Pravin Gordhan: There is no magic formula for load shedding

Pravin Gordhan: There is no magic formula for load shedding. The nation was told to be patient as engineers are currently travelling around the country to find the root cause of the problem. There is no end in sight to load shedding.

Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan said only after these investigations will people know where they stand regarding the problem.

“We don’t have a magic formula. This is not about whether Pravin Gordhan or Jabu Mabuza has a magic wand that can actually enable us to say load shedding is over,” said Gordhan.

He said it was going to be a huge struggle to fix problems at the power utility.

Gordhan, flanked by Eskom chairman Mabuza, CEO Phakamani Hadebe and COO Jan Oberholzer, briefed journalists on the crisis at Eskom in Rosebank, Joburg, yesterday.

The country has been experiencing Stage 4 load shedding for five days in a row. Gordhan said it needed to be established why only 28 000 megawatts of power was available when 48 000 was installed.

Mabuza said the crisis exists because people stole money intended to fix problems at Eskom. He said they’ve taken a decision not to fix old power stations, but rather build new ones.

“The option is to build new ones, but we don’t have the time. In the past five years, there has been no routine maintenance. That’s why we have this problem. The new power stations are not producing the required capacity and the old ones are tripping regularly.”

He said Independent Power Producers were not the cause of problems, as some suggested.

Source: Daily Sun