Cape Town – Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has dismissed suggestions that load shedding was suspended on Monday as a result of the protests that took place across the country.
Eskom announced on Monday that it had suspended load shedding until Tuesday due to a decrease in the demand for electricity. The announcement was made as members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and other political parties took to the streets for a national shutdown.
The EFF held the protests under tight security in a bid to force out President Cyril Ramaphosa over his handling of the country’s sickly economy and crippling energy crisis.
“Our demands are simple, we want Ramaphosa to leave this house, to leave this house with immediate effect.
“We are here to demand the end of load shedding (electricity outages), to demand Ramaphosa to step down and if he doesn’t… we will force him to step down, EFF leader Julius Malema told protesters.
Ramokgoba, however, maintained that load shedding was not suspended due to EFF’s protests.
ALSO READ | EFF shutdown: ‘Ramaphosa will fall,’ Malema tells protesters
“It has nothing to do with the EFF… it’s a once off protest.
“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 [energy crisis],” he told Newzroom Afrika as he kicked off his tour of Eskom power stations at the Duvha Power Station in Mpumalanga.
He continued: “Our interventions on resolving load shedding doesn’t start with the minister of electricity. The energy action plan has been there… all that we are doing is accelerating it and of course we can see that six power stations are beginning to pick [and] the energy availability factor is going up.
“So it’s [a result] of the efforts that we have been making and hopefully we will start seeing meaningful and real changes at all these power stations.
According to The Citizen, Ramokgopa was expected to visit the Kusile and Kendal power stations on Tuesday, then Tutuka and Camden the following day.
On Thursday, the minister will head to Lethabo power station in the Free State.
I engaged with the management at power station level as well as the unions and the workers to affirm our confidence in the hard working men and women on the ground who work tirelessly to resolve the loadshedding problem. pic.twitter.com/BgadMhDriM
— Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa (@Kgosientsho_R) March 20, 2023
He will also check in at Koeberg power station in Western Cape on Friday.
Meanwhile, Malema described the shutdown as a success, saying: “This was a successful march… Today alone we cancelled load shedding. Scientifically, Eskom is saying to you (that) the grid users of electricity are not using it today, and there’s sufficient electricity.”
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
