Industrial users of electricity feel that they are bearing the brunt of electricity rationing, while more needs to be done to involve other sectors of society, an energy working group said in Cape Town on Friday.
”Busa [Business Unity South Africa] said that businesses are bearing the brunt of this and need the rest of the economy to come in,” Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin told a press briefing at Tuynhuys.
Although the national response plan to the electricity crisis had reduced demand, planned cuts were being considered because the rest of the economy was not contributing enough.
”Currently we are able to avoid load shedding because of the burden being borne by business.
”That [planned outages] may be something we have to do because we need greater savings from the rest of the economy,” he said.
The special energy joint working group involved business, the government and labour representatives. The meeting was chaired by President Thabo Mbeki.
Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said mines had expressed concerns that they were the only ones complying with saving measures and that these were not ”evenly distributed”. This emerged at a meeting on Thursday. Power supply to mines has been reduced by 10%.
Agreement was also reached on the need to prevent looming retrenchments in the sector.
Sonjica said power saving in households was not a ”government issue” but needed the involvement of society.
”We have to adopt a new attitude in the manner in which we utilise electricity.”
National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) business convenor Professor Raymond Parsons said that for the first time there had been a ”shared commitment” to encourage the country cut down electricity usage by 10%.
What was needed now was to coordinate how this would be done.
Speaking to journalists after the briefing, he said the proposed 14% electricity tariff hikes had to be ”rammed home” to make people aware of the need to save electricity.
Coordinator of labour at Nedlac Ebrahim Patel said measures to cut electricity had to be ”employment-sensitive”.
One of the proposed suggestions at the meeting was that shop stewards be trained as ”energy stewards”, who could then promote and encourage energy efficiency at work. — Sapa