Democratic Alliance Press Statement by Natasha Michael MP Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Eskom must shed light on rolling blackouts The DA is deeply concerned by the continued failure of Eskom to come clean with South Africans on its current capacity crisis. Not only will rolling black-outs have a disastrous impact on an already weakened economy, but it will diminish investor confidence and interrupt key services to our citizens. The DA demands that Eskom end its cat and mouse game with the public and provide a full briefing on its current capacity constraints, its full load shedding plan, as well as how long this is going to continue for. Eskom has in the past repeatedly denied plans to implement rolling blackouts or ‘load shedding’. However, Eskom’s spokesperson Andrew Etzinger recently warned that “…if we pick up troubles like last nights, we might have to implement [load shedding] again”. The DA has on numerous occasions called for Eskom to communicate a clear plan for the parastatal’s capacity crisis. Eskom has however, repeatedly ignored our calls and obfuscated accountability. A recent report by Bloomberg suggests as much as 23% of Eskoms generation capacity has been unavailable in recent months. Continued unstable power supply will have a devastating effect on the economy as large industrial consumers - including mines, smelters and manufacturing – will be given little choice but to have scale back usage, and in the worst case, cease operations. Following the blackouts in 2008, Eskom boosted its power supply by postponing scheduled maintenance. This has resulted in deteriorating performance in the utility’s aging infrastructure. Both the Duvha and Kendal power stations had problems last night, causing rolling balckouts in Gauteng last night. Furthermore, a portion of the capacity usually imported from Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa power station has repeatedly been unavailable in recent months. With high demand and low capacity, Eskom’s double-speak does nothing but confuse consumers and industry. South Africans deserve state enterprises that are accountable and deliver on their mandate. The DA will continue to hold Eskom accountable and fight for the lights to stay on. They must now stop with the fork-tongued approach and tell us the truth.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:24:31 +0000
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