Thank you, Mr Speaker. Eskom has imposed rolling blackouts for the first time since 2008, forcing business to scale back on power usage. This will have a major impact on our economy and undoubtedly lead to job losses. It is increasingly clear that the government itself is unsure about what is going on.
Ahead of his Budget Speech, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said the following: Delays at Medupi are unfortunate. If we had those suppliers earlier, the economy might have grown a little bit better and might have created a bit more certainty in our environment.
However, he is now suddenly suffering from a fit of denialism. Mr Gordhan yesterday tempted to downplay the seriousness of the Eskom failures as "an inconvenient kick in the ankle".
Eskom chairperson, Mr Tsotsi, insisted that there is no power crisis. He said:
No, we don't have an energy crisis in South Africa ... There is no crisis here. We in South Africa are the only people that seem to always be inventing a crisis where none exists, ...
The outgoing CEO, Mr Brian Dames, however, contradicted his colleague and admitted that the power supply was a situation that had put the country in crisis, and that it would continue until more generating capacity could be added.
According to media reports from earlier today, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Malusi Gigaba, said he was confident that the leadership of Eskom was doing all it could to ensure that what happened last week was not repeated. But at the very same time, this contradicted Mr Brian Dames, who said:
The supply issues will be a problem for the next few months unless we have aggressive supply interventions of at least 3 000 megawatts.
We cannot allow this to continue. We call on Mr Gigaba to end the confusion and to give South Africa a frank and honest briefing in regard to the facts. When it comes to the current crisis at Eskom, it would seem like the lights are on, but no one is home. [Time expired.] [Applause.]