7. Observations and Key issues for the Committee . The Committee noted with concern the asymmetry between the strategic plan of the department, as presented before the Committee and that capture in the Estimates of National Expenditure especially with regard to the programme categories. . A doubt was raised as to whether the department had the capacity to meet the target of rolling out 1 million solar water heaters by 2014. . The Committee noted that the proposed 92% connectivity by 2014 would result in 8% of settlements not being connected. It was therefore important to have measures in place that would see the connectivity of the remaining 8%. . The Committee was also concerned about the immediate plans to finance EDI as the department has taken control of EDI. The Department of Energy indicated that at a short term R1.2 billion has been spent on distribution and a possible strategy in conjunction with DBSA and Treasury in the form of soft loans in the long term is being sought. . The Committee noted with concern the pace at which the filling of funded vacancies was progressing within the department. . Regarding Nuclear safety, the Committee noted that the government remained committed to nuclear energy programmes and that events such as the Fukushima disaster would only emphasise the need to have stringent safety measures rather than putting such programmes to a halt as other countries had done. . There was a concern that the strategic plan of the department had not managed to shed more light on how it linked to the New Growth Plan. . The Commitment to roll out 1 million solar water heaters seemed to be huge task. An update of how far this was progressing would be required from time to time. . The Committee noted further that there was little reference with regard to the restructuring of the activities of the State Owned Entities so that their mandate clearly corroborated that of the department.