Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says South Africa will have to, amongst other things; add “a few more thousand megawatts” of electricity into the system before load shedding can be dealt with.
He was appearing before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises on Wednesday just hours after Eskom announced that Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented until Saturday morning.
“Our aim certainly, is that load shedding must end sooner rather than later. It will end…in particular when we have extra megawatts in the system.”
Gordhan added that there also other factors, including maintenance, which must be resolved before the country can begin to see the end of load shedding.
“All of these factors…are causing an immense amount of frustration amongst our people…whether they are residents, whether they live in working class areas or middle class areas and whether they are large or small businesses,” he said.
He said the “crisis” at the struggling power utility can be resolved through a united response from all stakeholders.
“What we require as government…is an integrated response to this crisis. One which ensures that each role player…does what is necessary and does it timeously and does it with the necessary sense of urgency in order to ensure that the work that needs to be done to stabilise Eskom can indeed take place.”
He said that Eskom would go through a period of change for some time.
“Currently, we’ve got to repair what we’ve got to repair. Secondly, [we have] the restructuring or unbundling process and thirdly, we’ve also got to introduce the changes that are required in terms of the just energy transition…and implement the nationally determined contribution that South Africa put on the table at COP 26. That will have an impact both in respect of pollutants…but carbon emissions more generally,” said the Minister. – SAnews.gov.za
