Cape Town - In its second meeting, the energy crisis ad-hoc committee in the provincial legislature discussed how it would conduct effective oversight of the provincial executive’s response to the national energy crisis.
It resolved to summon Premier Alan Winde, his energy adviser Alwie Lester and Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
This comes after five weeks of the premier’s weekly energy digicons, where he and his special energy adviser have been detailing segments of the Western Cape government’s energy resilience programme and how the R1.1billion allocated to address the energy crisis over the next three years is being spent.
The premier has stated that his goal is to make the Western Cape a load shedding-free province and the key component of this is the energy resilience programme established to mitigate the rolling blackouts in the short, medium and long term.
Christopher Fry (DA), chairperson of the committee, said oversight and accountability were paramount in light of the R1.1bn provincial government allocation in the province and the national state of disaster declared to respond to the current energy crisis.
ANC's Nomi Nkondlo, also a member of the committee said, “It is quite concerning that by the establishment of this ad-hoc, and resolution of its first discussion it stands as an admission of our Western Cape Provincial Parliament having approved the budget of over R1 billion for the premier, from provincial Treasury whilst detailed knowledge was not provided to inform the decision by the majority party to support this budget.”
Fry said Winde, Lester and Ramokgopa would be invited to give an overview of the current status of the energy crisis in South Africa and the Western Cape, outline their plans to mitigate the impact of rolling blackouts on the province, and give an update on the provincial government’s plans to make the Western Cape load shedding-free.
ANC provincial legislature leader Cameron Dugmore, also a member of the committee, said: “We face a crisis which requires all spheres of government, business, labour, community organisations to work together to try and find solutions… There is a national energy plan, then we have what is in the budget for the province and then there are various municipalities which were supported by the municipal energy resilience project.
“What we need to do as a committee is decide what platform of presenters will give us a national, provincial and local picture (of energy crisis interventions). We as a committee then need to monitor these interventions and how the money is being expended,” Dugmore said.
Dugmore said the committee should also then be free to make recommendations as they go along.
Over the next few months the ad-hoc committee also plans to engage with key stakeholders across all spheres of government, civil society, communities, labour and the private sector to identify the challenges imposed by the energy crisis and to work towards meaningful solutions to make the Western Cape a load shedding-free province.
Fry said: “Winde has previously committed himself, his executive and the provincial Energy Council to account before the ad-hoc committee and we trust that, in the interest of co-operation and accountability, the Minister of Electricity will accept the invitation.”