The blame for power cuts that hit large parts of the country over the weekend and continue in the Western Cape lies squarely with Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks and the African National Congress, the Democratic Alliance said on Monday.
Power failures hit Johannesburg, Pretoria and most of the Western Cape over the weekend. Power was restored within hours in Gauteng, but the Western Cape, including Cape Town, was without power for most of Sunday.
DA energy spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said that for years, the government has known that peak demand is growing rapidly and that it has not invested in new generating capacity or sufficient new distribution capacity.
”It is only now that it is seemingly too late that government has embarked on a plan to recapitalise Eskom, the benefits of which will only be felt over a year from now,” he said.
The government has not done enough to deregulate the electricity-generating industry in order to allow independent power producers to participate.
Nor has it done enough to promote use of low-energy bulbs and solar water heaters.
Beeld newspaper reported on Monday that the Department of Minerals and Energy will meet Eskom urgently this week to discuss the countrywide electricity-supply problems.
Eskom spokesperson Tony Stott told Beeld that the weekend’s problems in Gauteng were not too serious and were rectified quickly. However, Cape Town might experience similar electricity interruptions in future.
Eskom said power failures occurred after faults at the Kendal power station near Witbank, Mpumalanga, and at the Koeberg nuclear power station, north of Cape Town.