Today, 25 July 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation regarding South Africa’s energy crisis. This address followed after a number of consultations within the government as well as other stakeholders and energy experts outside of government towards a collective solution.
The president addressed the nation mentioning a number of developments that will combat the electricity crisis South Africa is experiencing. He states that a set of action plans to close the electricity gap in the country has been developed and underway.
“For our response to be effective we need to understand the problem” said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa continued to mention the current state Eskom is experiencing, the challenges and the causes of loadshedding. He mentions that South Africa is still faced with an electricity shortage of up to 6000 megawatts, hence the power cuts from time-to- time.
“The performance of some of Eskom’s power stations have been further worsened by extensive theft and fraud as well as sabotage” said Ramaphosa.
He also said in his address that Eskom has to implement loadshedding to prevent the electricity grid from collapsing and also to ensure that we never experience a complete blackout throughout the country.
“We have already taken important steps to increase generation capacity and to diversify our energy supply. One of the first steps we took to address electricity shortfall was to revive the renewable energy procurement program that had stopped” he said.
Ramphosa mentioned the downfall of South Africa’s economy due to loadshedding and unreliable energy supply. The limited energy supply has negatively affected the economy as investors are unlikely to invest in the country because of unreliable electricity providers. This results in scepticism in building and growing businesses within the country.
He claims that in order to end loadshedding more megawatts is needed.
“Eskom will now purchase electricity megawatts from private companies, the mines, paper mills and from the neighbouring countries like Botswana and Zambia” mentioned President Cyril Ramaphosa.
