North West University Business School economist Professor Raymond Parsons has urged that the extent to which the current Eskom load-shedding “now poses an increasing to risk to South Africa’s economic recovery should not be underestimated”.

The current bout of rolling blackouts across the country is also impacting on its growth prospects and job creation, he stressed.

In a statement on November 8, Parsons lamented that the ongoing lack of energy security and predictability in South Africa was causing widespread disruption to business, especially small business.

“Business costs are rising as power blackouts go to the next level in this country. It now also puts a serious question mark over the key growth forecasts that must form part of the forthcoming Medium Term Budget Policy Statement or 'Mini-Budget' due on November 11,” Parsons stressed.

Taking this into account, Parsons said Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana would need to have confidence that “his best forecasts of future economic growth in South Africa will not be weakened by uncertain extensive load-shedding”.

The latest breakdown in Eskom's network has a long history and many causes, for which Parsons lamented there “are no simple solutions”.

This further emphasises the need for “necessary urgency and leadership” to at least identify creative short-term measures that could help to better manage and stabilise the immediate situation, Parsons concluded.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement on November 9, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) called on the Eskom board and executive management team under the leadership of CEO Andre de Ruyter to resign as the load-shedding challenge had not been resolved in the 18-month timeline initially targeted.

"The electricity situation in this country has reached a crisis level. We need the government to provide leadership by declaring this situation a national crisis. Workers are losing their jobs and income. Small and medium businesses are suffering while some are closing.

"All this is happening while the economy is still trying to recover from the Covid-19 impact," NUM acting general secretary William Mabapa stressed.

In its statement, the NUM said it believes Eskom’s leadership “presented a turnaround strategy that is not tailored to solve the load-shedding problems that we are experiencing now”.

The trade union noted that a turnaround strategy is “supposed to have short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions” and that De Ruyter’ strategy rather “focused on unbundling Eskom and disposing of some of its assets”.

Unbundling, Mabapa said, was presented as “a panacea for all Eskom problems”.

Business Unity South Africa (Busa), however, said it rejects the calls for Eskom's leadership to resign.

"It does not help to exacerbate the ongoing operational crisis by creating a leadership and governance crisis at Eskom.

"We are of the view this leadership has taken the tough decisions, shown remarkable openness and transparency and, critically, developed a progressive future-looking plan that will see the diversification and decarbonisation of the electricity supply system in South Africa," Busa said in a statement.

It added that Eskom’s leadership had been clear that, given the state and age of the plant, maintenance alone would not address the real and worsening supply crisis – new capacity must urgently be added to the grid.

"Busa maintains that the fastest, least cost and low-carbon path to ensure affordable and reliable energy is through the accelerated implementation of the Integrated Resource Plan-guided Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.

"Government must urgently issue further requests for proposals for much higher allocations of capacity," the organisation stressed.

It further called for the emergency procurement of any capacity that could supply immediate capacity to the grid, such as through cogeneration and other technologies that participated in the previous short-term power producer programme.

"We also urge even greater transparency, with the board and leadership erring on the side of more information to the public than less.

"Busa also believes we need to pull together as a country, as we demonstrated a Team South Africa effort at COP26, to address this crisis. The cost to the economy, including to small and medium enterprises, and the severe inconvenience and cost for citizens is becoming incalculable.

"Busa thus offers to mobilise capacity, as we have consistently offered to government, to work with the Eskom team to make significant progress in addressing the short-term issue of such extended periods of load-shedding, but also to address the myriad of issues at Eskom in a systemic way," the organisation added.

It also called on President Cyril Ramaphosa and Cabinet "to demonstrate decisiveness in this crisis".

The President must demonstrate to the nation that government is doing everything in its power to address this crisis, it said.