The Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has cautioned that it is still early to celebrate the end of load shedding in the country.
His comments come as Monday marks 1387 consecutive days without load shedding.
Briefing the media in Pretoria on the government’s Energy Action Plan, Ramokgopa warned that load shedding is still not a thing of the past.
“I really want to caution that load shedding is not behind us.
In the next three weeks or so Eskom will be sharing what the summer outlook is.
We are still buoyant about the performance of these generation plants.
Having said that, we need to caution against any early declaration to decree load shedding as behind us.
We do everything possible to resolve this question, but the numbers do indicate that we are within touching distance,” cautioned Ramokgopa.
The Minister also highlighted that they expect to get 2 500 megawatts by the end of August as the power grid is improving and generating units back on track.
He applauded Tutuka, Kendal and Kriel power stations for their exceptional performance results.
Despite more than four months without the blackouts, the Minister expressed concern about load reduction, which is implemented in areas where there is overloading of the grid, due to illegal connections.
He said this is unfair to customers who are diligently paying for their electricity services, by subjecting them to load reduction due to the poor performances of most municipalities.
To help remedy the situation, the Minister said they have engaged with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).
“We’re pulling together with SALGA on the best way of ensuring that we protect the interest of municipalities, we safeguard the interests of Eskom.
Eskom is owed collectively about R78 billion by municipalities, and in return the municipalities are owed collectively about R349 billion by various categories of customers,” explained Ramokgopa.
The Minister implored on municipalities to ensure that diligent customers who qualifies for free basic electricity, are registered to receive such services.
He deplored most municipalities for failing to register the indigent people and called on them to improve in this regard.
“There are about 10 million households that qualifies for free basic electricity, but only 2 million receive it due to challenges in the municipal side.
The slow process or delay has to do largely with the rate at which municipalities register the indigent people to benefit from the free basic electricity,” cautioned Ramokgopa.
The Minister pleaded with municipalities to protect poor households, and those who genuinely can’t afford to buy electricity due to high tariffs, economic constraints and number of reasons.
