Democratic Alliance press statement by Natasha Michael MP DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Eskom must table a plan to keep SA’s lights on during maintenance The DA will write to the Acting Eskom CEO, Colin Matjila, requesting that the state utility table a plan for the mitigation of blackouts during Eskom’s proposed maintenance overhaul of the national power grid. This follows the state enterprise’s decision to focus less on keeping the lights on and instead, choosing to prioritise maintenance at power stations. Maintenance of the grid is indeed a necessary evil if a catastrophic countrywide blackout is to be avoided. It is reported that, in the event of a national blackout, it would take two weeks to re-establish power generation throughout the national power grid with serious consequences – halted production at businesses; homes plunged into darkness; non - delivery of essential services; and a paralysed telecommunications system. However, one has to ask whether this could have all been avoided. The existing energy crisis is a direct result of Eskom, and the previous Minister of Public Enterprises poor planning and lack of quality control measures at South Africa’s power stations. As early as 2011, the DA repeatedly called for a plan to address growing maintenance backlogs at the power utility, thus avoiding rolling blackouts due to maintenance faults and limited power generating capacity. Indeed, failures at the Kendal and Majuba power stations earlier this year were a result of poor maintenance and forced country-wide load shedding on South African consumers. As it stands, proposed maintenance plans will result in even more units being taken offline – further limiting Eskom’s power generating capacity and leaving the grid highly vulnerable to blackouts when faced with increased demand or faults at Eskom itself. Executives at Eskom must table a plan to address the very real possibility of blackouts during the proposed maintenance period in the interests of assuring consumers and keeping businesses running at optimum, thus ensuring uninterrupted productivity and job security. The DA will continue to monitor the situation closely in a bid to keep the lights on in South African homes.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 11:07:22 +0000