Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that load shedding would be around for some time to come as they try to add more generation capacity to the national grid.
Ramaphosa told Parliament during question time in the National Assembly on Thursday that load shedding would not end today as there were a number of challenges faced by Eskom.
He added that Eskom was too big to fail and its failure would be catastrophic for the country.
“We all agree that Eskom is too big to fail because a failing Eskom will be catastrophic for our economy and for our people all round,” said Ramaphosa.
He added that Eskom was a risk to the economy and they would need to find solutions to the power utility.
“Eskom is the biggest risk our country faces and we need to find a solution to this risk,” he said.
He reiterated that load shedding would be with the country for some time to come.
Many of the power plants at Eskom were old and they needed to maintain the existing plants.
However, they would have to wait until there was added capacity to electricity generation for the power to stabilise in the country, said Ramaphosa.
They have allowed more players in renewable energy to enter the electricity space and provide more power.
“Load shedding in the meantime is going to be a key challenge our economy faces,” said Ramaphosa.
He said that while Eskom continued with the maintenance of its power plants, load shedding would continue until they had addressed the problems faced by the power utility.
Political Bureau