As South Africans gear up for cold winter nights under load-shedding, Deputy president David Mabuza says there is no use pointing fingers over SA's energy catastrophe.
Mabuza told the National Council of Provinces [NCOP] that placing the blame on the ANC government and Eskom board won't fix the problem.
“This is not a way of running away from responsibility because the government of the day is the government of the ANC. But there are people who have been appointed in different positions in this power utility to do certain specific jobs.
“At a certain point these people that have been appointed have failed the government, but there is no use at pointing fingers at one another. Let us fix the problem,” said Mabuza.
He later responded to a question by the EFF's Mmabatho Mokause by saying: “From where I am standing I can only acknowledge responsibility of the ANC government in the running of this power utility Eskom but, at every point in the life of Eskom, there has been a CEO, directors responsible for the day-to-day running of this power utility.
His comments come just weeks after Eskom board member Busisiwe Mavuso told parliament’s standing committee on public accounts it was the ANC-led government’s failures that caused damage at Eskom over the years.
All of this as rolling blackouts become even more a way of life for South Africans.
Eskom’s head of transmission Segomoco Scheppers this week said the worst-case scenario would see the power utility shed power on 104 days in winter. Previously, he said Eskom expected between 37 and 101 days of load-shedding during the period.
By May 10 there had been 32 days of load-shedding so far this year, six days more than in the same period last year. So far, all but three days in May have had load-shedding.
Still, government refuses to declare the crisis a state of disaster.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan recently dismissed such calls by the DA, saying there was no need because load-shedding was a tool to protect the system from total collapse.
“There should be a distinction between a state of disaster for ‘dramatic effect’ compared to a power system emergency which falls within the purview of the system’s operator. At all times the main imperative is to avoid the total collapse of the grid as occurred in California and more recently in Texas, US,” said Gordhan.
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