DA calls on Molefe to apologise
03 March 2016
The DA condemns the recent attacks and veiled threats made by Eskom CEO Brian Molefe against both the South African consumer and the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (NERSA).
The DA will not stand for Mr Molefe’s attacks and instead urges Mr Molefe to save his bullying tactics for his overpaid and underperforming management team.
The threat of load-shedding cannot be used to hold consumers and NERSA to ransom.
Instead of criticising NERSA, Mr Molefe should ensure that his own house is in order and address the underlying issues that resulted in the reliance on costly diesel-fuelled generators to begin with.
NERSA found Eskom’s over reliance on diesel to be a direct result of its poor management of its coal powered fleet – well below international benchmarks – and its continued mismanagement of the Medupi, Kusile and Ingula new-build programmes.
It is clear from NERSA’s findings this week that management challenges at Eskom run deep and continue to persist. These are the very failures Mr Molefe was employed to resolve – as yet unsuccessfully, despite his claims to the contrary.
We further condemn Mr Molefe’s attacks on NERSA as ill-advised, constituting a direct threat to the regulator’s independence with the potential to undermine the entire energy regulatory framework.
In his statement on Tuesday Mr Molefe stated that, “yet again NERSA’s decision does not address the question of Eskom’s continued financial sustainability.” We remind Mr Molefe that it is his job, not NERSA’s, to ensure finical sustainability of Eskom.
We encourage Mr Molefe to withdraw his inflammatory statements and apologise both to the South African consumer, the true shareholders of Eskom, and to NERSA. The load-shedding that has cost the South African economy dearly is a problem of Eskom’s and the ANC’s making – to blame anyone else is frankly insulting.
The DA continues to call for the partial privatisation of Eskom as the only effective means of dislodging the cadre deployment culture that has gripped Eskom and which rests at the heart of rot the continues to consume this vital state owned entity.
Statement issued by Gordon Mackay MP, DA Shadow Minister Energy, 3 March 2016
