Ramaphosa arrives for emergency Eskom meeting

President Cyril Ramaphosa has arrived at Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sandton to attend to the current power crisis following Eskom’s decision to move to stage 6 load shedding on Monday. He is received by Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, Eskom board member and deputy president Jabu Mabuza, alongside Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe.

The Eskom board is expected to brief the president on plans to mitigate and resolve the current electricity crisis to ensure that the country keeps the lights on.

The president cut his trip to Egypt short and the presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko said Ramaphosa saw it fitting to come back and engage the board following the unprecedented stage 6 load shedding this week.

“He wants to understand how the crisis got here and what exactly is the long-term recovery strategy.”

Diko said Gordhan provided Ramaphosa with a report on the stage 6 load shedding to lay out the challenges faced by Eskom. She said the meeting was underway to bring immediate and urgent measures and solutions.

Diko maintains the importance of de-politicising the Eskom issue and focusing more on dealing with solutions as well as understanding the issue in order to take decisive action to ensure that it did not hold the country to ransom.

The DA has written a letter to speaker of parliament Thandi Modise to recall parliament for Ramaphosa to tell MPs what his Eskom turnaround plans are.

Interim leader of the DA John Steenhuisen told reporters outside Megawatt Park on Tuesday morning that Ramaphosa could show his leadership and seriousness in ending the Eskom crisis by removing Mantashe from his position as minister.

He said Ramaphosa was next to denial while Mantashe was in denial and unable to deal with the basic elements of the crisis. He called for the minister to be fired and the president to address parliament to provide concrete reasons for the Eskom crisis.

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