There is no quick solution to fixing the Eskom energy crisis. This, according to insiders who attended a meeting of political parties represented in parliament on Sunday, is what President Cyril Ramaphosa told the gathering.
Ramaphosa said that, in addition, Eskom also had money problems.
Ramaphosa convened a meeting with leaders of political parties, the national energy crisis committee and the Eskom board on the back of cancelling his trip to Davos, Switzerland, where he was meant to lead the SA delegation to the World Economic Forum summit.
According to political parties present during Sunday's virtual meeting, Ramaphosa is also said to have told them that plans were afoot to appoint a leading international engineering company to foresee the implementation and the progress of elements of the energy plan announced in July last year.
At least three political party leaders, including the official opposition in parliament, the DA's John Steenhuisen, could not attend the meeting due to loadshedding.
“I have loadshedding this evening at that time and, given the rude and dismissive response I received from the president's office when I requested a meeting with him, it is clear that we are not taken seriously,” said Steenhuisen.
Also unable to attend the meeting on rolling blackouts were the ACDP and ATM.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa declined the invitation sent by parliamentary counsellor Gerhardus Koornhof, saying he was busy wrapping up the court application to take both the government and Eskom to court over loadshedding.
“Regret I’ll be busy with my lawyers finalising papers to be served to Eskom and government on why they are messing up the lives of South Africans by failing to address Eskom’s challenges.”
Holomisa and others have since written a letter of demand to government to stop power cuts with immediate effect or face court action.
Al-Jama-Ah president Ganief Hendricks, who was present during Sunday's meeting, said both he and the ANC chief whip told Ramaphosa the country could not afford two years to end loadshedding.
“He agreed and promised to give updates every quarter. He’s going to appoint an international engineering consultancy to report every three months on the progress of implementing the president’s two-year plan.
“We wanted him to reduce this two-year plan to one year. He didn't agree but we said loadshedding must be reduced because the country can't afford it,” Hendricks said.
Last July, Ramaphosa tabled what he called an “energy action plan” where he announced five actions to create a long-term stable grid.
These included: Improving the performance of Eskom’s existing fleet of power stations; accelerating the procurement of new generation capacity; increase private investment in generation capacity; give incentives to business and households to invest in rooftop solar; and transform the electricity sector and position it for future sustainability.
Meanwhile, EFF leader Julius Malema, who called for Ramaphosa to resign, said the current leadership of the board and outgoing CEO Andre de Ruyter categorically stated that even within the 24 months, there is no guarantee that the available energy factor will be restored above 60% of SA’s generation capacity.
“The problems of electricity supply in SA are man-made by people who want to destroy Eskom so that they can privately generate electricity for their own greedy capitalist interests. There are many reachable solutions in SA and in collaboration with progressive countries which will bring about energy stability. The crisis in SA is a crisis of leadership which is unable to assemble the most capable team of people to bring about the necessary stability to Eskom,” Malema said.
Meanwhile, during a meeting convened with labour representatives on Monday, leader of SA's biggest union leader, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi, was unable to log in to the meeting due to loadshedding.
However, the union was represented by first deputy president Mike Shingange who told Sowetan: “We won’t say we’re happy but as the leadership of society, during a crisis like this, when the country’s leadership comes to address us and is open to suggestions and how to move forward, we must listen.
“Just by [convening] a meeting doesn't mean things will be resolved. We have an appreciation that things are deep, from management to infrastructure. It's not acceptable that we don’t have lights, people have lost jobs, lives are being lost. At the end of the day, ultimately it’ll take all of us, not just government, to move forward,” he said.
Ramaphosa's spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the president had always recognised the country had an energy crisis.
“What he is doing now is to scale up the level of effort from all areas of government and Eskom so that we can mitigate the levels of loadshedding.
“The current round of loadshedding has been triggered by multiple breakdowns of units across a number of power stations. Eskom maintenance teams are attending to these breakdowns,” Magwenya said.
Meanwhile, Eskom announced the country would be moving to reduced stage 4 level loadshedding daily between 5am-4pm and between 4pm-5am, would move up to stage 5 daily.
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