Cape Town – Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has addressed the nation on solutions to tackle, what he refers to as “Eskom’s imminent collapse”.
With the recent escalation in load shedding announced by Eskom, South Africans have been left in the dark.
Steenhuisen said the situation was now far worse than it’s ever been.
The DA leader added that the people tasked with fixing the issue – President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister Gwede Mantashe and Minister Pravin Gordhan – were the biggest obstacles to solving the crisis.
He said Ramaphosa’s plans to solve the energy problem had not worked out.
“At the end of July, president Ramaphosa launched his latest plan to deal with load-shedding, to much fanfare and nods of approval from the media and energy role-players. But two months later, almost every aspect of this plan has stalled,” Steenhuisen said.
The 46-year-old also called out the Crisis Committee assembled by the president.
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“At the heart of this lethargy is the so-called Crisis Committee appointed by the president to take over the implementation of his plan. They have made no progress at all and should be taken off the job right away,” he said.
Steenhuisen said that they should be replaced by outside industry experts to oversee the implementation of the Energy Response Plan.
“This is perfectly in line with the whole-of-society approach to fixing our country’s many problems, and this electricity crisis should be a wake-up call to government that expert outside help is the only way forward,” said Steenhuisen.
He also outlined steps to recover electricity supplies. These included the immediate declaration of a ring-fenced State of Disaster around Eskom, the firing of minister Mantashe, and the establishment of an ad-hoc committee into the energy crisis.
Steenhuisen added that a comprehensive and publicly available mitigation plan in the event of ongoing high-stage load-shedding was also required.
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
