Nersa told pouring more money into Eskom 'won't help'
A local environmental justice group is urging the National
Energy Regulator of South Africa to not give Eskom a tariff increase.
"Eskom wants to get a free ride and take all the money from the poor consumers of this country and I think it will be a travesty of justice if Nersa grants them that increase," the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance's Desmond D'sa said.
He said with our power crisis spiralling into a disaster, Eskom has proved it's not reliable.
"I think they should never get another cent out of poor people in this country, people are already margianlised, huge unemployment, people are going to bed hungry and nersa cannot do that and allow Eskom to get away with that. "
The ailing utility wants a 32% tariff hike in April 2023.
Public hearings into its request kicked off this week.
READ: Energy committee 'has made no progress' - Steenhuisen
D'sa believes ploughing more money into Eskom won't help.
"We can't come and tell you four or five power stations will go down at the same time, something's wrong. Something is stinking in ad-hoc, if you don't plan properly, if you don't have experienced people, you going to get it constantly happening. Even if they get the increase, Eskom is never going to recover now with it, and we can't pour money into something that is rotten."
As loadshedding stage 5 continues - Eskom will be the talking point at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday.
The utility says it'll consider shifting the power cuts to stage 4 on Wednesday afternoon. While four generation units have been taken offline for emergency repairs, seven units have returned to service.
The power producer's added that emergency generation reserves are still severely constrained.
