Cape Town — Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has put the blame for power outages on technical issues faced by the utility and not corruption.
Ramokgopa visited the Tutuka Power Station in Mpumalanga on Wednesday in his two-week programme of planned visits to Eskom power stations around the country. In total, the Minister will visit 14 power stations.
Tutuka has six 609MW units, with a total installed capacity of 3 654MW, with a turbine Maximum Continuous Rating of 38%.
The station is an important link in the 765kV extra-high-voltage transmission system linking Mpumalanga with the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
According to Ramokgopa, Tutuka and Kusile in Mpumalanga are the two worst-performing power stations.
[WATCH] “The problems I see here are more technical than corruption taking place.”- Minister of Electricity Dr. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa speaking at Kusile Power Station. #Newzroom405 pic.twitter.com/TI4G2VlTbO
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) March 21, 2023
EWN reports the electricity minister said that infrastructure defaults are the main cause of the country’s electricity crisis, and not corruption.
He reportedly added that he had not come across any corrupt activities at Eskom but would address them if they were to surface.
“There’s 3 000MW that is locked in Kusile – nothing to do with corruption whatsoever and everything to do with design deficiencies. There’s 210MW in addition to improvements to the plant performance at Kriel that has nothing to do with corruption,” News24 quoted Ramokgopa as saying.
Meanwhile, Eskom Board Chairperson Mpho Makwana said that the utility is rooting out fraud and corruption within its ranks and supply chain through proactively implementing recommendations made by the Zondo Commission and beyond.
“We are redressing the effects of State Capture and to this effect, we established the State Capture Task Team (SCTT) on 14 July last year. The organisation reaffirmed its cooperation with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in May last year to ensure the most effective coordinated responses to Sate Capture cases and other serious crimes related to Eskom’s operations.”
We are also working closely with the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) and are providing regular progress updates to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), with the most recent update jointly presented to SCOPA on 24 January 2023,” Makwana added.
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
