While the ANC plunges SA into darkness, the DA municipalities move closer electricity independence

22 July 2021

The DA welcomes the announcement from the Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier, that the provincial government has concluded the signing of the Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with the six candidate municipalities participating in the Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) Initiative in the Western Cape.

The six municipalities include:

Stellenbosch Municipality;

Drakenstein Municipality;

Mossel Bay Municipality;

Overstrand Municipality;

Saldanha Bay Municipality; and

Swartland Municipality.

The province will also collaborate with the DA-run City of Cape Town in this regard.

The project seeks to help municipalities in the province generate or buy their own electricity in the medium- and long-term and free its residents from Eskom’s monopoly.

However, as the DA and its governments inch closer to independence from Eskom, the ANC government has again plunged the country deeper into darkness with the announcement of stage 2 loadshedding from 4pm this afternoon.

On top of the economic meltdown brought on by the continuing Covid-19 lockdown and exacerbated by the wide-spread riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last week, Eskom and the ANC are fanning the flames of the financial downfall of country.

Without consistent power-supply the economy will have no chance to ever recover, and ever-more livelihoods lost forever, while the unemployment lines continue to grow daily. It is time the ANC government made good on its promises to increase NERSA’s licensing threshold for embedded generation projects to 100MW and allow for the energy regulations to be changed to allow for independent power producers to ease the pressure on the national grid.

It is time well-run, financially stable and functioning municipalities were allowed to seek independence from Eskom, both to rescue their citizens from the ongoing rolling blackouts of our dysfunctional electricity provider and to alleviate demand on the grid. The DA is working hard to make this a reality where it governs.

Issued by Kevin Mileham, DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, 22 July 2021