S. African Parliament to conduct oversight visit to dysfunctional power stations

The parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises has on Wednesday been granted access to two major power stations whose breakdown led to the current constant rolling blackouts in South Africa.

Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown granted access to the committee at the request of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).

The DA said on Wednesday it will ensure that full parliamentary oversight occurs at each of these power stations so that all the details of the current crisis become public knowledge.

"The government needs to convince the country that it is working towards the best possible solution as a matter of urgency, " the DA said.

The two power stations -- Majuba in Mpumalanga Province and Lethabo in Free State Province -- became dysfunctional in November last year, giving rise to a new round of load shedding since 2008 when rolling blackouts first hit South Africa.

Power utility Eskom has come under fire for failing to do proper maintenance at the power stations which burn coal to generate electricity.

The breakdown of the two major power stations has forced the country to burn diesel to the value of one billion rand (about 90 million US dollars) a month to keep the lights on.

Eskom reportedly would be broke in February after forking out billions of rand to buy diesel to boost the grid. Endi