Johannesburg - The DA wants answers from Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown on the rolling blackouts and problems plaguing power utility Eskom, calling on the minister to end her “cat and mouse game” with the public.
This follows the latest round of rolling blackouts to hit South Africa.
At the weekend, Eskom started rolling blackouts countrywide due to a loss of capacity at one of its stations.
The outages were already affecting people throughout the country on Sunday, and social media were abuzz with people commenting on the on the matter.
DA public enterprises spokeswoman Natasha Michael said on Sunday that a crack in a coal storage silo on Saturday afternoon, affecting supplies to all six units of the Majuba power station, caused the loss of 1 800MW to the national grid, “deeply worsening our national energy crisis”.
“This is a direct result of Eskom’s deficient maintenance and planning and the Public Enterprises Ministry’s lack of quality control measures over Eskom.
“I will be writing today to the minister to request a full and detailed timeline for the maintenance on all of South Africa’s power stations, to avoid failures such as that which occurred on Sunday at Majuba,” Michael said.
“The DA would also have the timeline independently assessed to see if it fits in with best international practices,” she added.
“It is unacceptable that power outages are now expected to last the entire week.
“The DA demands that Minister Lynne Brown end her cat and mouse game with the public and provide a full briefing to Parliament in a minister’s statement on Eskom’s current capacity constraints, and when South Africa will be free of the threat of load shedding.
“Widespread blackouts should only be employed as a last resort,” Michael said.
Eskom cannot be allowed to decide on its own maintenance benchmarks in “secret and in the dark”, she pointed out.
“Before the president undertakes clandestine foreign meetings on R1 trillion nuclear energy programmes, he should focus on our failing energy infrastructure at home.
“It is evident that the president must urgently call a meeting of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission to address this issue,” Michael said.
She said Eskom would start rolling blackouts countrywide due to the loss of capacity at Majuba.
The media liaison officer for the Energy Ministry, Richard Mantu, said Eskom executives would provide the public with information regarding the blackouts.
“We will see after that if there’s a need for the minister to speak or not.”
Michael noted that in 2011, the DA had called for a plan to address Eskom’s maintenance backlogs to avoid rolling blackouts.
Political Bureau