Cape Town - While Eskom will continue plunging the country into Stage 6 load shedding until Friday, taxpayers have forked out nearly R800 000 to burn diesel in generators, in order to keep the lights on at the state-owned houses of ministers over the past five months.
They are also due to pay for up to three more generators to be procured and installed at official ministerial houses.
This was revealed by Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille, when responding to parliamentary questions.
DA MP Samantha Graham wrote to De Lille enquiring about the total number of generators bought for the official ministerial homes, and whether each house was equipped with a generator.
Graham also asked whether any new generators were bought since July, and what total amount was that has been spent on diesel over the past five months.
The latest instalment of parliamentary questions came against the backdrop of the minister’s recent response that the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure spent R1.3 million on diesel and redundant generators before April 2022 and a further R680 000 from April 2022 to June 2022.
In her latest written response, De Lille said a total of 13 generators were replaced for official ministerial residences due to redundancy.
“The generators were replaced due to redundancy and were also too costly to maintain,” she said.
De Lille said not all official ministerial houses were equipped with generators.
However, the minister said one generator was installed last month and more were to be bought for the ministers.
“One generator has been procured and was installed on 9 November 2022, and three are still in the procurement stage,” she said.
De Lille also revealed that taxpayers have coughed up a tab for diesel running to almost R800 000 in the last five months.
“The total amount of diesel spent is R784 135.00,” she added.
Graham said she found De Lille’s response interesting.
“In earlier reports, all indications were that the expenditure was on new generators, not on replacing redundant ones. This is the first time any reference has been made to replacement of generators, to my knowledge,” she said.
Graham also said irrespective of whether the generators were new or redundant, she found it abhorrent that taxpayers’ money was being used to shield ministers from the load shedding caused by their colleagues under their watch.
“While the very people paying for the generators are the ones who suffer the effects of load shedding and to have them continued to spend almost R1 million on diesel, it is not acceptable,” she added.
About the current blackouts, Eskom said since Tuesday night, breakdowns of two generating units at Grootvlei Power Station occurred, as well as a unit each at Arnot, Duvha, Kendal, Kriel and Tutuka power stations. In addition, two units at Arnot, a unit each at Camden, Kendal and Kriel power stations have been delayed in returning to service.
Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of load shedding over the next 6 -12 months.
Cape Times