Ensuring that South Africans are constantly provided with updates on project completion and costs on all current and future alternative and additional energy projects;

Ensuring budget reprioritization of resources from non-emergency expenditure items towards accelerated spending in energy generation projects.

We have called for a Commission of Inquiry into Eskom and the challenges facing the country on this front.

The request has fallen on deaf ears. It cannot however continue to be business as usual when all indications are that 2022 is on course to set its own loadshedding record.

Now is the time to put aside petty politics and galvanise the national effort towards finding a lasting and permanent solution to the prevailing national electricity crisis.

Transparency and a laser-like focus on making electricity available and affordable must be the key imperative. Without such an approach we are headed for a winter of unparalleled discontent when we should be gearing up our post-Covid economy.

Issued by Ghaleb Cachalia, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 12 April 2022