Cape Town – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa got “lessons on how to deal with load shedding” when the venue where he was speaking at the Local Government Summit currently underway at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg was hit by power cuts.
He was explaining to mayors, councillors and NGOs in attendance, the impact of fights among those in leadership positions, when load shedding hit the venue.
“Fighting that at times results in outright violence, where people die, and we, therefore, need to redefine the way…,” the president said before the lights went off for a brief period.
He laughed it off and apologised before taking the moment to school delegates about the country’s “biggest challenge”.
“I am sorry,” he said as the audience laughed and applauded.
“I was being given lessons on how to deal with load shedding,” he said.
MUST WATCH: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address is briefly disturbed by load-shedding. @TimesLIVE @SundayTimesZA pic.twitter.com/q1G3mzCmUD
— Amanda Khoza – The Journalist (@MandaKhoza) September 28, 2022
“I must say I am sorry about that. This continues to be our biggest challenge. I think it affects you at local level because you distribute electricity and when it does this [a power outage], your customers lose business.
“It disrupts the livelihoods of our residents and people lose confidence in us.”
Earlier this week, Eskom warned that it might have to ramp up load shedding to even higher stages if it does not receive delivery of diesel.
The power utility announced that stage 3 load shedding would continue to be implemented between 00:00 and 16:00 until Thursday, while stage 4 load shedding would be implemented daily during the evening peaks from 16:00 until 00:00.
“Eskom is still experiencing constraints from its diesel suppliers that is affecting the availability of bulk diesel to the Ankerlig and Gourikwa Open Cycle Gas Turbines, which have a combined capacity of 2 000MW.
“While we expect diesel deliveries from Tuesday onwards, should this uncertainty of supply persist, higher stages of load shedding may be required,” said Eskom in a statement.
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Compiled by Olwethu Mpeshe
