Loadshedding debate turns into mudslinging

IT WASN’T so much about Eskom, the recent load shedding, the tight grid or the dire financial results, as yesterday’s terse National Assembly debate on the power utility turned into yet another opportunity to take political stabs.

DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane strayed off his scripted speech to again raise his party’s call on President Jacob Zuma to come to the House to answer questions.

“We don’t hate the president,” he said and added, turning to the ANC benches, “the DA just wanted Zuma to answer questions in the House as the rules require him to do.”

ANC public enterprises committee chairwoman Dipuo Bertha Letsatsi-Duba had the opposition on its feet after saying: “If the DA wants to govern, they must first get an overwhelming majority”, in strong political opening remarks from the podium.

Her comment “There’s no crisis”, later had IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa quipping that perhaps her thought processes were on loadshedding. “There is a crisis. Load-shedding is a crisis,” he said.

United Democratic Movement chief whip Nqabayomzi Kwankwa said it was unacceptable that Medupi and Kusile power stations had been delayed, and called for a doubling of the free electricity allocation to 100 units.

Freedom Front Plus MP Anton Alberts said the ANC had managed to sink the ship without even an iceberg, asking where was the president, the captain of the ship? “It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Is he visiting other ships? Is he splashing in his pool at Nkandla? Have aliens abducted him? Nobody knows. All the while, the unsinkable RSA Titanic is sinking.”

In a speech focused on processes and plans to get the electricity grid fully up and running, there was nevertheless time to take digs at the opposition.

The apartheid government for whom no one would admit voting, Public Enterprise Minister Lynne Brown said, only connected 5.2 million households, while under ANC rule 7 million more people were connected, boosting access to electricity to 85 percent.

“With hindsight, we have to accept we probably took decisions to build these two giant power stations (Medupi and Kusile) later than we should have,” the minister said.

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