Cape Town — Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has expressed confidence in Eskom employees and told them they are the driving force behind solving South Africa’s electricity crisis.
He said Eskom employees are at the heart of ending load shedding.
“My view has always been the biggest asset for any organisation is its workers and the reason we’re starting from the bottom up is to appreciate and understand the efforts being made at the station level,” Ramokgopa said during a tour of the Duvha Power Station in Mpumalanga.
He added: “I committed to the country that we’ll be at the station level, examining the issues that affect every unit and getting from the station manager, organised labour, and workers about what are the interventions, in their opinion, they think are appropriate to help scale up energy availability.”
Ramokgopa said that he will be conversing with workers to understand the nature and scale of the problem at the power utility and update the Energy Action Plan (EAP), which President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled last year.
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The minister believes that the EAP’s first pillar, which speaks to improving the availability of existing supply system stability and increasing generation capacity is important.
He expressed the need to value those who spend their days at different units.
“It’s important that we have an appreciation that the people who live and breathe these units are the people from Eskom. Some of them have accumulated experience of 25 years,” he said.
“We’re joined at the hip and it’s them who are in the cold face of the day-to-day interaction of these units. But I’m the public face of how we’re going to resolve load shedding.”
South Africans have been experiencing lower stages of load shedding for the first time in a long while this past weekend.
“To get to a stage where people find it very strange to have electricity for a day or two days in succession… underscores the gravity of the problem.
“I am confident about our ability to address the crisis,” Ramokgopa said.
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
