DA wants Gordhan, De Ruyter to appear before Parliament

The Democratic Alliance (DA) wants Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter to appear before Parliament’s Public Enterprises Committee.

The DA says De Ruyter and Gordhan should explain Eskom’s statement that the Medupi power station “attained commercial operation status.”

The party’s spokesperson on Public Enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia says the statement means that technical compliance to statutory, safety and legal requirements have all been met.

He says it is comforting that the Medupi power station is finally online and available to be dispatched.

However, he says the minister and the Eskom CEO must play open cards.

“It is important that full transparency is provided about the problems and the issues that may plague the power station in the future. We don’t want to be caught short as South Africans by a failure which will result in further rolling blackouts.”

“The power station has taken 14 years to come online at a cost which has ballooned from some R30 billion to some R230 billion. There are more costs in the pipeline because there are certain things [that] have to be fixed. Like cleaning up the emissions from the power station. This has to be done and full transparency has to be effected and brought before South Africans. So that we are in the know and not in the dark,” he explains.

Meanwhile, energy experts say it is too early to celebrate the completion of unit one of the Medupi Power Station

Eskom has described the completion of unit one as an investment that will serve generations of the people of South Africa and power the economy for at least the next half-century.

Eskom yet to conclude technical solutions: