The DA has urged South African businesses to join Vodacom in “ditching” Eskom in favour of independent power producers.
Vodacom has announced that it, with Eskom, will soon pilot the procurement of electricity from independent power producers.
“Vodacom's move will provide it with renewable energy and provide a blueprint for other South African corporations,” DA shadow minister of communications Dianne Kohler Barnard said. “Not only will they pave the way for other [cellphone] network companies to do the same but hopefully this will open the floodgates of free enterprise to similarly make a plan. .
“These network towers are fitted with batteries and generators that switch on when the power goes off, but the constant and frequent load-shedding prevents a full recharge, which takes 12-18 hours,” she said.
“Vodacom said it had spent about R2bn just on batteries the past two years. Similarly, MTN deployed more than 2,000 generators to counter the higher stages of load-shedding ... burning through more than R400,000 worth of fuel a month to keep its generators on.
“These companies are incurring huge costs caused by the government’s incompetence.
“The DA knows the ANC is unable to fix the situation at Eskom. Indeed, it has been promising to do it for the past decade, and it is precisely for that reason that the DA believes independent power production is part of the solution.
“The DA knows what it is talking about, as shown by the lower levels of load-shedding in Cape Town, and calls on private companies that are able to join the pilot project Vodacom has embarked on,” she said.
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