Eskom must give answers about the ongoing electricity crisis, the SA Human Rights Commission said on Friday.
In a statement, the SAHRC said it and the Public Protector could soon work together in an investigation to establish why Eskom had instituted power cuts to the extent it had recently.
Earlier this week, Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana sent a letter to Eskom saying he was considering investigating the power cuts because they were having a devastating effect on service delivery by government.
The SAHRC said: "The Commission is concerned about news reports that load-shedding as is currently being implemented by Eskom, is negatively affecting the provision of essential services and by extension human rights."
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In a letter to the Public Protector, the Commission said it was compelled to make its concerns known about the negative impact of the deliberate power cuts on the enjoyment of human rights.
In particular, it said access to information would enable people to enjoy their economic and social rights and that the information was inaccessible to most people over the internet.
"It is clear that Eskom is not providing adequate, accurate and timeous information to consumers to allow them to plan their lives and businesses around the load-shedding schedule," said the SAHRC.
"It has also been mooted that there is no equitable load-shedding across all areas."
The SAHRC said it had also been reported that Eskom had not properly engaged emergency services, police stations, hospitals and health care facilities.
"The SAHRC would be pleased to participate, within the confines of its mandate, in the Public Protector's process of engagement on this matter," the letter to the protector read.
The Commission said it had the power, in terms of its constitution, to investigate and report on the observance of human rights and to take steps for redress where human rights had been violated.
"These include the power to call any other person to appear before it and produce to it all articles or documents in his or her possession or under his or her control and which may be necessary in connection with such an investigation," it said.
The Congress of SA Trade Unions said it shared in the people's anger at the disruption to their lives and the economic fall-out to them regarding the power cuts.
"It has become a serious national embarrassment and could have a major impact on economic growth and job creation," said Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven.
Of particular concern were reports that poorer communities were exposed to longer outages than affluent, formerly white, suburbs.
He said these suburbs had better access to the media to complain.
"We demand that at the very least Eskom communicate far more effectively with the public to inform us in good time when power will go off and for how long," said Craven.
Cosatu, however, said Eskom was not to blame for the crisis.
"They warned the government years ago that they needed money to invest in new power stations, and applied to the government for this.
"But the government refused to provide the money, which President Mbeki has now admitted and apologised for," said Craven.
Because the government was set on privatising Eskom and other public utilities, and selling them off to the highest bidder, they had made the supplier inefficient.
"Cosatu consistently opposed privatisation precisely because we insisted that it must be a national service, efficiently providing secure and affordable power to the people and to industry."
Craven said this could never be achieved by a utility that was motivated to maximise its profits.
"We demand that the government and industry now speed up the process of providing Eskom with the money they need for capital investment, so that we can bring an end to the crisis as quickly as possible."
Cosatu reiterated its demand that Eskom not impose its planned 14.2 percent tariff increase, Craven said.
Eskom was repeatedly not available for comment on Friday. - Sapa
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