Cape Town – Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has assured South Africans that they won’t experience power cuts higher than Stage 6.
Ramokgopa’s remarks came as the country fears that higher stages will be implemented during winter.
“I want to give South Africans the assurance that… I don’t foresee us moving to higher, higher stages of load shedding… The highest we’ve gone to is Stage 6… I foresee a position where we are in a position not to go to higher than Stage 6,” he said while speaking to eNCA on Friday just after he wrapped up his oversight visits to all of Eskom’s fourteen power stations across the country.
“I want to give the South African public the assurance that like I said before I don’t foresee us moving to higher, higher stages of load shedding,” he said.
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramakgopa has assured South Africans they won’t have to suffer power cuts higher than Stage 6. #DStv403 #eNCA pic.twitter.com/qtQMB0Xd3e
— eNCA (@eNCA) March 24, 2023
Earlier this week, Ramokgopa put the blame for power outages on technical issues faced by the utility and not corruption, EWN reported.
The minister said that infrastructure defaults were the main cause of the country’s electricity crisis, and not corruption.
He said 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 was 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 said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
