The Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan has announced that the department will be submitting an urgent appeal against the judgement handed down by the North Gauteng High Court last Friday on power cuts exemptions.
“The department has studied the ruling and has determined through legal advice that the prudent step to take is to lodge an appeal to set aside the ruling and allow for the ongoing efforts to end loadshedding to proceed without putting undue risk on the country’s grid infrastructure’’ he said.
South Africans will this week get plunged into more darkness as Eskom ramped up blackouts to stage 6 until further notice. The blackouts affect all businesses and entities including critical infrastructure such as hospitals, water pumps, reservoirs and agricultural machinery
The utility’s interim spokesperson Daphne Mokoena attributed this to the failure of additional generating units and their delay to return to service. Mokoena also cautioned that stage 6 is likely to continue throughout the week.
South Africa’s economic growth came to a halt because of rolling blackouts since last year and consumers are battling high food inflation which has prompted the Reserve Bank to accelerate the increase in the repo rate forcing them to dig even deeper to service homeloans and car loans among other obligations.
This prompted political parties IFP, ActionSA, UDM, BOSA, trade union NUMSA and other pressure groups to take legal action arguing that the State and Eskom are infringing basic human rights by implementing loadshedding and further highlighted its impact to critical areas of the economy.
The Pretoria High Court ruled last Friday that the government must within 60 days take all reasonable steps to supply electricity to all schools, public health facilities and SAPS stations across the country, without interruption.
Judge Norman Davis said in instances where these sites could not be exempt from blackouts, arrangements must be made for alternative power supply.
Gordhan says the department acknowledges the court’s decision with concerns of its outcomes.
‘’While the department respects the independence of the courts, in this case the department believes that the judgement would have unintended consequences and undermine the very efforts to balance the protection of the rights that were ventilated in this case, with the need to stabilise and protect our grid infrastructure’’ he added.
