Cape Town - South Africans should expect load shedding in the coming nine to 12 months.
This was the view of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan when asked on Wednesday whether Eskom’s proposed 32% increase in tariffs for 2023 would ensure there were no more load shedding or bailouts for the power utility.
“To be frank with the South African public, as the government has said repeatedly, we could still have load shedding for another nine to 12 months,” he said during an oral question session in the National Assembly.
Gordhan said government wanted to limit the stages of load shedding as much as possible.
“Management at power station level needs to do more to ensure those plants are maintained properly, run efficiently and that they minimise the cost for citizens and businesses.”
He said there would eventually be no more load shedding once there were more megawatts connected to the system.
“It is not going to happen overnight,” he said.
Gordhan indicated that the bailouts for Eskom were a result of malfeasance that took place during the state capture period and the slow rate of recovery.
“As we recover from that and improve performance of the plants, we will see more megawatts coming onto the system,” he said.
Gordhan said the proposed tariff increase Eskom was asking the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for would have a different impact on various parties, depending on whether residents or businesses were supplied directly by Eskom or by municipalities.
“There are electricity studies that will indicate the extent to which different parties and classes of citizens are able to absorb these costs or not,” he said.
He said both the middle class and the poor would be affected at some level by the increase in inflation and therefore the cost of living and doing business.
“We need to be frank that Eskom, although it says it requires (a) cost-recoverable tariff, needs to do more to undertake savings that will result in the reduction of avoidable costs.”
Gordhan said Eskom was cognisant of the negative impact of load shedding on the country’s economy, and the inconvenience and hardship it caused to the country.
He said, however, that load shedding was the last resort to protect the system from a total blackout.
“It is designed to ensure the grid does not collapse entirely.”
Gordhan defended the R7 billion Eskom spent on diesel to keep the lights on over the past six months.
“Without the use of these, the stages of load shedding would have been more severe,” he said, adding that load shedding would not disappear overnight despite Eskom’s plans to improve performance.
“This requires an improvement in reliability and predictability of Eskom’s fleet.”
When asked why he continued to support Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter despite him promoting independent power producers in a move believed to be aimed at privatising the power utility, Gordhan said there was a repeated narrative out there, which was false, and which misled the South African public.
“There is no intention to privatise anything in Eskom. There is every intention to ensure, where it is appropriate, that the private sector will be involved to ensure we have more megawatts in the system.”
He said a new Eskom board with a new set of skills would be announced soon.
“The board will review the management system, management of Eskom, current operations and make recommendations in respect of any change that needs to be made,” Gordhan added.
Cape Times