Chairperson, I hereby move the following motion without notice:
That the Council -
1) notes that - a) the South African economy is in the worst recession since the 1920s;
b) this recession has resulted in tens of thousands of people losing their jobs;
c) the majority of the people of South Africa are faced with severe financial challenges;
d) the South African government failed in its duty to ensure that the electricity needs of the country were adequately provided for and prevented Eskom from building new power generators despite warnings years in advance that such generation capacity would be required;
e) the electricity tariff was increased by a whopping 31,3% only 4 months ago; and
f) excessively high tariff increases of 45% per annum for three years have reportedly been requested by Eskom for approval by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, Nersa;
2) therefore urges Nersa to ensure that any electricity tariff increase is realistic in terms of the current economic recession; 3) requires that the government makes sufficient funding available for the urgent construction of additional electricity generation facilities;
4) requests that Eskom speeds up the planning and implementation of environmentally friendly generation facilities; and
(5) urges that a full analysis of Eskom's costs and expenses be undertaken in order to achieve significant savings.