Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa says he has asked the South African power utility Eskom to hold the 18.65% electricity tariff hike for now.
The president was speaking at the African National Congress (ANC)’s Free State conference in Mangaung on Sunday.
Earlier this month, the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) gave Eskom the go-ahead to increase its tariff in April.
The decision received a lot of backlash, sparking calls for a national shutdown by angry citizens.
“I have personally said to Eskom: ‘Eskom, it will be an injury to our people if we implement this 18% now when we are going through load shedding. Put it in suspense for a while’. And so the Eskom board is going to discuss that,” Ramaphosa said in a speech aired by SABC News.
Ramaphosa said that households and businesses were battling the impact of load shedding.
He said that the country was looking at sourcing power from other countries.
“Nearby countries that have more energy, more megawatts, we are bringing that in. We’re also going to companies that have installed more capacity and bringing that in. Now, we’re cutting the red tape, there’s been a lot of red tape in the system.” said Ramaphosa.
According to News24, the president maintained that Eskom’s historic inadequate maintenance and delayed investment in building new power stations had led to South Africa reaching an energy crisis the country should never have faced.
“Eskom’s historic inadequate maintenance and delayed investment in building new power stations is the main cause of why we are where we are.
“We have load shedding, which understandably is making the people of South Africa angry, making the people of South Africa frustrated, and it’s negatively impacting the livelihoods of our people, the health of our people, the food production in our country, and hurting the economy,” said Ramaphosa.
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Compiled by Olwethu Mpeshe
