As SA braces for the coldest day of the year on Monday, the government is optimistic that plummeting temperatures will not affect the severity of load-shedding but has encouraged South Africans to try to keep their heaters off.
This promise that there is enough “leeway in the system to deal with peak weather patterns” was the message from electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa in his weekly update on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, which marks its first anniversary this month.
“I am chuffed with the progress we are making,” Ramokgopa said on Sunday, referring to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on July 25 2022 on the five-point energy action plan designed to end load-shedding.
“With regard to outcome No 1, which is to reduce the intensity of load-shedding, we can give that one a tick. But when it comes to reducing the frequency, there is no tick, and we cannot be expected to do that any time soon,” Ramokgopa said, explaining it is not yet possible for the country to go a full 24 hours without state-implemented blackouts.
He praised business, saying that while everyone at Eskom is working hard to keep the lights on, more than 100 specialists have in recent months been embedded in power stations and this has helped decrease the number of units tripping.
“The experts from the private sector have been indispensable and we are seeing the effect of their work. In our experience thus far the private sector are invested in solving this problem [of load-shedding] and they have come with numbers to try to help,” said Ramokgopa.
All this comes as Ramaphosa continues his investment drive to get big business from around the world to open manufacturing plants in SA. This, however, is compromised by concerns about energy security, as well as political uncertainty.
There is still no announcement yet from Ramaphosa on whether the Brics summit will be held in SA in August.
SA was handed a political, economic and diplomatic conundrum when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest against Russian President Vladimir Putin, casting doubt on how Pretoria would react if the Russian leader shows up for the bloc’s annual summit. Ramaphosa has been consulting his Brics counterparts for months.
Meanwhile, all of SA’s major political parties are finalising their election plans ahead of the 2024 national and provincial vote.
The EFF celebrates its 10th anniversary in July. It is a major milestone for SA’s third-largest political party, which was established as a result of the ANC’s decision to expel its then youth league president, Julius Malema.
In national, provincial and municipal ballots since then, the EFF has made and maintained electoral gains as a result of its appeal to black professionals frustrated with the governing party over corruption and the slow pace of transformation.
Opposition parties have began preparing their legal fights against public protector Kholeka Gcaleka’s report on the burglary at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in 2020. The report, which was released earlier in July, exonerated the president from any wrongdoing regarding an alleged violation of the executive ethics code. The investigation found there was a “manager running the day-to-day [operations] of Phala Phala”, Gcaleka said.
The African Transformation Movement (ATM), DA and EFF have announced their rejection of Gcaleka’s report and they are looking into legal options to take the report on review.
With TimesLIVE
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