GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - The power and signal problems experienced on top of load-shedding over the past few days in Graaff-Reinet and surrounds, highlight the daunting task faced by Graaff-Reinet resident, the new Shadow Minister of Electricity, DA MP Samantha Graham-Maré.

Graham-Maré must hold the Minister of Electricity, Kgosientso Ramakgopa accountable, and with the energy crisis reaching unprecedented levels and a government seemingly paralysed by inaction and infighting, she has her work cut out for her. 

Load-shedding also affords vandals the perfect opportunity to steal copper cables and cellphone tower batteries - exacerbating the problem.

Shadowing

In an interview with Graaff-Reinet Advertiser, Graham-Maré explained that the DA has a shadow cabinet that literally emulates the cabinet - for every minister and deputy minister there is a shadow minister and shadow deputy minister.

The Minister of Electricity falls within the Presidency and no portfolio committee has oversight over the Presidency. But, because this is "probably the biggest issue in the country", the DA appointed a Shadow Minister.

"There are several plans that the minister has spoken of, so I will try to ensure that he sticks to what he said he is going to do," says Graham-Maré, who will also be looking into mitigating load-shedding. This will include ways to reduce the baseload to alleviate pressure on Eskom while it gets itself "sorted out".

"The problem is that we do not have any real short-term solutions from government, so part of my job will be to find short term solutions while government is looking at longer-term solutions such as extending the life of coal-fired power stations."

Learning curve

"I am sitting on three portfolios - mineral resources and energy; public enterprises as Eskom is state owned; and public service and administration because Eskom has large unions and currently in wage negotiations. This means that my workload in terms of portfolio work will triple because I only had one portfolio in the past. These portfolios are not solely directed at electricity so I will therefore get to decide which aspects to deal with," Graham-Maré explains. "It is a huge learning curve. In public I dealt with infrastructure, but not exclusively with electricity infrastructure. I am doing a crash course in all aspects of electricity. It is an enormous amount of work but of paramount importance," she says.

Empowerment and oversight

Graham-Maré has raised the fact that there is no existing electricity portfolio and no parliamentary oversight over the position as a concern.

In a press release dated 24 April she urged the President to "grow a spine and empower the electricity minister".

"If President Cyril Ramaphosa was serious, he would already have gazetted the responsibilities of Ramakgopa's portfolio to empower him to do his job," she said. "Parliament must play its part and establish a parliamentary ad-hoc committee to ensure that Ramakgopa is directly accountable to Parliament."

The DA submitted a motion to this effect, urging all parties to lend their support. In her debate speech delivered in Parliament last Thursday 4 May, Graham-Maré again argued for the establishment of the committee. "Ramokgopa's political responsibility, authority and control over the Energy Action Plan should not give rise to a lone wolf minister, unencumbered by any oversight or accountability mechanism, operating outside the bounds of Parliamentary or Constitutional constraints," she said.

Get off the grid

She confirmed that renewable energy is a part of the future energy mix. "The problem at present is that Eskom's transmission infrastructure cannot cope with additional energy coming through the system and that is one of the reasons why they have been so slow in allowing the introduction of renewables," she explains. "Another issue is that Eskom has the monopoly and they are not opening the door for additional role players. There is no way they can carry on the way they are.

They just do not have the resources and the infrastructure to do so.

Also, while they may allow independent power producers to come into play, another problem that we have is the reliability of green energy and the storage thereof.

The reality is, however, that more and more people are going to need to go off grid if they want to preserve their lives and homes.

At this stage the government is almost incapable of supplying electricity."

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