Deputy Speaker, the Eskom debate has been completely hijacked to mislead our people, and we will quickly unpack and expose the sickness at the core of some of the mad proposals linked with the thievery that knows no bounds.
There is no unbundling that will happen without an intention to privatise Eskom and the process to privatise Eskom has already begun. To privatise state-owned entities, SOEs, especially those that are strategic, you collapse them, make them unworkable and frustrate the masses as is currently happening with load shedding. Then, once everyone is angry with the state, you present private investors as saviours. You will then have a situation where the fox will guard the henhouse and it will immediately become evident as the price of electricity will skyrocket.
Firstly, it is not a coincidence that the first thing that Minister Jeff Radebe did when he was appointed as Minister of Energy was to sign Bid Window 4 of the purchase power agreements for independent power producers, IPPs, despite all the evidence that it will cripple Eskom's liquidity position.
His brother-in-law, Patrice Motsepe, is heavily invested in renewable energy projects. Mr Motsepe owns some of the major renewable energy projects that have signed purchase power agreements. Just to mention a few, he is a 30% shareholder in the Ngodwana Energy project, an 11% shareholder in SA Mainstream Renewable Power, Kangnas, an 11% shareholder in Perdekraal East power, a 15% shareholder in Zolograph Investments which owns De Wildt power station, a 15% shareholder in Bokamoso Energy, a 15% shareholder in Zeerust, a 15% shareholder in Greefspan PV Power Plant, a 15% shareholder in Droogfontein 2 Solar, and a 15% shareholder in Waterloo Solar power.
These shares are disguised by layers of subsidiaries to create a web of deceit and almost all of them were signed
in Bid Window 4 for which Minister Radebe was solely responsible.
For Mr Motsepe to hold a press conference to try and give an impression that there is no corruption happening while we suffer load shedding is misleading. These projects are funded by Absa of Maria Ramos, Old Mutual chaired by Trevor Manuel and by Mr Motsepe's companies.
We have not even touched on IPP projects owned by President Ramaphosa through Pembani and a larger network web of companies meant to hide obvious shenanigans.
Secondly, Mr Cassim, the Eskom chief financial officer, CFO, during his delivery of the interim results in November last year, admitted that IPP costs averaged R2,12 per kilowatt, adding that Eskom needs support from government and the National Energy Regulator of SA, Nersa, to address the situation where Eskom buys electricity at higher prices but sells at regulated prices, less than 90%.
The madness of IPPs is to collapse Eskom's liquidity because if IPPs are cancelled today Eskom will have room to breathe. The ridiculous idea that Eskom's collapse was due to the incompetence of black engineers and managers is not surprising coming from someone who goes around replacing competent black people with white people. Black professionals, not only engineers, must take this as a taste of what is to come if they continue voting for the ANC government of President Ramaphosa and Minister Gordhan.
The battle for the control of energy generation has moved from Eskom to policy but in the immediate the most efficient solutions are the most obvious solutions. Firstly, cancel all IPPs; secondly, Eskom must take all its coal mines from private companies, develop a detailed register of assets and a state-owned coal company must operate all these mines; and thirdly, Eskom must build internal capacity, appoint black engineers, artisans and managers with decent and deserving salaries.
The EFF will not stand by and watch our strategic assets, built and maintained by our own money, get handed over to private and greedy monopolies. Thank you very much.