ANC Power Failures: Our country cannot be held ransom by the Guptas again
7 December 2018
Reports today once again revealed the depth of State Capture in Eskom and its complete inability to provide power to South Africans. These reports suggest the reason for our current spout of power failures are due to Eskom having diverted its 2015/2016 maintenance funds to pay Gupta owned firms (Tegeta, Mckinsey and Trillian). Hundreds of millions of rands were moved from Eskom’s vital plant upkeep budget, and diverted to Gupta owned mining company Tegeta.
To add insult to injury, these millions were paid to the Guptas for coal that Eskom has allegedly never received.
Worse, what would have cost the South African tax payer R2 billion in maintenance fees 3 years ago, has now ballooned to R11.5 billion in upkeep costs for power plants that are completely in-operational. Eskom has also forked out an additional R200 million to pay PetroSA for emergency diesel it needed for the winter months of June to October 2018.
South Africans are now literally paying the price of the ANC’s project of State Capture.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will write to the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan to demand that our national government find where our coal went. Our country cannot be held to ransom by the Guptas again.
If it is found that the coal has remained with Tegeta and they do not provide the coal we paid for 3 years ago, then government must force them to pay back the money. The DA will also ask Minister Gordhan what his plans are to ensure that new Eskom plants Medupi and Kusile are firing at full capacity as soon as possible.
These revelations are proof of how the ANC and its officials at state -owned entities (SOE’s) sold our country out to the Guptas. It also reinforces the point that these power failures are a direct result of the failing ANC’s mismanagement and corruption.
The DA is the only party that is capable of truly delivering services to our people. We will build One South Africa for All with the change our country so desperately deserves. We will continue to fight State Capture and we will continue to ensure that taxpayers’ funds are not abused. It is essential that South Africans pull the plug on the ANC at the polls in 2019. We cannot afford another 5 years of ANC mismanagement and corruption of this magnitude.
Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Spokesperson on State Capture, 7 December 2018
