South Africa\u2019s Minister in the Presidency responsible for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, believes that Eskom employees are the heart of resolving the ongoing energy crisis.<\/P>
\u201cMy view has always been the biggest asset for any organisation is its workers and the reason we\u2019re starting from the bottom up is to appreciate and understand the efforts being made at the station level,\u201d he told media on Monday.<\/P>
The Minister said this during a tour of the Duvha Power Station in Mpumalanga, where he kick-started his engagements with management, workers, and unions at Eskom\u2019s 14 power stations nationwide.<\/P>
\u201cI committed to the country that we\u2019ll be at the station level, examining the issues that affect every unit and getting from the station manager, organised labour and workers about what are the interventions, in their opinion, they think are appropriate to help scale up energy availability,\u201d he told media.<\/P>
He shot down the view that his fact-finding exercise was sparked by the national shutdown that has been called by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).<\/P>
However, he said he will, in the next seven days continue to talk with workers to understand the nature and scale of the problem and update the Energy Action Plan (EAP), which President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled last year. <\/P>
Ramokgopa believes that the EAP\u2019s first pillar, which speaks to improving the availability of existing supply system stability and increasing generation capacity was important. <\/P>
He said this would enable Eskom to address the 6 000 MW deficit in the energy ecosystem, which according to the Minister, will be derived from the 81 Eskom existing units across the country.<\/P>
\u201cIt\u2019s important that we have an appreciation that the people who live and breathe these units are the people from Eskom. Some of them have accumulated experience of 25 years,\u201d he said.<\/P>
\u201cWe\u2019re joined at the hip and it\u2019s them who are in the cold face of the day-to-day interaction of these units. But I\u2019m the public face of how we\u2019re going to resolve load shedding.\u201d<\/P>
South Africans have been experiencing lower stages of load shedding for the first time in a long while this past weekend, with some citizens quipping that \u201cthey do not know what to do with so much power\u201d.<\/P>
\u201cTo get to a stage where people find it very strange to have electricity for a day or two days in succession\u2026 underscores the gravity of the problem.\u201d<\/P>
However, he said government\u2019s interventions did not start with the Minister of Electricity.<\/P>
\u201cThe Energy Action Plan has been there and all we\u2019re doing [is] accelerating [the action] and of course, we can see that six power stations are beginning to pick up and the energy availability factor is going up,\u201d he said.<\/P>
Ramaphosa appointed Ramokgopa to the post on 6 March.<\/P>
Ramokgopa\u2019s primary goal, according to the President, will be to drive government\u2019s programme of significantly reducing the \u201cseverity and frequency of load shedding as a matter of urgency\u201d and to expedite government\u2019s work to ensure the full implementation of the EAP.<\/P>
\u201cI am confident about our ability to address the crisis,\u201d he said.<\/P>
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Source: Nam News Network (NNN)<\/P>
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South Africa\u2019s Minister in the Presidency responsible for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, believes that Eskom employees are the heart of resolving the ongoing energy crisis.\u201cMy view has always been the biggest asset for any organisation is its w…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n