President Cyril Ramphosa says the government is working tirelessly to ensure that schools and hospitals, among others, are less adversely affected by power outages.
This follows a High Court ruling in Pretoria that the Electricity Minister must take “all reasonable steps” to ensure uninterrupted power to public hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations by 31st January next year.
City Power in Johannesburg has threatened to switch off power supply to hospitals due to nonpayment of services.
Ramphosa says they will address the country’s energy challenges. “We want our schools and hospitals to have the requisite amount of energy, so for us, it’s a confirmation that our government program. We did say that it’s our strategic objective that the issue of energy is affecting all of our societies, and there will be moments when we have load shedding that will affect certain ports of society negatively, but we are going to take steps to ensure that hospitals, schools, and police stations are less adversely affected.”
Ramaphosa speaks on the sidelines of COP28:
