The business industry has unanimously slammed the government leadership and Eskom’s top executives for failing to contain rolling blackouts which cripple economic activity, and jeopardise investment in the country.
This comes as the struggling power utility plunged the country into darkness on Wednesday by implementing Stage 6 load shedding for the fourth time this year, following a number of breakdowns at its ageing coal-fired power stations.
The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) yesterday said this level of instability in the provision of power has serious negative implications for a country with high unemployment, and a moribund economy.
Sacci CEO Alan Mukoki said it was becoming increasingly clear that the solutions thrown at the Eskom problem were insufficient, adding that the crisis was a reflection of failure to find permanent solutions.
“This makes it almost impossible for business to plan or expand, and this is damaging South Africa’s prospects as an investment destination,” Mukoki warned.
“It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that those given the responsibility, from the Cabinet, the board and executive of Eskom are struggling to get on top of the situation…”
Eskom currently has 4 984MW on planned maintenance, while another 19 052MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Mukoki also said a serious review of the entire Eskom ecosystem was urgent, requiring an independent, brutal and rigorous assessment of the root causes.
The long-term impact of Stage 6 load shedding has been estimated to cost the economy R3 billion per day in lost activity.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has directed Eskom’s management and board to work hard to get the country out of Stage 6 load shedding, with immediate effect.
Gordhan also apologised to the country about the impact and disruptions caused by load shedding, saying the government will keep the nation informed about the status of electricity.
“Power-cuts are having a devastating impact on households and livelihoods, investment and the economic climate. This is totally unacceptable,” Gordhan said.
“The frequency of breakdowns is certainly attributable to some element of malfunctioning within the Eskom systems, and possibly sabotage as well.”
Treasury said yesterday in a statement that it noted requests for clarity about any discussions to assist Eskom with the purchase of diesel. This as the power utility last month said it had blown its budget and spent in excess of R12 billion this year already burning diesel."The staggered nature of the budget process... makes it difficult to consider and accommodate any ad hoc
funding requests outside of this process, especially large requests that are made at short notice.
"That said, the National Treasury and the Minister of Finance are acutely aware of the impact
that Eskom’s diesel shortages may have on already severe levels of loadshedding. For that
reason, the National Treasury will continue with the engagements with the Department of
Public Enterprises and Eskom aimed at identifying solutions to this matter," Treasury said.
Eskom yesterday delayed the outage of unit 1 at Koeberg Nuclear power station to Saturday afternoon in a bid to get some time to stabilise the system.
The Black Business Council (BBC) also placed all the blame of load shedding at the doorstep of the government and Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter.
BBC CEO Kganki Matabane said they were really struggling with finding the logic of why De Ruyter was still at Eskom, as load shedding had become even worse after his three years at the helm.
“Eskom needs a CEO who is able to change things, but three years has proved that the current one is not that type of a CEO. He’s a public relations person who goes around telling us that we are going to be on Stage 5, instead of actually doing the work,” he said.
“But he did not bring himself there, the people who brought him there are the ones who are supposed to take all the blame. The people who have the powers to ensure that we have the right people to run Eskom are the ones who have to be blamed.
“We are quickly becoming a failed state, and mainly because we are failing to take the right decisions. There is really no logic why the CEO of Eskom is still there,” Matabane said.
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