President Kgalema Motlanthe will tomorrow, 24 February 2009, chair the Presidential Joint Social Sector Working Group meeting at the Union Buildings.
I thank you for inviting me on this winter morning to the 2008 Electricity Distribution Maintenance Summit. I believe this summit is a vital platform to review outcomes and resolutions of the 2003 Electricity Summit and also provides us with a space to formalise new targets that involve the participation and inputs of all stakeholders in business, government, labour and civil society.
We also need to ensure that, in addition to Eskom's massive investment programme, independent power producers and co-generators are able to enter the market and contribute more to our supply than before.
I would add that deliberations of this summit with regard to maintenance of EDI infrastructure should therefore be located in a framework of ensuring reliability of supply enhances sustainable social and economic development.
As the President stated in this year's State of the Nation Address (SoNA), if we are to implement the Apex of Priorities, in "the further acceleration of our economic growth and development (there has to be a) speeding up (of) the process of building the infrastructure we need to achieve our economic and social goals".