President Cyril Ramaphosa used his weekly newsletter to confirm that the challenge to add additional capacity to Eskom’s grid will be a slow and drawn out process.
Eskom on Sunday said it would be proposing implementing stage 2 or 3 load shedding on a near-permanent basis for the next two to three years.
Ramaphosa on Monday said it was clear that South Africans don’t want to hear excuses or unrealistic promises as load shedding continues to wreak havoc on businesses, households and communities.
“The demands for an immediate end to power cuts are wholly understandable. Everyone is fed up.
“However, we are in the grip of an energy crisis that has been many years in the making. Though it may be easy to blame our present woes on dysfunctionality at Eskom, a combination of factors have contributed to the crisis.”
Ramaphosa said it was important to recall the reasons for the current situation which stepped-up from 1998.
“Lack of investment in new generating capacity, poor power plant maintenance, corruption and criminality, sabotage of infrastructure, rising municipal debt and a lack of suitable skills at Eskom have all created a perfect storm.
“There can be no sustainable solution without addressing all these factors in combination. We should not make the mistakes of the past. For many years, critical maintenance was deferred, and our power stations were run too hard in order to keep the lights on. As a country we are now paying the price for these miscalculations,” Ramaphosa said.
He said there was a need to be realistic about the challenges and what it would take to fix them.
“While we all desperately want to, we cannot end load shedding overnight.
“Over the last few days, I have held consultative meetings with representatives of labour, business, traditional leaders, religious leaders and the community constituency. I have also met with premiers, metro mayors and leaders of political parties.”
He said he used the meetings to stress the importance of staying the course, ‘instead of coming up with unsustainable short-term solutions’.
