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 Go to sleep early to save power - minister
    January 31 2008 at 07:28AM Get IOL on your
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By Deon de Lange, Anel Powell and Sapa

"Go to sleep earlier so that you can grow and be cleverer. Boil less water, use the microwave rather than stove, take a shower and not a shallow bath," was Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica's advice to the country at a special joint parliamentary sitting to discuss the power crisis.

She said that perpetual blackouts could be avoided if South Africans used power more responsibly.

Opposition calls for heads to roll - including those of Sonjica, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (former minerals and energy minister), Eskom chairperson Valli Moosa and Eskom management - were rebuffed by ANC MPs, who expressed confidence in the government's ability to manage the crisis.
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'hold hands with the government'
Sonjica and Erwin again appealed for a national effort to reduce power consumption by 10 percent to avert a total collapse.

In outlining plans by the City of Cape Town to cut power use by 10 percent, Mayor Helen Zille said residential consumers may be charged more for using electricity during peak hours.

She said 4 000MW needed to be saved nationally every day for the next four weeks, and 3 000MW needed to be saved daily for the next four years thereafter, if a national electricity crisis is to be averted.

Zille announced the city's short-term energy-saving proposals at Wednesday's council meeting.

She said businesses should switch off their air conditioning for the next month. This would, however, not apply to cold rooms and refrigerators that relied on electricity to keep food cold.

In times like these, 'everyone is an expert'
Pick n Pay is already doing its bit to cuts its electricity consumption by 20 percent.

Its chief executive, Nick Badminton, said stores now switched off lights in areas with natural lighting, installed geyser blankets and only ran air conditioners when necessary. The retailer is also selling energy-saving light bulbs at cost.

Zille said commercial properties, such as Century City, should switch off their outside decorative lights. This should apply to council-owned properties too.

Households would be asked to voluntarily switch off their geysers between 5pm and 10pm.

Medium-term plans included the extension of residential geyser control systems and incentives for households using them, restrictions and penalties for households using more than 600 units of electricity every month and the introduction of subsidies and building regulations for solar water heaters.

Large commercial customers will be charged more for using electricity during peak times. Zille said this would eventually extend to residential users.

There will also be an awareness campaign to counter energy consumption, either with energy-efficient lighting or small-scale wind and solar electricity units.

Zille said the solar- and wind-powered traffic lights would be extended to other parts of the city to reduce traffic congestion during power cuts. "I hope that the solutions we are now introducing in Cape Town will leave our economy better prepared to face a global energy crisis when it arrives."

In Parliament on Wednesday, Erwin warned that load-shedding was designed to prevent a catastrophe.

"We cannot envisage any possibility of the system going down. This is absolutely critical. The South African system is far bigger than that of California.

"We don't really know what it would mean if the system failed. The urgent imperative is to reduce demand so that we can stabilise the system," he said.

Sonjica called on citizens to "hold hands with the government" to find solutions. She praised the "leadership that the ANC has provided in dealing with this national emergency".

With MPs being called to order on numerous occasions for heckling and shouting during the turbulent debate, the ANC stood firm on its view that the country was the victim of its own success.

The ruling party MPs claimed that higher than expected economic growth and electricity provision to previously unserviced citizens was to blame for the current power shortage.

ANC MP Joan Fubbs suggested that, thanks to the present emergency, the rich were getting a taste of the poor man's medicine.

"The rich are learning what it is like to live without electricity and (experience) the challenges the poor so frequently face," she said to applause from the ANC benches.

DA MP and minerals and energy spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt was having none of it. "This crisis signifies the hallmarks of an uncaring government to its entire people - both the rich and the poor," he said.

He accused Sonjica, Erwin and Mlambo-Ngcuka of being "grossly negligent, even reckless, in the exercise of their duties" and called on President Thabo Mbeki to remove them from his Cabinet.

FF Plus leader Pieter Mulder joined the fray, suggesting an ANC Cabinet position was the safest job in the world and that, irrespective of the mistakes made, there was no risk of dismissal.

"If a minister in any other country takes a decision which costs the country up to R650-billion in a matter of days and which brings the whole economy to a (complete standstill), he would immediately be fired," he said.

ID Chief Whip Lance Greyling also bemoaned the fact that not a single minister was fired for the debacle, saying it made a "mockery of political accountability".

A noticeably stressed Erwin said "no amount of baying for sacrificial lambs" would solve the electricity problems.

Responding to criticism that the government failed repeatedly to heed warnings about a looming power crisis, Erwin said that in times like these, "everyone is an expert".



