SACP statement on Eskom's suspension of CEO and three executives
The South African Communist Party notes the suspensions of Eskom CEO and three other executives. The SACP calls for the investigations into the operational and administrative challenges including cash flow management to be instituted following the suspensions to be conducted speedily and concluded timeously. The SACP will wait for the outcomes of the investigations before expressing its substantive views on the suspensions.
The SACP however finds it necessary under the circumstances to reiterate its core positions in regard to our country's energy challenges, in particular Eskom:
Eskom remains a key strategic national asset. Its role in ensuring the great majority of our energy requirements both in terms of generation and transmission must be defended. However, the process led by Cabinet's "war room" has underlined and uncovered many weaknesses within Eskom. It is a national asset that now requires tough love.
While in the middle technical ranks there are many committed professionals doing excellent work, in the senior technical and especially managerial levels there have been many weaknesses and even complacency. There are many indications that Eskom has been treated as a milk-cow by private sector rent-seekers. The pricing and procurement of coal supplies to Eskom power-stations, and indications of serious manipulation of procurement of diesel for the Open Cycle Turbines must be dealt with.
The SACP, in line with decisions taken at the ANC's NEC Lekgotla in January, calls for the abandonment of the ISMO Bill which seeks to abolish Eskom's role in transmission, fragmenting the integrity of our core energy system in the name of "competition" and "market neutrality". With the many challenges we face, we do not need a spurious "market neutrality". We need a pro-active bias in supply and pricing towards our developmental priorities, including re-industrialisation and balanced spatial development - sovereign national public interest must prevail over private profits.
While supporting the development of Independent Power Producers (IPPs), particularly in the renewables space, the SACP has called for much greater rigour in ensuring that pricing contracts with IPPs do not (as in the first two window periods) lock us into excessively high prices over a prolonged period. Much greater vigilance is also required in IPP contracts to ensure that localisation requirements are indeed complied with.
Statement issued by the SACP, March 12 2015
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