THE provincial Democratic Alliance shut down a section of Menston Road, where the Eskom Distribution Offices are situated in Westville, to hand over a memorandum with seven steps the party believes could be the solution to restore the power utility.
According to the party, the current ongoing crisis remains the single largest threat to the growth of the South African economy, job creation and social cohesion.
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“The ANC is to blame for the status quo which has allowed Eskom to be a monopoly that if it fails, turns off lights on all South Africans. This crisis must receive the necessary urgent attention to restore our power supply,” the memorandum stated.
The party believes the following steps will immediately begin to restore the supply of energy back to South Africans:
*Reject pressure from the ANC’s union allies opposing the introduction of Independent Power Producers;
*Freeze the build on the last two costly units at Kusile and look to bring on more IPPs to provide power;
*Allow Eskom to procure coal from any source;
*Instruct PetroSA to supply Eskom with diesel at a tax-free cost price to avert a crisis in the short term;
*Allow well-functioning metros to source energy directly from independent power producers;
*Reaffirm Eskom’s engineering employees as an essential service that cannot enter into strike action and lastly, install major smart meters to force municipalities to collect revenue timeously.
According to local DA PR councillor, Caelee Laing, Westville, along with other areas, has suffered a lot during load shedding. “We have three retirement villages, schools and a number of small businesses and when the lights go out they are all affected. We have frail care in retirement villages that rely on electricity to ensure the care,” she said.
The memorandum was received by Eskom official, Ronald Chonco. “We have received the memorandum, we will hand it over to the senior office and respond accordingly within the requested time frame,” he said.
Eskom was given a deadline of seven days to respond.
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