Steenhuisen wants Ramaphosa to come home to declare Eskom a state of disaster

The DA has repeated its call for Eskom to be declared a state of disaster after a visit to the Kusile power station.

DA leader John Steenhuisen made an unannounced oversight visit to Kusile on Wednesday.

He said the power station is symbolic of failure with multiple generation units out of commission.

“I call on President Cyril Ramaphosa to come home right away and address the nation on his plans to avert the disaster of a grid collapse. And by plans, I mean actual interventions and not just platitudes and vague statements about Eskom having turned a corner,” said Steenhuisen.

Ramaphosa needs to declare a ring-fenced state of disaster around Eskom.

“This should have been done months ago, when he presented his energy response plan, and his refusal then to concede the urgency and scale of the disaster has left our grid on the brink of collapse.

“This state of disaster needs to be declared now so disaster relief funding can be reprioritised to keep the open-cycle turbines running”

A state of disaster will allow government to bypass its own “self-imposed obstacles, bottlenecks and cost inflations in the form of unworkable labour legislation, localisation requirements, cadre deployment and preferential procurement”.

“These ANC policies lie at the heart of Eskom’s collapse and need to be set aside if the utility is to recover,” he said.

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan in a statement described Steenhuisen's oversight visit as a “cheap point-scoring and political grandstanding” exercise.

Steenhuisen was told he could not randomly arrive at the power station for an oversight visit.

Arrangements could be made for such a visit with a full briefing and for the necessary protocols to be complied with.

“I explained to him that Eskom senior management are busy with important board engagements. I am willing to make myself available to brief him,” said Gordhan.

The DA leader did not use normal procedures to request a visit in line with the National Key Points Act and parliamentary protocols.

“It is clear this is a DA grandstanding that has nothing to do with the energy crisis confronting the country, nor do they have solutions for the crisis except criticism.

“We have previously debated with the DA, indicating that the issue of electricity crisis must be treated as a national issue and should not be used as a party political football.”

Gordhan previously said there was no need for a state of disaster because load-shedding was a tool to protect the system from collapse.

“There should be a distinction between a state of disaster for ‘dramatic effect’ compared to a power system emergency which falls within the purview of the system’s operator. At all times the main imperative is to avoid the total collapse of the grid as occurred in California and more recently in Texas, US,” said Gordhan.

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