Eskom has broken its promise to keep the lights on during winter

10 June 2015

I will today write to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, requesting that she appear before the Portfolio Committee to explain why Eskom has failed to uphold its promise of keeping the lights on during winter as the lights have gone off in many towns and cities in the country in the past week.

Last month, Eskom Spokesperson, Khulu Phasiwe led South Africans to believe that they need not fear load shedding in winter.

Last month, Mr Phasiwe told journalists: “Eskom’s long-term plan was to reduce planned outages. Because of machines expected to come back online, Eskom, therefore, thinks it will be able to meet the winter demand.” He went on to say: “Winter in many households actually starts after April, with some people starting to use heaters as we speak, but officially [it starts] from 1 June.”

Earlier this year, former CEO Tshediso Matona also confidently told Parliament that Eskom would keep the lights on during winter, “as it now has enough money in its budget to buy diesel and keep its generators online, thus avoiding load-shedding over the next few months”. 

However this seems to no longer be the case. This week Eskom once again implemented load shedding, citing shortages of generation capacity as a result of technical faults at some units. The utility said load shedding was necessary to ensure maintenance is carried out and that load shedding could be implemented at short notice.

South Africans were told to use electricity sparingly, to light fires and wear warm clothes.  

South African people should not be expected to accept this flip-flopping by Eskom. We are repeatedly told about “maintenance upgrades” and “constrained power systems”. Despite the promises of a winter free of load shedding, very little has changed. It is unacceptable that many South Africans in rural villages have been left out in the cold with load-shedding delays of more than 10 hours per day. 

In my letter to Minister Brown, I will also request that she approach Eskom to table a mitigation plan before the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises in order to address load-shedding during maintenance upgrades this winter season. 

The DA will continue to monitor the situation closely in a bid to keep the lights on in South African homes. 

Statement issued by Natasha Mazzone MP, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprise, June 10 2015