COSATU+leads+in+Western+Cape+electricity+crisis

Western Cape electricity crisis
=Declaration of meeting of the 8 March 2006=

At a meeting in Cape Town convened by COSATU Western Cape on 8 March 2006 to discuss the electricity crisis, the following declaration was adopted:

The electricity outages that started in November of 2005 have raised a number of fundamental questions that needs to be considered.

The first one is the investment levels and maintenance commitments demonstrated by both government and Eskom. The under-funding of the generation and transmission capacity was in part as a result of government’s initial commitment to privatisation. The age and servicing levels of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is a second significant contributor.

These above instances have given rise to the following crises. Breakdowns in the Koeberg generation plant, breakdowns in the transmissions cables, pressure and fatigue on the employees in the system, many of whom have been outsourced or are casual employees sourced from labour brokers. The above consequences of the bad management of Eskom have led to power failures and cuts that have led to the following financial losses.
 * Industry has lost millions due to lost production
 * Workers have also lost huge amounts through lost wages as a result of down time and late arrivals at work due to train delays
 * Tons of food has gone to waste, both commercially and domestically, due to refrigeration failures
 * The investor confidence in the Western Cape has been seriously undermined

Eskom first denied that there was a problem, and then government at a local and provincial level made statements trying to calm peoples’ concerns, none of which touched on the real causes of the problems. Finally national government and Eskom nationally had a press statement in which a number of wild allegations were made but also not confronting the systemic failures in the system. It had taken from the 19 February until around the end of February for government to finally concede that the problem is both structural and systemic and that it would certainly not be resolved in the next 6 months. Whilst this honesty albeit late was appreciated the remedial measures proposed was certainly not comprehensive or inclusive of the buy-in of communities who would effectively have to implement it. Even now the official attempts at communicating a strategy have been confined to an engagement between business, Eskom and government, effectively excluding workers, consumers and citizens of the Western Cape in general.
 * Response to the crisis**

Judging from the above it is clear that government has neither the political will nor the foresight to deal with all of the features of the crisis in a manner that best enhances its prospects of success. We commit ourselves tonight to make a contribution to the solutions that must also consider the needs of ordinary citizens. We are rallied by the slogan “nothing about us without us”. We express the following key concerns that we believe should be the subject of an engagement between all of the role players. This engagement should look at a comprehensive electricity policy that breaks out of the existing construct of electricity generation distribution supply and cost.


 * 1) In many respects the fact that the accident at Koeberg had only given rise to darkness is a blessing, this accident could have led to a nuclear disaster. This disaster would have been compounded by the fact that the City of Cape Town has no emergency evacuation plan for that West Coast area.
 * 2) Government at the moment is subsidising pebble bed research with millions of rands of taxpayers’ money while spending a small amount on research into renewable energy.
 * 3) The Western Cape has a number of mothballed power generation capacity, the most obvious of which is Athlone which should and could be brought back on stream.
 * 4) The safety standard at Koeberg must be inadequate if there is not even basic checks and balances about the amount of bolts taken into a secured area. This safety threat is compounded by the lack of adequate safety regulations from the national nuclear regulator.
 * 5) It appears that the entire electricity restructuring process is flawed and inadequate at best, down right dangerous at the worst.
 * 6) Presently domestic consumers subsidise industries and this model needs to be reviewed as many industrial users like Saldanha Steel use more electricity than a major city.
 * 7) It has also been learnt that the load shedding has been applied unevenly with some areas being preferred above others in the absence of any clear agreed to objective criteria.


 * Proposals and remedies**
 * The key objective of the strategy should be to reduce the base load by introducing a range of renewable energy sources
 * Government should subsidise gas usage in the short term to encourage this as a source of energy for cooking. The proposals around lights and water cylinders are supported
 * Regulation should be developed for the immediate incentivisation of solar heating systems. The capacity to manufacture the solar heating systems should be supported by government with a clear industrial development strategy
 * Wind turbines should be rolled out for domestic usage.

The manner in which this entire crisis has been dealt with has been haphazard at best. We have raised in our declaration a number of areas that require attention in the short, medium and long term. We would want to be part of a detailed engagement to define a comprehensive strategy as we have in our view, justifiable concerns about the unilateral manner in which the crisis has been inadequately been responded to. We appeal to government to structure an engagement by 17 March 2006, failing which we would have to consider alternatives.
 * In conclusion**

Congress of South African Trade Unions 1-5 Leyds Cnr Biccard Streets Braamfontein, 2017
 * Patrick Craven (Editor, Shopsteward Journal)

P.O.Box 1019 Johannesburg, 2000 South Africa

Tel: +27 11 339-4911/24 Fax: +27 11 339-5080/6940 E-Mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za**