Independent Democrats question high electricity prices

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za South Africans are paying four times more than some foreign countries for electricity, the Independent Democrats said yesterday. Lance Greyling, spokesman on energy, said the ID wanted answers from Eskom over the increase in electricity exports to neighbouring countries during South Africa’s ongoing power crisis. Greyling said he had sent questions for written reply to Minister of Public Enterprises, Alec Erwin. Greyling said Eskom must also explain why there had been a 22 percent decrease in electricity imports. He said Eskom exported electricity at 11 cents per kilowatt hour, which was a quarter of the rate South Africans pay. In his questions to the minister, Greyling said the ID wanted to know the reasons behind South Africa’s exports to neighbouring countries being increased by a reported 6.1percent in the first three months of this year, and on what basis decisions were made to increase the export of electricity.

As shortages of things like electricity, oil and even food grow, so will conflicts of interest.

Ideally, southern Africa should try to produce its own electricity for the whole subcontinent. As supplies of coal and other fossil fuels dwindle, there will be increasing reliance on hydroelectricity from the Zambezi and the Congo -- but countries along those rivers will want to serve themselves first, and sell the surplus to others -- while there is a surplus.

So which route to go -- cooperation in the subcontinent, or autarky?

Left behind

When Patricia de Lille broke from the old fuddy-duddies in the PAC I admired her. I even voted for her party in the last election. The PAC seemed to be stuck in a time warp, doomed to relive the politics of 1959-1961 in an endless loop.

So when Patricia de Lille broke from the PAC and founded the Independent Democrats, it seemed like a Great Leap Forward.

It now transpires, however, that the great leap forward fell short of the 21st century. It was a leap from 1960 to 1980. Patricia de Lille does not know much about the blogosphere, and has been complaining about some anonymous blogger saying nasty things about one of her colleagues, and is demanding that blogs be censored.

Americans might say to Patricia, "Get a life".

I say to Patricia: get a blog
.
She will need to do that if she wants to communicate with voters, since her greatest political asset, Tony Leon, has ridden off into the sunset.