Cape Town - As the electricity crisis continues, the DA has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately dissolve the National Energy Crisis Committee, and appoint in its place an outside industry expert to oversee the implementation of the Energy Response Plan.
In a speech on Tuesday, DA leader John Steenhuisen said that following Ramaphosa’s launch of his Energy Response Plan to deal with load shedding in July, the DA had been following developments and had registered no progress.
Steenhuisen said: “This is largely due to a lack of urgency, with no measurable targets or clear time lines attached to any of the project deliverables.”
Load shedding intensity was reduced to Stage 5 on Tuesday and on Monday Eskom reported that several units were returned to service on Sunday night, but that the engineers had to take down a generating unit at Duvha due to a boiler tube leak.
Absa economist Peter Worthington said: “While Eskom has reduced the intensity of power cuts slightly, Stage 5 still remains at a worryingly high level of electricity rationing, with rotational power cuts to remove 5000MW of load from the grid.”
He said the latest bout of intense load shedding is likely to have weighed on economic activity.
On Tuesday President Ramaphosa said solving the electricity challenge was vital for South Africa’s investment drive.
In his weekly letter to the nation, Ramaphosa said that during his visit to Washington DC last week, he spoke to several US business leaders who expressed a keen interest in investing in South Africa.
However, he said to make the economy more competitive, more efficient and more attractive to both international and local companies, the electricity crisis had to be overcome first.
Meanwhile the Small Business Institute (SBI) has called on the government to accelerate the implementation of measures to stabilise Eskom.
SBI chief executive John Dludlu said: “It is cold comfort to many South Africans to hear news of Stage 5; the economy, especially small businesses which are supposed to create 90% of jobs in 2030, is suffering from the rolling blackouts.”
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za