Cape Town - As the impact of load shedding worsens across all sectors of society, Premier Alan Winde is requesting a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa after his letter requesting a national state of disaster be declared to better manage the response to the load shedding crisis was ignored.
When Winde sent his letter earlier this month stressing the need for decisive action, he warned that if a response was not received by January 27, they may consider pursuing an intergovernmental dispute as this crisis could not continue unaddressed.
“Not only is load shedding ravaging the economy, there is also the risk of food insecurity due to the devastation being wrought on the agricultural sector. This has the potential to develop into a humanitarian crisis. Our citizens have every right to be angry at this situation,” the premier said.
He said it was unfortunate that Ramaphosa had not even noted his letter, and that this showed there was no urgency being demonstrated by his government.
James Mackay, CEO of the Energy Council of South Africa, previously said that load shedding has been shown to be catastrophic to the economy with economic modelling from PWC showing load shedding to be much more detrimental to growth and jobs than Covid-19.
The decision to meet with Ramaphosa was made after Winde convened a meeting with the Western Cape Energy Council on Friday, which he chaired.
“The council is looking at all options to make the Western Cape more energy resilient and, over time, for us to become independent of Eskom. The council is looking at this crisis and identifying how to prioritise our responses as a provincial government. Short-, medium-, and long-term measures, as well as emergency interventions for 2023 were discussed at the Energy Council meeting to ameliorate load shedding,” Winde said.
WWinde said this work would inform immediate budget discussions and determinations for the Western Cape government’s 2023/24 financial year, which will start in April 2023.
While he welcomed the President's convening of the President’s Co-ordinating Council (PCC) last week over the energy crisis, Winde remained deeply concerned over the continued lack of urgency and detailed action being shown by national government.
Ramaphosa last week said he had held consultative meetings with representatives of labour, business, traditional leaders, religious leaders and the community constituency as well as meetings with premiers, metro mayors and leaders of political parties.
“While we cannot end load shedding immediately,” he said, “what is certain is that if we work together with urgency to implement the Energy Action Plan, it will steadily become less and less severe. Through collective action, we will much sooner reach the point where we have enough power to end load shedding altogether.”