Budget: Lots of money for Electricity Generation
It’s not often that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel gives more than the DA asks; but, as far as the energy crisis is concerned, he did just that - in certain respects, at least - on Wednesday.
In the DA’s 2008 Alternative Budget, entitled “Powering Growth, Opportunity and Democracy“, we allocated R50 billion to help finance Eskom’s power generation expansion and R1.2 to diversifying power generation and reducing demand on the grid.
In his speech in the National Assembly, Manuel announced that R60 billion will go to Eskom’s investment programme and an additional R2 billion would be allocated to promote more efficient power usage.
Where he fell short, however, (and perhaps how he could budget R10.8 billion more than the DA to those two things) was in not doing enough to stimulate growth and job-creation in the face of the draining effects of the electricity crisis. The DA’s budget included a R14.5 billion stimulatory package to assist the economy and encourage foreign direct investment.
21 February 2008 at 6:29 pm
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Susan Kishner
21 February 2008 at 6:44 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
7 March 2008 at 5:17 pm
Eskom’s unilateral decision this week to stop all development is scandalous and has the potential of ruining the economy by these uncalled for and unwarranted public announcements. Government should, as proposed bu the DA before, set up a multi-disciplinary task team, inter alia from the private sector, Eskom, Nersa, government and the economical sector to advise it on appropriate emergency steps to take in order to bring some form of stability to the national electricity grid.
We should not be reliant on Eskom to singlehandedly ruin the economy, thereby holding government, the public and the country to ransom.