State ‘must spend to end power crisis’

SA should not shy away from spending to fix the power crisis, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said before a cabinet decision later in April on his proposals to end the worst power blackouts on record.

Ramokgopa, appointed in March to the newly created role, was speaking in an interview less than two months after the Treasury granted Eskom R254bn of debt relief over the next three years.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has made repeated attempts to improve power availability but has failed to make progress.

Ramokgopa said he thought focusing on improving the performance of Eskom’s ailing coal-fired generation plants was the best opportunity to lower the intensity of power outages. But other interventions were needed, including investing in the capacity of the national grid and maintaining large outlays on diesel for Eskom’s emergency open-cycle gas turbines.

“Continued high levels of load-shedding penalise the SA economy and cause untold injury to the poor and our ability to attract investment,” he said.

If SA borrowing costs rose to fund diesel purchases then that was a necessary trade-off given the effect outages were having on unemployment and growth prospects, Ramokgopa said.

“I am presenting to cabinet and they will make that determination [on how to address the power crisis] at the end of the month,” the minister said.

Ramokgopa said grid constraints meant some renewable energy projects that had already been built were being throttled and new projects were being jeopardised. Another set of interventions the cabinet would consider included Eskom investing more in the coal mines it bought from to ensure better quality supplies and allowing Eskom to buy directly from original equipment manufacturers rather than from intermediaries, he said.