Stage 4 Rolling Blackouts: The writing is on the wall for Eskom and our economy

6 December 2019

Eskom is implementing stage 4 loadshedding until 6am tomorrow. COO Jan Oberholzer says this is due to the fact that there has been no proper maintenance over the past ten years.

Despite the dire warnings, the writing on the wall, the increased tariffs, the failed interventions, all plans have failed.

South Africans in all walks of life are carrying this burden. Businesses are buckling because of this.

Our key public enterprises are clearly unable to deliver public goods. Despite 55 days of coal stock levels, the entity is unable to plan for adverse weather.

This follows hard on the national airline being placed in business rescue, and is clearly indicative of the government’s inability to manage the infrastructure it inherited.

This heralds a signal failure that will critically affect citizens, industry and the economy.

Oberholzer says he doesn’t want to “get into the reasons” why we haven’t addressed the causes and solutions available to deal with this failure.

The DA believes it’s high time the culture at Eskom of command and control ends. Open cards are required and the country needs to be taken into their confidence.

This a time when factories are working overtime to meet production deadlines and families are relying on certainty over the coming festive season.

Make no mistake stage 4 loadshedding will have catastrophic consequences.

Eskom and its shareholder needs to account to South Africa, and for once, stem the tide that may well drive us into recession again.

Issued by Ghaleb Cachalia, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises, 6 December 2019