Ramaphosa: ‘Solving electricity and load shedding crisis is vital for SA’

As the country battles stage 5 load shedding, President Cyril Ramaphosa has emphasised that solving the electricity challenge is vital for South Africa’s investment drive.

The president was addressing the nation in his weekly newsletter “From the Desk of the President” on Tuesday following his meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington.

Discussions with Biden

The president said he and Biden discussed several issues of concern, including peace and security, climate change and food security.

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“Most importantly, we discussed ways to deepen trade and investment between our two countries.”

Ramaphosa said South Africa first needs to overcome the electricity crisis before attracting investment.

Eskom crisis

“Since late last week, Eskom has been forced to implement load shedding due to breakdowns at a number of power stations. The situation has been made worse by the depletion of emergency generation reserves such as pumped storage and diesel turbines and the need for these to be replenished.”

“The severe load shedding of the last few days has reminded us how unstable our ageing power stations are. It has given greater urgency to the measures we announced two months ago to stabilise our electricity supply,” Ramaphosa said.

Load shedding meeting

The president said he held an urgent virtual meeting with ministers and officials on the reasons for the current load shedding and the steps being taken to reduce the severity and frequency of the deliberate power cuts.

“Eskom has already announced some of the measures it is taking and we will remain seized with this issue until the situation is resolved. Solving the electricity crisis is necessary if we are to realise the potential of our economy,” Ramaphosa added.

Ramaphosa had to cut his US trip short following the Eskom crisis which has seen the ailing parastatal ramp up load shedding to stage 6 following a number of generation units going offline and the loss of generation capacity.

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