Cape Town — The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) rejected the Electricity Amendment Regulation Bill passed by the National Assembly.
The bill was passed this past week and will pave the way to split state-entity, Eskom. The bill will, among many others, provide an open market platform that will allow for more competition when it comes to electricity trading in South Africa. SAFTU believes this will eventually lead to the privitisation of the power utility, EWN reported.
“They have planned to decommission Eskom’s coal fleet without investing heavily in its renewable capacity. Furthermore, the bill seeks to ‘allow for a reasonable return commensurate with the risk’. This means the tariff structure that will be adopted must guarantee the generators of electricity, many of whom will be Independent Power Plants (IPPs) at the end of the unbundling of Eskom.” SAFTU spokesperson, Trevor Shaku, said.
ELECTRICITY TARIFFS WILL WIDEN ENERGY POVERTY
FOR THE WORKING CLASS#loadsheddung #eskomaccountability pic.twitter.com/8QoOTTVCoE— SAFTU (@SAFTU_media) March 15, 2024
According to SABC News, the union aimed to strengthen the role of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) to include powers to license entities that would implement the competitive market.
“We are against that bill because in summary it seeks to bring competition and liberalize the energy markets. Secondly, it seems to change the ownership structure of those particular entities that are going to be providing electricity to the people but also it seeks to guarantee the entities that will be involved in the energy generation profit.”
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
