NATIONAL NEWS – While South Africans have been wrought with concern over rolling blackouts, a looming threat of water shortage and not receiving their mail, Cabinet has had their focus mainly on “misperceptions” about President Zuma and questions at the National Assembly.
An 11-page report on the Statement on the Cabinet 2014 meeting of December 10 was posted for download on www.eskom.co.za addressing Cabinet’s number one worry, which was President Zuma and National Assembly questions by opposition parties.
The document begins: “From the outset, Cabinet would like to clarify the misperception that President Jacob Zuma has refused to answer questions in Parliament. Cabinet also noted efforts by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to interact with political parties in the National Assembly following chaotic scenes recently.
“The Constitution of the Republic of South African stipulates that the President is accountable to Parliament. The President has continuously fulfilled his role of accounting to Parliament. He has been answering written and oral questions posed to him by the members in both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP),” the document continued.
However, when the report finally addressed national concerns over power outages, after the most important item on Cabinets agenda was finally out of the way, this is what they had to say: “Cabinet remains concerned over the disruptive effect the recent power outages are having on the daily lives of South Africans and its impact on households and businesses across the country. Cabinet adopted a five-point plan to address the electricity challenges facing the country.
“The lack of sufficient capacity to meet the country’s energy needs remains a challenge and all attempts are being made to ensure that we overcome the tight energy situation. To meet the country’s future energy requirements, government is implementing an energy mix which comprises coal, solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear energy.
“In future biomass, wind power, solar power and hydro-power will contribute 11.4 Gigawatts of renewable energy to the grid. Since 1994, five million more households were connected to the grid. In 2004 this increased to 12 million households. This happened without additional power stations being built. This increase of households was set off the existing grid. Cabinet has adopted a five-point plan.”
Read the rest of the report document on: https://www.eskom.co.za/news/Documents/StatementCabinetMeeting10Dec2014.pdf
