Ramokgopa seeks legal clarity on load shedding unconstitutionality

Loadshedding

Johannesburg — Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is seeking clarification from the Pretoria High Court on its directive concerning the unconstitutional aspect of load shedding.

Last month, the court ruled that load shedding was unconstitutional and that it was a violation of basic human rights. The ruling also said Ramokgopa must take all reasonable steps to ensure that critical government services were no longer affected by power cuts by the end of January, EWN reported.

Ramokgopa said he was going back to the High Court, not to challenge the ruling, but to determine what the expectations were of him.

“Does it mean that if I roll out 30% of the power station, is that reasonable action? That’s important because when someone goes to court and says the minister of electricity is in contempt of court, I must be measured,” the report quoted Ramokgopa as saying.

Hospitals schools and police stations are among the public institutions that Ramokgopa should ensure are not affected by load shedding.

Meanwhile, Ramokgopa also said that load shedding was here to stay as Eskom announced they were moving to a mix of stage 1 and 2. While Eskom managed to slow load shedding down during December,  Ramokgopa reiterated the utility was “working hard” on improving its generation system and citizens must still expect load shedding, The Citizen reported.

We are addressing this through the planned maintenance. We’re getting through that recovery and we are experiencing a period of no load shedding again. We will have this period of days of no load shedding and then there will be days of load shedding,” Ramokgopa said.

“We did make the point that the system still remains unreliable, we’re working on these units.” he added.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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