Energy committee 'has made no progress' - Steenhuisen
DA leader John Steenhuisen has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to dissolve the National Energy Crisis Committee and replace politicians with industry experts.
Speaking during a media briefing on Tuesday, he said Ramaphosa, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan are proving to be the biggest obstacles in solving the load shedding crisis.
READ: Eskom should be penalised for not providing electricity – OUTA
"At the heart of this lethargy is the so-called Crisis Committee appointed by the president to take over the implementation of his plan.
"They have made no progress at all and should be taken off the job right away. But they cannot be replaced by another set of ANC politicians. We cannot repeat the same actions and hope for a different outcome."
For the past few days, South Africans have been balancing between stages six and five of load shedding while Eskom battles with failing generation units due to sabotage and ageing infrastructure.
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He says the crisis calls for outside industry experts who are apolitical and leading experts in the field.
"It is critical that this person is both apolitical and a leading expert in the energy field, and that he or she is sufficiently empowered to do whatever it takes to stabilise our current generation fleet and bring additional generation on board, without having their hands tied by the red tape that has held our recovery back until now."
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