Deputy Speaker, Roger I'll come back to history, but Deputy Speaker, the establishment of Eskom was premised on the need for a reliable and cheap supply of energy. And it was this that resulted in the establishment of Iron and Steel Corporation, Iscor, and other low-cost steel producers, and the expansion of our mining industry amongst other industrial developments.
The ANC cries sabotage, but history will reveal that it was the current governing party that conspired to destroy Eskom on the altar of insatiable greed and corruption, thereby irrevocably sabotaging an economic and developmental prospects. Some of us do speak from history. There is a bitter irony that the illegitimate apartheid regime protected Eskom from sabotage, but what should have been a morally legitimate and trustworthy government in the form of the ANC committed treachery of such treasonous proportions with Eskom.
Today the generation and supply of electricity is neither reliable, nor adequate, nor cheap. It is the governing party that is responsible for our de-industrialisation. Many would say that Eskom represents our single biggest ongoing risk as a nation. However, as the Cope, we say the biggest risk is not Eskom but the current governing party. It is the ANC that conspired and oversaw the defiling and plunder, and the collapse of Eskom. It is the ANC itself that profiteered immorally through chancellor house. And, it is clear that the ANC and its alliance partners are so compromised, factionalised and split - caught in their own web of greed and corrupt interests - that it is paralysed - unable to put together a coherent and viable plan to save Eskom.