Democratic Alliance (DA) Councillor Katherine Christie and the DA branch of Ward 58 will be hosting a ‘Power to the People’ meeting this April to talk about the country’s current loadshedding crisis.
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The meeting will see DA Shadow Minister for Energy Kevin Mileham speak on the DA’s plan to end South Africa’s waves of rolling blackouts.
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster in response to the electricity crisis during his speech at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) early last month and appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the new minister of electricity.
Back in 2020, the DA proposed the implementation of the Integrated Electricity Management Operator (IEMO) bill or the Cheaper Energy Bill, which would essentially break Eskom into two separate entities—a generation entity and a transmission and distribution entity.
The bill sought to create a generation entity that was privatised to break Eskom’s monopoly on the production of energy, allowing Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to compete on an equal footing in the generation sector.
The bill was rejected by the Portfolio Committee as “undesirable” and would not progress further.
In a recent statement, the DA continued to urge the government to break away from the electricity generation business, claiming that the bill’s implementation would “drive the cost of electricity down, introduce competition into the energy sector, and diversify the country’s energy sources to introduce more renewables”.
Despite the fact that the DA is hosting the event, it is unlikely to be a political gathering.
Details:
- Date: Tuesday, 4 April
- Location: Western Province Cricket Club, 65 Ave de Mist, Rondebosch
- Time: 7pm to 8.30pm
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Picture: Kevin Mileham / Facebook