Jaspreet Kindra Eskom should be providing electricity on a free lifeline basis where it has jurisdiction, says Wits University political economist Patrick Bond. He cites the Irene Grootboom case last year, which gave force to the constitutional guarantee of dignity in shelter and services as the basis for an argument for a lifeline electricity supply. The case drew its name from the first respondent in a Constitutional Court case, Irene Grootboom, a former resident of the Wallacedene settlement on the Cape Flats. The residents were evicted from an area earmarked for low-cost housing development in 1998. After legal battles at the Cape High Court, the residents took their case to the Constitutional Court. The court ruled last year that the “state is obliged to take positive action to meet the needs of those living in extreme poverty, homelessness or intolerable housing”. Bond says : “The amount of the lifeline is still being debated. Stingy officials such as those in Cape Town are offering just a couple of days’ worth each month, and on top of that rejigging property valuations to favour the rich. “In more civilised munici- palities, there will be cross-subsidisation from the wasteful luxury users, as well as from large firms that use most of the country’s electricity.” Bond argues that South African large firms’ energy input costs are about the lowest in the world. “It makes sense for them to pay a wee bit more, so that society doesn’t keep paying the price for those who can’t afford electricity.
“That price gets higher as our air gets dirtier, as we suffer opportunistic Aids-related infections and tuberculosis due to internal air pollution, as deforestation worsens along with gender inequity due to time spent collecting wood, as paraffin burns and wild fires in shack settlements continue, as we have lower productivity of childhood education because of lack of electricity, as fewer small businesses can get going without electricity, and as we suffer so many other problems associated with Eskom’s drive to cut people’s supply.” Bond says the drive to corporatise and privatise lies behind the electricity cut-offs, which is a “political decision based on the desire to get more state revenues from privatisation proceeds, instead of raising funds in other ways, like more progressive taxes or borrowing. “And that brings us back to the neo-liberal clique in the African National Congress who is making decisions like Gear [the macro-economic growth, employment and redistribution strategy], which turns five this year, having failed to meet most of its targets, with-out this clique feeling the suffering of the people in Soweto and across South Africa. “Given the upsurge in grassroots protest, maybe this travesty can be reversed, finally.”