Deputy Speaker, first and foremost, the AIC supports the Special Appropriation Bill. We must all be worried. On Wednesday, a number of our children at various schools were affected by load shedding during their Computer Application Technology exam.
The Special Appropriation Bill earmarks the provision of R26 billion and R33 billion for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years, respectively to Eskom, under very
stringent conditions. Part of the conditions requires Eskom to use this money to settle debt and interest payments only.
Another condition is for Eskom to outline a concrete plan of action to recover the money owed for electricity sales. Eskom has been thrown a spanner. It has to act decisively against the defaulting municipalities.
We have also noted with grave concern the legal battle between Eskom and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, Nersa. This is unprecedented and unusual in the history of the utility company.
While we support the division of Eskom into three compartments, we remain unhopeful about the future of the existing subsidiaries of Eskom - Rotek and Roshcon. Nothing has been said about them in the unbundling of the Eskom debate.
In closing, we call upon the President of the country, His Excellency, Cyril Ramaphosa, to consider the appointment of Bobby Godsell as Eskom CEO. Mr Godsell is
an established businessman who worked for Eskom as its non-executive director. In these trying times, we must narrow our ideological differences to accommodate our converging interests. I thank you.