South Africa’s largest opposition party and trade union are due to take on Eskom in the Pretoria high court on February 28 over load shedding and the 18.65% tariff hike agreement.
Earlier this month, South Africa’s National Energy Regulator (Nersa) approved Eskom’s request for a tariff increase.
Addressing a media briefing, Bantu Holomisa, leader of the Democratic Movement, Mmusi Maimane, leader of Build One South Africa, and Irvin Jim, secretary general of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, said they would file a legal challenge against Eskom. ; Minister of minerals and energy Gwede Mantashe; public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan; Nersa and President Cyril Ramaphosa.
This comes after they sent a letter, issued by Mabuza Attorneys, last week to demand that the minister, the outgoing Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter and the government as a whole meet certain requests on January 20, failure of which will start a constitutional challenge with regard to load-shedding that continues – continuous
The list of seven demands includes an 18.65% increase “that will not be implemented pending the court challenge that the clients want”.
“There will be no burden-vomiting without procedural justice and the opportunity for those affected to make alternative arrangements for electricity supply, and the state agrees to compensate anyone who suffers financial losses that can be calculated as a result of the burden, ” the letter. reading
Holomisa said that due to the burden, many public hospitals are losing the ability to provide proper services. Although many have generators to provide backup power, this is not a sustainable option.
“Outages also affect medical equipment – because medical equipment is highly advanced and requires uninterrupted power supply, it will break down due to continuous power outages.
“Consumable materials, such as drugs, medicines and vaccines, which require cold storage are also a concern because they cannot be stored at the appropriate temperature when disposing of loads.”
The safety of health workers is also compromised because those who finish late or start in the morning, are vulnerable to criminals in poorly lit areas, because of death.
He added that the municipality is fighting against rampant cable theft, with incidents increasing dramatically during celebrations due to load shedding.
On Sunday, Eskom board chairman Mpho Makwana said the plant’s performance recovery plan was in the final stages of being approved.
The plan aims to increase the energy availability factor (EAF) of Eskom’s coal fleet to “desired levels” within two years. While the global norm is 86% EAF, Eskom plans to move from the current 58% EAF to 70% within two years. The EAF for the coal fleet is worse than 52%.
EAF is the percentage of Eskom’s available generation capacity, compared to overall installed generation capacity.
Maimane said forcing South Africans to go dark was an insult and rejected the plan presented by Makwana on Sunday.
He added that ANC members should be removed from the list of exemptions that protect them from the burden.
Jim says the ANC government is not serious about solving the load-shedding because it is constantly pushing an agenda from the West to get rid of coal-fired power stations, but Germany is going back to coal.
“The West has been hypocritical – it has told us to close our coal-fired power stations, while continuing to buy coal to stabilize the energy grid.
He added that it would be wiser for Ramaphosa to adopt an energy mix because “there are reports that renewable energy alone will not sustain the country”.