By Thys Khiba – President Cyril Ramaphosa has cut short his second officialinternational trip to return to South Africa, to attend to problems at power utility Eskom.
This comes after the power utility announced implementation of Stage 6 load shedding.
“Following the tripping of a generating unit each at Kusile and Kriel power stations, Stage 6 load shedding was implemented effective 04:16. Eskom appeals to the public to help conserve electricity,” said Eskom Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha.
Ramaphosa, who has concluded his official working visit to the United States, will not return to New York after attending Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
“The two leaders deliberated on a range of critical issues of national, regional and global importance during their bilateral meeting, where trade, investment, global peace and stability, health, as well as climate change and the just energy transition were discussed,” Vincent Magwenya, Spokesperson to President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
In 2019, the South African President decided to cut short his official visit to Egypt, after holding talks with President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi to attend to Eskom crisis.
South African households and businesses are for the second time this year suffering from the implementation of long stretchedload shedding as Eskom announced Stage 6 power cuts.
2022 has been reported as the worst year for scheduled power cuts by the power utility Eskom.
On the 18 September 2022, Eskom announced more than 100 days power cuts in 260 days of this year.
In July, Ramaphosa boldly said they can no longer be excuses that anyone can offer and announced government will introduce regulations to allow new generation energy projects to come online faster, on an urgent basis, for a limited time.
Announcements made by the President were meant to deal with the ongoing energy crisis. With a two-pronged strategy to find the capacity to meet the current shortfall and limit load shedding immediately.
He admitted that load shedding of the current level is a significant deterrent for investment in the country and causes untold economic damage to South Africa.
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