Durban — DA leader John Steenhuisen said the crisis committee appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to deal with Eskom had stalled and should be taken off the job immediately.
In July, Ramaphosa said climate funding would be used through the Just Energy Transition Partnership to invest in the grid and repurpose power stations that had reached the end of their lives.
Steenhuisen said the crisis committee team could not be replaced by another set of ANC politicians.
“We cannot repeat the same actions and hope for a different outcome,” Steenhuisen said the electricity crisis called for independent industry experts to lead the way.
He proposed that Ramaphosa get an expert to oversee the implementation of the Energy Response Plan (ERP). This person must be apolitical and a leading expert in the energy field and empowered to do whatever it took to stabilise the generation fleet and bring additional generation on board, without having their hands tied by red tape that had held the country’s recovery back until now.
“This will require the executive authority to assemble a team of experts, the authority to oversee the hiring of engineers and managers without having to answer to racial bean counters in any ANC ministry, and the power to make decisions on procuring additional electricity from independent producers.”
The experts would have to be free from stifling regulations imposed by the likes of Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel who insisted on 35% localisation for bid window 5 of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, he said.
The electricity crisis should be a wake-up call to the government that getting an outside expert was the only way forward, he said. The ERP was dead in the water at the hands of the president’s crisis committee, as it was now a political turf war between ministers and ministries.
“The president himself must hand over the plan to someone who can and will see to it that progress is made.”
Daily News