President Cyril Ramaphosa has presented a multi-pronged strategy to end load shedding and South Africa’s energy crisis in a speech at the ANC’s 111th birthday celebrations.
As the country prepared to return to stage 4 load shedding on Sunday, Ramaphosa said the blackouts were the greatest impediment to economic recovery.
He was speaking during the anniversary of the formation of the ANC at the Dr Petrus Rantlai Molemela Stadium in Mangaung, Free State on Sunday.
“Immediate focus should be on ensuring that power stations have skilled and experienced personnel; tackling sabotage, theft and corruption at power stations and streamlining procurement processes.”
“The Eskom Board needs to recruit world-class professionals to fill the vacancies in executive management,” said Ramaphosa.
The president said Eskom should implement an effective demand management strategy to reduce stress on the national grid, and ensure uninterrupted power supply to sectors of priority including hospitals, some academic institutions and critical municipal infrastructure.
“We will continue implementing the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 which includes the procurement of over 18,000MW of new generation capacity.”
“This includes ensuring investment resources mobilised through the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan are used to speedily upgrade Eskom’s transition network to facilitate entry of new generation capacity.”
Ramaphosa’s plan to transition from coal to renewable energy is however facing fierce opposition from within the ANC and the broader tripartite alliance which includes Cosatu and the SACP.
Both Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi and SACP secretary Solly Mapaila criticised the plan as likely to have dire consequences for workers in the Mpumalanga coal belt and potentially turn coal-mining towns into ghost towns.
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