Hon Chairperson, we are in the midst of an energy crisis in South Africa. This crisis is entirely due to the ... [Inaudible.] ... lack of planning on the part of the ANC government. This energy crisis is making a mockery of our job-creation plans, and it is entirely evident that unless we solve our energy crisis, we will never have any hope of solving our unemployment crisis. The department has simply not done enough to address many of the underlying institutional problems that are holding back decisive action being taken to address this crisis.
Absolutely no leadership is being shown on the issue of our failing distribution networks in the country, and there seems to be no political appetite to deal with this ticking time bomb. The integrated energy plan has still not been drawn up, despite our passing the Energy Act four years ago, which explicitly mandated for such a plan. Despite a call over a decade ago for independent power producers to provide 30% of South Africa's electricity, at present they only account for less than 2%.
The DA firmly maintains that South Africans need to become part of our energy solution, but at the moment too much power is centralised by the Minister and Eskom, with disastrous results for our country.
Finally, the proposed nuclear build programme remains shrouded in secrecy and the government seems bent on shutting down any debate around the financial viability of this programme, despite the national development plan itself questioning the advisability of such a programme. For these and other reasons, the DA cannot support the Budget Vote.