Durban – Pressure from political parties is mounting on President Cyril Ramaphosa, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and the Eskom board to find immediate solutions to the electricity crisis gripping the country.
The EFF has called for the immediate firing of the Eskom board.
Over the weekend, several of Eskom’s generation units tripped, leading to the power utility initially placing the country on Stage 4 load shedding, which then increased to Stage 5 and Stage 6 by the end of the weekend.
The energy crisis compelled Ramaphosa to cut short his working trips to the US and UK.
Ramaphosa met US President Joe Biden for bilateral talks last week before flying to the UK to attend the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.
He had been scheduled to fly from the UK to New York to attend the UN, but that trip was cancelled and instead he headed home to tackle South Africa’s worsening energy crisis.
EFF national spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said the solution to the crisis would be the immediate firing of Eskom’s entire board, including “the incompetent and useless” CEO André de Ruyter and chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer.
“The incompetence and arrogance of the Eskom executive has plunged South Africa into a perpetual and unwarranted darkness that is killing businesses and livelihoods. The collapse of Eskom and the failure to prove dependable and consistent energy supply are meant to render the country’s electricity utility redundant and useless.
“We have consistently warned against the immoral and dishonest intention of handing over South Africa’s energy generation sovereignty to the greedy establishment that will influence all spheres of life, including the country’s political future,” Thambo said.
He added that the lie perpetuated by Eskom’s “incompetent executives and so-called energy analysts” was that the country does not have enough renewable energy to provide electricity when there was mechanical breakdown and maintenance, and that Eskom was cash-strapped.
“The reality is that the crisis facing Eskom is man-made,” Thambo said. He also warned that the failure to fire Eskom’s board, CEO and COO would require them to take more radical steps to ensure that competent, dependable and fit people were in charge of Eskom to resolve the energy crisis and bring an end to blackouts.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa should immediately dissolve the National Energy Crisis Committee, and appoint in its place an outside industry expert to oversee the implementation of the Energy Response Plan launched by the president in July.
“It is critical that this person is both apolitical and a leading expert in the energy field, and that he or she is sufficiently empowered to do whatever it takes to stabilise our current generation fleet and bring additional generation on board, without having their hands tied by the red tape that has held our recovery back until now,” Steenhuisen said.
He said this would require the executive authority to assemble a team of experts, the authority to oversee the hiring of engineers and managers without having to answer to racial bean counters in any ANC ministry.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE