LETTER: Waive BEE policies at Eskom to cut costs

The load-shedding crisis seems to be getting worse by the day. When it started in 2008 one never thought it would persist for the next 14 years. The failure of Eskom and never-ending load-shedding results from a mixture of corruption and poor national government policies.

It has been evident that the national government has not only created the crisis but has consistently failed to solve it at Eskom. Therefore, privatisation is the solution. The power utility has received more than R130bn in bailouts over the years, and yet its predicament continues to worsen. The national government knows that fixing Eskom is no longer possible, but it continues with unnecessary red tape and limits the number of independent producers.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has been promising change at Eskom for the past eight years. During an address to the National Council of Provinces in 2015, when as deputy president he was tasked with the responsibility to oversee Eskom’s turnaround, he stated that the power utility’s problems would be solved in 18 months to two years. That promise was not fulfilled, just replaced with more promises.

Load-shedding is having a severe impact on the country’s economy. According to a PwC report, the fallout from load-shedding in 2021 was a reduction in real GDP growth of up to 3.1 percentage points, costing the economy up to 400,000 potential jobs.

What I find even more concerning is that the government still wants to enforce failed policies such as race-based policies on the power utility while it is in a dire state. It is for this reason that the Institute of Race Relations has decided to start the “Fight Loadshedding, Stop BEE at Eskom” campaign.

Our petition demands that finance minister Enoch Godongwana grants exemptions from BEE in Eskom procurement to cut costs that are better spent fighting load-shedding.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the looming implementation of the Employment Equity Amendment Bill will further destabilise supply chains. Employment equity racial quotas have crippled the capacity of the public sector, filling it with a host of unqualified and unaccountable people, many of them intent on unscrupulous self-enrichment. The resulting malaise is everywhere apparent.

Now is the time for South Africans to fight. It cannot be business as usual while our beautiful country is dragged down into the mud by an incompetent governing party.

Mlondi Mdluli
Institute of Race Relations

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