Opposition politicians and South Africa’s biggest labor union say they’re readying a lawsuit against the head of the state-owned power company and a government official that oversees it as blackouts cripple the nation.
(Bloomberg) — Opposition politicians and South Africa’s biggest labor union say they’re readying a lawsuit against the head of the state-owned power company and a government official that oversees it as blackouts cripple the nation.
The so-called demand letter, which pledges a lawsuit if the government doesn’t take certain steps in the coming days, further ratchets up pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa. The crisis already prompted him to cancel a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos to hold meetings at home with business and labor leaders.
The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg News, demands that Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan end the power cuts, or come up with a time table to do so, and reverse the almost 19% tariff increase awarded to the utility. If they don’t agree to do so by Jan. 20 they will face legal action, seeking relief for the damage caused by the outages by Jan. 23, the document said.
South Africans are currently suffering about eight hours of power cuts daily. Last year, there were blackouts on 205 days as a result of Eskom’s inability to efficiently run its aging fleet of coal-fired plants. The basis of the legal argument is that the government has breached the constitutional right to energy and the power cuts also breached rights to health and education.
The demand letter’s signatories include the United Democratic Movement, Build One South Africa and the Inkatha Freedom Party, as well as the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. Irvin Jim, the general secretary of that 338,000 member labor group, confirmed the document had been sent.
“The South African economy is predicted to show a radical decline,” the groups said in the letter, which detailed the impact on everything from businesses to schools and hospitals. We demand “that the state will commit to compensate everyone who has suffered quantifiable financial losses because of load shedding,” they said, using a local term for power cuts.
Eskom confirmed receipt of the letter and said it will comment later. A spokesman for Gordhan, the minister that oversees public enterprises, declined to comment. News24 reported on the letter earlier.
In a separate demand, South Africa’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said in a statement it will apply to the High Court to have Eskom’s tariff increase interdicted. It also wants the power cuts and the government’s response to the energy crisis declared inconsistent with the constitution and therefore invalid.
During Monday’s meeting, labor leaders told the president that the outages risked reversing recent gains in economic recovery and employment, according to people familiar with discussions, who asked not to be identified because the meetings were private. Officials didn’t offer any significant new ideas to resolve the crisis, said the people.
Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the talks were largely constructive. “Business and labor came forward with ideas, concerns and an overwhelming desire to work closely with government in finding solutions to the current energy crisis,” Magwenya said in a statement responding to queries about the meeting.
Meanwhile, Eskom’s board said at the meeting the utility would be able to raise the average proportion of Eskom’s generating capacity available to produce electricity to 65% by the end of next year and 70% the year after, from about half now, the people said.
The National Energy Crisis Committee, a body convened by Ramaphosa, said in a presentation to the business and labor leaders, that some power from 9,000 megawatts of plants being privately built will be added to the grid by the end of the year, more electricity will be imported and laws may be changed to accelerate power projects.
(Updates with legal reasoning in fourth paragraph, demand from opposition in eighth.)
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