Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said he’s optimistic that the end of load shedding, will help grow the economy of the country.
This as today marks 200 days without the implementation of load shedding, with Ramokgopa applauding the work done by the current Eskom board and employees.
The Minister said this has also been made possible by the advent of the resolution of load shedding and sustained supply of electricity and the reforms on the Operation Vulindlela.
“The South African economy could grow by about 3,5% in the next 19 to 24 months.
So that’s a major victory for where we are.
Of course, the National Treasury is putting it at 0.9% conservatively.
When the Minister of Finance delivers the Medium-Term Budget Policy statement, he will state with a great deal of authority how the National Treasury sees it,” said Ramokgopa, who was briefing the media at the Lethabo Power Station in Sasolburg, Free State about government’s Energy Action Plan.
The Minister acknowledged that economic growth has been depressed in the past, due to load shedding, which interrupted businesses and led to the closure of businesses and disrupted people’s daily lives.
Ramokgopa said despite this, the country is not yet out of the woods yet, but it’ll be a norm in the future not to mark days without load shedding, as it’ll be “a thing of the past.”
In addition, the Minister said he’s encouraged that reputable institutions in the world are forecasting a positive outlook with the end of power cuts.
Ramokgopa said the end of load shedding has also created what he described as a happiness index.
“I think people are in a better space now.
You wake up with the lights on.
There is a new phenomenon we are dealing with called load reduction.
This has little to do with the challenges of generation capacity, so we are generating more than enough to meet the demand,” explained Ramaphosa
Despite generating more energy, Eskom still faces downstream challenges like municipalities debt, load reduction, ageing infrastructure, lack of investments on the distribution infrastructure, and lack of maintenance.
