SOUTH Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised that new power generation will enable the country to get out of load shedding.
Ramaphosa said they understand the need to grow the economy and create jobs. The government was making efforts to end the power crisis that has affected businesses and households across the country.
Ramaphosa, who was addressing Freedom Day celebrations in Matlosana in the North West on Thursday, said a number of measures were being taken to address the energy crisis.
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said a few days ago that part of the measures taken was to roll out bid windows for the next few months. He said the government will announce a mega window of 15 000MW of renewable energy that would ramp up efforts to end power cuts.
Kusile power station is expecting to get 2 100MW by December after some of the units that were damaged are returned to service. Ramokgopa had also wanted poor performing plants to increase the energy availability factor.
Eskom has said if they can reach 65 percent of the energy availability factor they would be able to mitigate load shedding. Ramaphosa said they wanted to end load shedding as soon as possible. “Freedom cannot be meaningful when South African homes and businesses are without electricity for several hours in the day.
“That is why we are using every means at our disposal to restore Eskom’s power stations and build new generating capacity as a matter of the greatest urgency. The benefits of the progress we have made are not yet felt – load shedding has not abated — but we will soon experience the impact of the unprecedented investment being made in new power generation,” said Ramaphosa.
“When we emerge from this crisis, our energy system will have been fundamentally transformed. It will be more stable, more reliable, more affordable, and more sustainable,” he added. He also said they want to reduce unemployment in the country.
He said they cannot afford to have millions of people sitting at home without jobs. In the investment drives they have pushed, they wanted R2 trillion to be thrown into the economy.
The World Bank recently released a report that the South African economy will grow by less than one percent. Ramaphosa said they will not tolerate high levels of crime. Statistics from the SAPS have shown that crime has increased significantly in the last few years. — IOL