Cape Town - The newly created electricity ministry will cost R100 million to set up with new appointments.
Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa is preparing a “significant” number of officials to be appointed in his ministry in the next few weeks, he said at the weekend.
Ramokgopa disclosed his plans for his new ministry at the Koeberg nuclear power plant over the weekend.
He has been tasked by President Cyril Ramaphosa to put an end to the country’s load shedding crisis.
The new minister is on a countrywide tour of Eskom power plants.
Responding to a Cape Argus question about the capacity of his ministry, Ramakgopa said the private sector would assist in recruitment.
He referred to the R100m Resource Mobilisation Fund (RMF) which he helped launch two days after he was appointed as the electricity minister.
Ramokgopa said the RMF would come in handy in the recruitment of experienced and skilled labour for his office.
“We’re still working on the number, but it will be a significant number of people that we want to help us ... those who have experience in (electricity) generation, the grid, project management and expertise on how to get the message out to the public to address issues of the demand. We’re aggregating those numbers,” he said.
On a site visit to the Ankerlig gas turbine power plant in Atlantis, Ramokgopa said the theft of R500 000 worth of diesel at the power plant could have been avoided had there not been a need for 100 diesel-carrying trucks to offload diesel at the gas turbine power plant on a daily basis.
Ramokgopa was speaking about the need for Eskom to decrease dependency on gas turbine power plants and focus on boosting the energy availability factor.
The theft of diesel at Eskom’s plants largely contributes to its struggle to keep the lights on.
Angelo Cysman, 40, a plant operator at the Ankerlig power station in Atlantis, was arrested in December after he allegedly became involved in a grand diesel theft incident at the power station.
The alleged crime was put to Ramokgopa at the weekend, but he didn’t commit to giving more details surrounding it.
Ramokgopa said his ministry was working to eliminate the dependency on gas turbine power plants, such as Ankerlig.
He said there were 100 trucks delivering diesel at gas turbine power plants every day. The diesel is used to mitigate load shedding.
Touching on issues relating to the Koeberg power station, he said the delays in maintenance would affect the power utility’s capacity to reduce load shedding for two months.
“Unit one is out of operation. The unit provides about 920 megawatts to the grid. We are hoping that unit one will come back online by July 23, (but) unfortunately they can’t meet the target because of unforeseen conditions,” Ramokgopa said.