Chair, I am here to say that we support the Budget Vote and also the Freedom Charter. [Laughter.] This year, we debate once again the issue of energy or, rather, the shortage of it in our country and unfortunately, Minister, we have to say that there is not much to celebrate if you compare it to where we were last year.
First of all, the facilitation of the participation of Independent Power Producers, IPPs, in producing electricity continues to move at a pace that is probably slower than the electrification of the former Soviet Union.
Secondly, the electrification backlog, as reported at the end of December last year, was still between 25% and 30% or 3,3 million households. Although the department projected that we were to complete this by the end of last year, it is now the year 2011, and we still have not met those targets. The risks to timelines and the schedules of the build programme are still not overcome. Medupi is behind schedule by approximately one year. The government strategy for promoting the use of renewable resources through departmental-funded projects and the private sector is no more a reality than it was last year.
The government has stated that this policy is central to its creation strategy in the New Growth Path. There is no evidence, Minister, that your government is taking this policy seriously.
Solar water heater installations continue to be rolled out at a pace that will ensure that only by the year 2361 will most South Africans have solar heated water. This is happening in a country with an abundance of free, clean, publicly owned sunshine! The so-called mass roll-out of solar water heaters is hardly that. Minister, you yourself said the figure, of 115 000 since 2008 is simply unacceptable.
The country is nowhere near achieving the 10 000 gigawatt per hour generation from clean energy sources. You said yourself, Minister, this year at a conference on renewable energy that less than 10% of the 2013 goal has been achieved. There are problems with the Transnet multiproduct pipeline and the policy for the national strategic fuel stock, and I could go on and on, but I don't have enough time.
Once again, the same as last year and the year before, we are here to say the following. End the stranglehold that Eskom and private monopolies that produce coal have on the generation of electricity.
Deregulate the production of electricity and remove the remaining hurdles such as the dysfunctional refit so that IPPs can produce the energy we all need; and put a more reasonable financing mechanism in place for households and enterprises to use solar and wind energy potential. In fact, here is a radical idea: Make them all potential generators of energy. Finally, get your department to work.
Albert Einstein, a person who was quite familiar with energy, and someone who I would like to dedicate this speech to today, once said that insanity is when one repeats the same action over and over again, each time expecting a different result - or words to that effect. This annual debate has begun to take on that character. There is a movie called Groundhog Day that you should go and watch, Minister. [Laughter.]
The consumers in our country deserve better because all of them, with few exceptions, pay for their electricity, and so do the future generations of our country. If we come back here next year again to repeat the same issues I, for one, Minister, am going to ask that you and the officials in your department all undergo some kind of medical or psychiatric examination. [Laughter.]