SA’s power crisis a result of supplying power to neighbouring countries – FF Plus

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald says South Africa’s power crisis is the direct result of supplying power to neighbouring countries, like Zambia and Zimbabwe, at the expense of South Africa, corruption under Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and incompetent officials.

Groenewald said Eskom CEO André de Ruyter describing the power utility’s situation as a ‘dead horse’ confirms the dire situation in which the power utility currently finds itself.

During a media briefing on the latest bout of rolling blackouts on Tuesday afternoon, De Ruyter said: “You can flog a dead horse or even go one step further and change the jockey on the dead horse but that will not solve the problem.”

He was responding to call for him to resign as the power utility continues to implement load shedding.

“It could be inferred from De Ruyter’s explanation of the problems currently experienced by Eskom this afternoon that South Africa has basically been forced to come to a standstill in order to keep neighbouring countries up and running while the country’s power grid is collapsing on various fronts,” said Groenewald in a statement following the briefing.

“The problems that were listed are indicative of an organisation that has fallen into utter ruin. These problems range from widespread and general maintenance shortcomings to a shortage of diesel, essential parts that cannot be procured and incompetent staff, who are reportedly to blame for the recent explosion at the Medupi power plant.It is unacceptable that crucially important top-management positions are filled by ignorant Affirmative-Action appointments.”

He further claimed Eskom can only be turned around through immediate privatisation.

ALSO READ: Blaming Eskom staff for load shedding is unfair, says union

“The ANC has demonstrated time and again that it is not willing to abandon its destructive policies of BEE and AA and while these are still being implemented, all attempts to fix Eskom will amount to flogging a dead horse.”

De Ruyter said on Tuesday that the problems at Eskom were due to capacity, in addition to explosions that have occurred in some power stations.

“We all know that for the past 24 months the Eskom management has been warning about lack of capacity, saying we need between 4,000 and 5,000 megawatts to be added to the grid. While Eskom now has some funds available to expand our capacity, there is also a problem with the procurement methodology which is not well suited for the running of a large company such as Eskom,” said De Ruyter.