The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes reports of mining giant, Anglo-American’s concerns regarding Eskom’s tariff increase request. Eskom has made a multi-year tariff increase application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), for tariff increases amounting to almost 50% over the next three years.
Anglo-American has warned that should these increases be approved, they will have to cut over 150 000 jobs in order to pay their electricity bills.
Eskom may be of the opinion that these yearly tariff increases will save the entity – this is however misguided, as it will only serve to place a temporary bandage over the years of mismanagement and corruption at the entity. Ordinary South Africans on the other hand will be forced out of their jobs and businesses will shut their doors. This will have catastrophic results on our already ailing economy and unemployment crisis. The ANC has essentially plunged South Africa into darkness through mismanagement and corruption and ordinary people will now have to pay out of their own pockets to save this entity.
The DA notes the extreme importance of addressing these potential job losses, and will therefore engage with businesses to present our plan to fix Eskom and save jobs.
The DA has long maintained that tariff increases will never resolve the Eskom crisis. The DA is the only party that has a plan to address the failing ANC’s crippled state-owned entity, through our Cheaper Electricity Bill (or ISMO Bill). We will, in the coming weeks, engage with business on our alternative plans to solve this crisis. Clearly we are the only political party with a solution and the business community must join the DA in petitioning the ANC to adopt this bill.
We challenge the ANC to put their politics aside and support our plan. The DA’s plan will put South African businesses and job-owners first and we will continue to petition Minister Pravin Ghordan to adopt our solution.