The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is quite unacceptable that Eskom does not give adequate warning to the public about its load shedding.
“It is a crying shame that Eskom can paralyse the economic powerhouse of Africa — Gauteng province — every time it needs to do maintenance to power-generating equipment without even so much as a timeous press release to keep business and the public properly informed,” said party spokesperson on public enterprises Manie van Dyk on Tuesday.
“Eskom needs an early-warning system as a matter of urgency so that it can indicate why a load-shedding exercise needs to happen, when it will happen and how long it will last for, far enough in advance for consumers to make the necessary arrangements.”
He said that the public had come to accept that because of the African National Congress government delaying Eskom’s R150-billion infrastructure expansion programme by five years, load shedding would be part of life in South Africa for some time to come.
But he added: “If Eskom can afford to pay its board of directors almost R60-million in any given year [director’s remuneration at Eskom totalled R58,3-million for 2006/07) then the least the company can do is to have an early warning system in place to timeously initiate information campaigns concerning possible [power cuts] and load-shedding exercises.” — I-Net Bridge