    • This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on January 31, 2008
Showing page 1 of 11 comment pages, 104 total comments
93 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
We are clearly being ruled by idiots who spend a lot of their time thinking of stuffed excuses for their incompetency. I suggest that we as a country call for the entire bunch to step down. Down tools and stop all progress allowing these people to go on messing us up.
94 Weeks ago -CT wrote :
If the government feels they can act this irresponsibly loosing the country millions in revenue daily, who is going to persecute these selfish narrow minded, uneducated , swine. Who is in charge of distributing the "bonuses" if not the directors, receiving them. Do the directors determine their own bonuses? Who else would be dumb enough to reward them for completely degrading up the economy and doing nothing to prepare for this? Any revenue lost at the end of the day revenue lost. Do our ministers have no education in how an economy works?It is like a delicate eco-system always balancing on a double edged sword....It does not matter who,when or where revenue is lost, it effects everybody including the people at a grass roots level. Soon these people will not be able afford food and basics, as obviously to make up for lost revenue, taxes will increase and pricing will go up. I think someone needs to go out there and make a concerted effort to show and teach the people that are supporting this completely untrustworthy,inefficient and irresponsible government of ours exactly what effect the actions of this government is having on their lives and is actually increasing the amount in which their families are suffering! Don't get me wrong I am proud of a number of our accomplishments but when the bad outweighs the good and absolutely nothing is being done to change the situation. Personally, I have had enough, I will take my contribution to society, to one that will appreciate the jobs my business creates ,not be wasted and the revenue I pay in taxes is well managed and not thrown at people crippling the economy. Good Luck, South Africa! May you survive the new dark ages in Africa. I am no longer the proud South African I once was...and predict I am not alone in supporting the brain drain! -Proud Supporter of SA's Brain Drain!
94 Weeks ago Marc wrote :
"Where is the accountability?" The simple answer is there is none. Similarly, there is no responsibility. And what is the difference. Responsibility is forward-looking. So, if someone is 'responsible' for maintaining electricity supply, they are charged with the job of achieving that condition. 'Accountability' is backward-looking; which means taking the blame/credit for having done such-and-such. The two terms go together. Where there is responsibility, there is accountability, and vice versa. Where this couplet does not exist, or is resognized only through lup service, the tendency is to look around for someone else to BLAME (e.g., consumers and tax-payers). Likewise, where politicians play the 'blame game', one can reasonably conclude that they do not take responsibility for future investments, and hence do not consider themselves accountable for their failures. And that is why they do not resign. Because they HAVE NO SHAME. More simply put: they are UNETHICAL.
94 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
Well I believe the new government's strategies are to bring everyone to poverty let alone that "preach" poverty aliviation. Some of us had envisaged the situation when the ORLANDO POWER STATION was closed down and people were retrenched. Orlando Power Station has been producing electricity when the law makers were in exile and hence in history of South Africa there had never been any electricity shortage. It was for this reason that it was easy to supply other countries with our electricity and that was why it has been cheap. The government must learn to consult and LEARN Dr Elsh Ncakeni
94 Weeks ago Greg wrote :
My geyser is only on at 6pm and off again at 8pm so that we can bath. that's 2hrs out of 24. why must my family suffer when we have been practicing this for 6 years already. I dont have a maid which means the only thing working during the day, is the fridge. I dont have anything but the fridge plugged in as i learned a lesson a few years ago whith a power surge. All my electric goods were toasted. Why must my geyser then be controlled by the municipality? its not fair!
94 Weeks ago ZigBee wrote :
The "rich" may well be "getting a taste of the poor man's medicine". They also contribute a major portion of the government's tax revenue - revenue which is used (arguably) to improve the lot of the "poor man". So ... disrupt the economic life of the "rich" and p*ss them off at your people's peril, Fubbs. On the other side, I'm gratified to see the first mention of load-shifting (ie controlling WHEN people use electricity) as opposed to just limiting HOW MUCH they use. Not surprising that this comes from Helen Zille. To date, not even Jacob Maroga has said enything that indicates he has an understanding of the difference. Centralized geyser load control - amongst other measures - holds a lot of promise for demand management (load-shifting), PROVIDED it is properly implemented, eg that switch-back is staggered to flatten the resulting load peaks. Very sophisticated systems have been installed in certain areas, but their effectiveness is compromised by uninformed operaton.
94 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
Limiting our electricity consumption to 500 units is all well and good in theory. How will they differentiate between a household with two adults and a household with two families and a domestic worker.
94 Weeks ago Frikkie Venter wrote :
I was wondering how long it would take for this absolute drivel about centralised geyser control to resurface. The Gauteng authorities abandoned the ripple switch concept about fifteen years ago for two reasons: the idea actually exacerbated the problem, the longer the geysers are switched of, the heavier the load becomes to bring back on-line, as more and more geysers cool down and are drained of their hot water, and the control system was unreliable: either didn't switch off the targeted geysers, or failed to switch them back on again. Unfortunately, the institutional memory of this past experience has probably also been lost. Maybe the powers-that-would-like-to-think- they-be should pay more attention to the recognised processes known to those in the industry as Demand Side Management (DSM), which is a proactive planning of energy use patterns, not the current panic stricken crisis management. At the domestic level, this would include the alternative of Load Control Units (LCU) which equalises the energy demand and avoids load peaking, which is really where the problem begins. The other must do is to convert to Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL), and throw out the common fluorescent striplight, or replace their inductive ballasts with modern electronic ballasts, reducing their power consumption by HALF. The plain old incandescent globe should be taken off the market, banned, as in the civilised countries of Europe.
94 Weeks ago JJ wrote :
I am shocked that again goverment can just explain away the energy crisis as if it is something trivial. Easy to say go to be early! How any unwanted ESKOM babies do you want south africans to produce. Most South Africans are used to get by with the bare minimum. Problems with electricity could set out economy back several years. The Polokwane conference certainly showed the government that people are unhappy with how goverment is handling issues but with their persistence to create havoc is showing people that goverment are not prepared to learn from their mistakes. U are all governing yourselves out of jobs.
94 Weeks ago JJ wrote :
I am shocked that again goverment can just explain away the energy crisis as if it is something trivial. Easy to say go to be early! How any unwanted ESKOM babies do you want south africans to produce. Most South Africans are used to get by with the bare minimum. Problems with electricity could set out economy back several years. The Polokwane conference certainly showed the government that people are unhappy with how goverment is handling issues but with their persistence to create havoc is showing people that goverment are not prepared to learn from their mistakes. U are all governing yourselves out of jobs.

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