Government reiterates its determination to end load shedding, relieve hardship caused by electricity generation shortfall
The Government has expressed regret at the hardship that loadshedding has imposed upon the citizens and has vowed to press ahead with coordinated efforts to urgently increase the country’s electricity generation capacity to mitigate the impact and the severity of load shedding.
The Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr Pravin Gordhan, noted that his department had already initiated efforts with the Department of Health and Eskom to identify 213 hospitals for exclusion from loadshedding to ensure continuous power supply. Out of these hospitals, 76 were already excluded, while work to exempt a further 46 is underway.
“The DPE initiated the work to segregate these hospitals, working with the Department of Health. As government, we are continuously working to determine what other facilities can be isolated from the integrated grid. In certain instances it is not possible,” Minister Gordhan said.
“It is regrettable that as a country we do not have an adequate supply of electricity. This is the reason we have loadshedding, and our efforts are targeted at ensuring that our generation capacity is urgently increased,” Minister Gordhan added.
“The loadshedding that is affecting families, schools, health care and business facilities is regrettable. This is not wilful, and it is not in the absence of continued and determined efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of loadshedding,” Minister Gordhan said.
Minister Gordhan said it was disheartening that some political elements were so devoid of any empathy and were seeking to use the suffering caused by loadshedding to score cheap political points. Most notable in this regard were the attempts by Build One South Africa (BOSA) Leader Mmusi Maimane to capitalize on the suffering of citizens for political mileage.
Minister Gordan said the DPE’s decision to appeal the recent ruling by the North Gauteng High Court on loadshedding was about ensuring that current and ongoing efforts to stabilize the national grid were not compromised due to the ongoing need to balance supply and demand for electricity.
Media enquiries:
Ellis Mnyandu
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E-mail: Ellis.Mnyandu@dpe.gov.za
