The Democratic Alliance (DA) has reiterated its call for President Cyril Ramaphosa and the government to account for the energy response plan, saying Eskom is not entirely to blame for the country’s power crisis.
President Ramaphosa will return to South Africa to address the implementation of Stage 6 rolling blackouts after attending British Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday. He has cancelled plans to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Kevin Mileham says, “We believe that President Ramaphosa must account to the nation. He must tell us exactly what he has done in terms of his energy response plan that he announced in July.”
“He announced several key pillars that he would undertake with his government to restore electricity supplies in that energy response plan and we want feedback on that. I think the government has a tendency to hide its head in the sand and hope that the problem will go away. As much as we get frustrated with Eskom, it is not going to be able to do this by themselves, they are going to need government’s support and business’ support. Government has a huge responsibility here for the situation that we are in,” says Mileham.
Mileham on Eskom, Ramaphosa and current stage 6 rolling blackouts:
EXPLAINED: Stage 6 load shedding
Stage 6 rolling blackouts mean that the power utility must remove 6 000 megawatts of power from the grid. During this stage, the country can go without electricity for up to at least six to eight hours without power per day.
A look at rolling blackouts in Stage 6:
