President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that he had asked Eskom not to implement the power tariff increase of 18.65% granted by Nersa earlier this month.
Ramaphosa was delivering his closing address at the African National Congress (ANC)’s Free State conference in Mangaung and admitted that local businesses and households were battling.
“I have personally said to Eskom: ‘Eskom, it will be an injury to our people if we implement this 18% now when we are going through load shedding. Put it in suspense for a while. And so the Eskom board is going to discuss that.”
“Nearby countries that have more energy, more megawatts, we are bringing that in. We’re also going to companies that have installed more capacity and bringing that in. Now, we’re cutting the red tape, there’s been a lot of red tape in the system.”
This statement from the president comes on the back of news that stage three load shedding has been implemented until Monday afternoon.
Eskom announced that two generating units at the Tutuka power station were shut down during the night.
Added to this, a unit at the Arnot power station has not been returned to service, further reducing available capacity.
According to Eskom, Stage 4 power cuts will be implemented from 4pm until 5am on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, BusinessTech Africa reported that following the decision to hike the electricity tariff in South Africa by the energy regulator, Nersa, president Cyril Ramaphosa said his hands were tied.
Speaking after the decision was made, the head of state said, through his spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, that Eskom needs money.
Magwenya reacted to the news that the South African Energy Regulator, Nersa recently announced an 18.65% price hike.
As many South Africans lambasted the decision considering the fact that there is load shedding and a high unemployment rate, it seems many will still find it hard to digest the news.
