Cape Town — Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says he iss not a “junior minister” and his presence in Cabinet was not “ornamental”.
Ramokgopa said this as he retorted to delegates who questioned what he is doing to combat the country’s issue of load shedding.
The minister faced the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), justifying his appointment as Electricity Minister and said that he is not a “junior minister”.
Eskom announced on Sunday that stage 6 load shedding would be implemented until further notice, “due to the failure of additional generating units and the delay of several units to return to service”.
“Breakdowns are currently 19 333MW of generating capacity while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 4 524MW,” the utility added.
According to EWN, Ramokgopa said he is more than capable of leading the ministry in tackling the country’s energy crisis.
“I’m not a junior minister, so that’s one. There’s nothing in the constitution that attaches hierarchy to ministers. The second one is that my presence is not ornamental. I bring a significant amount of technical skills in addition to my political prowess,” he was quoted as saying.
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Ramokgopa also warned that the country cannot transition away from coal-fired power stations in darkness, adding that plans to transition had to be halted because of SA’s dire energy situation, IOL reported.
“What we know is that between 2018 and 2020 we have decommissioned units that were giving us collectively 2 900MW. We have removed from the grid units that have collective output of three stages of load shedding. We know that in this agenda of decarbonisation between 2023 and 2027 the intention is to remove another 5 200MW.
“Essentially, between 2018 and 2020 we removed 2 900MW and between now and 2027 we will remove 5 200M. It means that between 2018 and 2027 we would have removed 8 100MW, essentially an additional eight stages of load shedding.
“The next question you must answer is when and how are you going to replace that (which) you are removing from the grid,” Ramokgopa was quoted as saying.
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Compiled by Junaid Benjamin
