Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin has declined to answer a parliamentary question about whether Western Cape farmers — hit by recent power outages — could sue the power parastatal Eskom.
Asked by Democratic Alliance MP Sarel van Dyk whether Eskom will give financial compensation to fruit-crop farmers — who lost up to 20% of their output as a result of failures — or whether the farmers could institute claims against Eskom and his Department of Public Enterprises, the minister said:
”Eskom has developed a comprehensive stakeholder and communication plan to inform all stakeholders affected by the outages,” he said. He also reported that a joint task team under the leadership of Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool was ”also considering effective measures” to manage the impact of the outages.
Van Dyk noted that farmers can insure themselves against natural disasters and risks — but not against the effects of power outages.
He also asked whether Eskom has a monopoly on the supply of energy. Erwin acknowledged that Eskom produced 95% of the electricity in South Africa, ”however, this is only a small portion of the South African energy market”.
He said electricity only catered for 28% of South Africa’s energy end use. ”The other energy carriers are coal (28%), petroleum products (34%), gas (2%) and renewable (8%).”
”In terms of the electricity market, the Department of Minerals and Energy is in the process of introducing independent power producers, which will reduce the share of Eskom’s capacity over time. Up to 30% of new electricity will be provided by external parties in future.”
Van Dyk also asked Erwin to what extent the maintenance of the power-supply network is the reason for recent power failures. Erwin said: ”The lack of maintenance was not the cause of the power outages. An investigation into the failure of unit one of Koeberg has been concluded and an announcement will be made in Parliament. This unit has since been repaired.”
He noted that unit two is currently undergoing refuelling and is on schedule to be returned to service by late July. — I-Net Bridge