GOOD statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
28 June 2022
The GOOD party calls for urgent intervention in the electricity crisis, with Stage 6 loadshedding being implemented this evening. This is a national disaster.
Currently, South Africa is captured by a monopoly that can’t deliver. We need to speed up the diversification of supply without any further delays.
There are renewable, and independent supply, solutions available to us that can speed up the end of the rolling blackouts, euphemistically called “loadshedding”, we have endured for 16 years.
Eskom has cited unprotected industrial action, however, Eskom’s leadership is failing to do the job for which it is very well paid. They have been publicly positioned as the “good guys”, there to clean up the unholy mess of their predeccesors.
They continue to blame Zuma, poor maintenance, sabotage and, now, industrial action. In other words, a failure of governance, a failure of technical competence, a failure of security and a failure of industrial relations. But they have run out of excuses.
Eskom’s real crises are a failure of skills and leadership. The country cannot afford the merry-go-round of unsustainable excuses. The President and Minister of Public Enterprise should tell South Africans what is really going on, beyond the blame game, and what urgent steps are being taken to address the incompetence.
Stage 6 loadshedding could see over six hours of darkness per day for South Africans who are already buckling under economic pressure.
Unless businesses have expensive generators to sustain their operations, they have to put business on hold for hours at a time. This has severe consequences for financially strained South Africans who are battling to keep their businesses afloat and heads above water.
Similarly, households and families who are already doing what they can to adjust to the constant power outages, will further have to suffer from even longer and more frequent blackouts.
This is unsustainable and South Africa deserves better.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Janke Tolmay, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0733671223
Email: janke@forgood.org.za