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Impending electricity blackouts are a dark and bitter pill for South Africans to swallow. Eskom supplies a large portion of Africa’s electricity north of our borders – to the value of R4.1 billion in 2011 – while the poor suffer without electricity at home.

The parastatal has a publically stipulated mandate to ensure ‘security of supply for South Africa’. The Democratic Alliance (DA) questions whether Eskom is committed to its local obligations. Eskom must put South Africa first.

In reply to parliamentary questions posed by the DA, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Malusi Gigaba, publicly declared that ‘the Department does not envisage any power cuts like those of 2008’. However, Eskom has just released a punishing load-shedding schedule – shortly after telling Parliament that they had sufficient reserve margins to deal with unexpected demand surges.

On 21 May 2010, the DA asked the Minister of Energy, Dipuo Peters, whether Eskom was selling any electricity to other countries, and, if so, at what price. The minister revealed that Eskom sells electricity to Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia and Mozambique. However, she stated that ‘the price charged for electricity is commercially sensitive information for Eskom’s customers and therefore Eskom is not in a position to disclose this information publicly’. She further refused to reveal whether Eskom provided any special rate for electricity sold to Motraco in Mozambique.

It is hard for the South African public (Eskom’s majority customers) to stomach that Eskom is profiting from exporting electricity at the expense of ensuring uninterrupted local supply. If the 13,296 GWh exported to our northern neighbours was kept for South Africa, load-shedding would be entirely unnecessary.

I will today be writing to the chairperson of the energy portfolio committee, requesting that Eskom’s management be called before the committee to brief Parliament on the preventative steps that are being taken to avoid disruptions in our country’s electricity supply.

The gap between electricity supply and demand could lead to a significant shortfall of 6 terawatt hours this year. How can the Department of Energy justify this to South Africans who go without electricity while Eskom reaps profit from exporting to our northern neighbours?