DA pushes for power utility reforms
SOUTH Africans should be concerned about the crisis at Eskom, DA leader Mmusi Maimane says, as his party pushes for reforms at the power utility.
“Unless there is urgent intervention in the (energy) sector, Eskom poses one of the biggest risks in South Africa.
“Its financial management and ability to influence our economy, investor confidence and ability to create work means that Eskom is a crisis unfolding at this point,” Maimane said at a press conference in Parliament yesterday
“We need profound state-owned enterprise reforms, but furthermore we need city-led economic strategy because cities need to be at the forefront.”
He said 62% of residents would in the near future end up in the cities, which should be at the forefront of the provision of energy. Eskom, as a monopoly, was unsustainable, he said: “It can hold us to ransom as it does now.”
The DA is drafting legislation on the envisaged reforms for Eskom, which will be released in a month or two, to ensure there was a mix of energy sources in the country.
This forms part of the DA’s plan to break what it deems the monopoly of Eskom.
The push by the DA comes against the backdrop of load shedding in the wake of industrial action by Eskom workers who demanded a 15% increase while the management refused to offer any increase.
Maimane said it would be remiss to disassociate load shedding from the ANC-led government management of Eskom over a number of years.
“I find it startling that an ANC leader himself would turn around and say the state of governance is near collapsed.
“It is clear acknowledgement of how the ANC failed in managing some of the SOEs but also managing government itself,” Maimane said in reference to President Cyril Ramaphosa, who lamented the collapse of governance in state institutions at the weekend.
Maimane said that while they welcomed a new board and CEO at Eskom, reforms were needed. The first reform should be to curtail the number of middle managers, estimated to be more than 400.
There should also be diversification of energy in South Africa as dependence on coal alone was unsustainable environmentally and economically.
“It would be crucial to acknowledge the fact that where the DA has government, many of these reforms we put in place already,” he said.