In his address at the budget vote, President Ramaphosa said that the load shedding battle was still far from over. This despite his office making great strides in ending load shedding and securing the country’s grid. The break in load shedding is thus not an indication of the end of load shedding.
Almost four months without load shedding
South Africa has been spared from load shedding for almost four months straight. However, this is no reason to relax, according to President Ramaphosa.
“We have been working closely with Independent Power Producers in steering their projects through to the construction phase, contributing significantly to the reduction in the severity of load shedding.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa
President Ramaphosa also stated that the reduction of load shedding, among other things, will provide a significant boost to the economy in the medium term.
‘Electricity system still vulnerable’, says Ramaphosa
“Our electricity system is still vulnerable, and we cannot yet rule out a possibility of further load shedding,” said Ramaphosa. He has repeated this sentiment for months, even as Eskom celebrates each new milestone in the extended suspension of outages.
In his weekly newsletter of 8 July 2024, he stated that this is the longest continuous period without load shedding since 2020. He added that, while this was ‘a welcome milestone’, it was not a reason for South Africans to relax and assume that load shedding is a thing of the past. Ramaphosa stated that the situation should rather provide encouragement for the government to do more and work faster to ensure a secure supply of electricity. The government has made significant progress through the implementation of the Energy Action Plan. The government initiated it in July 2022.
Electricity and Energy Minister’s stance
Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa agrees with Ramaphosa. Ramokgopa said that Eskom could suffer setbacks, which could lead to load shedding returning.
“We are still working on the reliability of these machines, and that’s why you can’t speak with great confidence that load-shedding is behind us,” he said. Additionally, he said that South Africans should not think that load shedding is over as that is a false belief without substantiation.
Ramokgopa further warned that municipalities’ debt to Eskom could very well cause the return of load shedding. South African municipalities owe Eskom a total of R78 billion, putting the power utility at risk of collapse.
How has the break in load shedding benefited you?
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