ActionSA President Herman Mashaba. Picture: Jacques Naude Independent Newspapers
ActionSA president Herman Mashaba has characterised the current stages of load shedding as the worst the country has ever faced.
On Wednesday, Mashaba said South Africans were subjected to the worst conditions by the power utility despite its effort of burning R24.3 billion worth of diesel in an effort to curb and reduce the high stages of load shedding.
“During the same period, however, the private sector and citizens added just short of 3 000 megawatts of solar power to the South African grid equivalent to the three stages less of load shedding.
“The bottom line is that 17 years since load shedding was first introduced in 2007, the ruling party has failed to make the investment necessary to solve the problems, leaving private sector and citizens to action and to fix the problem.
“This is why ActionSA’s nine-point plan of action to end load shedding in South Africa once and for all is focused on unleashing the potential of independent power producers in a competitive energy market, while taking measures to fix a broken Eskom,” he added.
Part of ActionSA’s plan to ending load shedding will be to bring an end to cadre deployment to ensure that the utility was staffed with highly qualified staff.
The party leader further said he will deal with corruption in the energy sector.
“We will engage with communities affected by the renewables transition to ensure that the needs of our people and economy are always prioritised.
“We will introduce specialised training programmes that focus on building the skills needed to maintain South Africa’s energy grid, now and in the future,” Mashaba explained.
He said his party’s plan would easily be able to end load shedding where the ruling party has failed in the past, as it has seen real-world examples of where it has been implemented.
Mashaba said that during his visit to the Free State, he met a team from a rural area known as the RFS, situated in Frankfort.
“RFS is currently halfway through a 25-year contract to manage electricity distribution and collect revenue in the municipality and has invested heavily in the new infrastructure to ensure a stable electricity supply.
“It has constructed a solar farm which generates 4.2MW of electricity, almost 75% of Frankfort’s electricity requirement, which means the town is slowly becoming load shedding free.
“And once the contract with Mafube Local Municipality ends, all infrastructure developed by RFS will become the property of the municipality,” he said.
The Star
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