South Africans can expect electricity to get more expensive in coming years as a way of cutting consumption, the chairperson of the Big Business Working Group (BBWG), Saki Macozoma, said on Wednesday.
He was briefing the media after discussions between the BBWG and President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria.
Macozoma said because South Africans are used to paying cheap prices for electricity, they do not know how to limit their consumption. ”If this continues, we are going to have serious problems in the future,” he said.
As the demand for electricity has been underestimated, a number of interventions need to be put in place to curb the high usage of electricity, and hiking prices is one of them, he said.
Macozoma could not say how much or when such increases would be. ”Tariffs were not discussed,” he said.
Other sources of electricity, like solar energy, will be investigated, as well as sourcing electricity from neighbouring countries like Botswana.
Crime was also discussed in the meeting, and Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said the role of business is appreciated in the fight against crime. He reiterated that the police cannot fight crime alone and that community policing is necessary.
”We have to look beyond the nature of crimes and look into society’s pathology of what makes someone kill four children and their grandmother,” Nqakula said.
The South African Police Service is looking at the viability of reporting crime trends to communities on a monthly basis. ”We don’t need to rely on annual crime statistics only; we need to report regular crime trends to communities,” he added.
The progress made in the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa was also discussed. However, gaps of skills shortages need attention, Macozoma said. — Sapa