DA will turn on lights ANC killed
THE electricity crisis is not an Eskom crisis, it is a South African emergency. The ability of our economy to function, for daily life to continue and for our nation’s progress we need reliable and stable power supply.
The downward spiral of Eskom has been on the national agenda for over a decade, but the national government has stubbornly refused to build new sources of energy despite these being available and despite calls from industry to do so.
Load shedding has a real and tangible impact on the lives of all South Africans.
This week, I visited a small business in Mitchell’s Plain which has been severely affected by load shedding. Owner Nawaz Sablay told me Eskom’s failure to provide power has resulted in his produce spoiling due to irregular refrigeration and him having to stop production when the lights go out.
This is just one example of a business suffering as a result of an unreliable and unstable power supply. And it is not only the cost of business and jobs, it also has a severe impact on safety and family life.
Often the lights go out in the early evening when families are trying to prepare food to sustain themselves and when children are doing homework. Commuters are stranded or sit in traffic for hours, and women walk home in the dark. We have already seen opportunistic crime increase as a result of the load shedding.
In his State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa made big announcements on Eskom’s turnaround and how unbundling the utility would be the route to solving problems there.
The trouble is that the ANC has since come out to contradict Ramaphosa and say it will oppose the unbundling of Eskom. It is clear he will have difficulty in delivering a solution.
While the ANC is in internal disarray, the DA has a plan and our governments are already taking action where we can.
We believe that cities should be allowed to run their own generation grids. The DA-run City of Cape Town has taken the Minister of Energy to court in a bid to get around Eskom’s monopoly and be allowed to buy electricity from independent producers. The city has installed hydroelectric turbines at the Steenbras Dam that can limit the effects of load-shedding in lower phases, meaning Cape Town can keep the lights on when other cities can’t.
The Western Cape government in 2016 embarked on an Energy Security Game Changer to stabilise electricity supply to the province and ensure enough power for future growth, which is sustainable and low carbon driven.
It is also our policy to break up Eskom. As long as Eskom is responsible for buying, selling and generating South Africa’s electricity, it will act only in its own interests and against competitors. Breaking up Eskom includes allowing significant numbers of Independent power producers to contribute electricity to the national grid and removing Eskom’s management of our grid to an independent institution.
The ANC has killed the lights, but the DA has a plan to turn them back on. It’s time to take the ANC’s power to put it back in the hands of our residents.