President Ramaphosa pleased with reduction of load shedding

President Cyril Ramaphosa says he is pleased that the country is beginning to see the implementation of measures to reduce load shedding.

Ramaphosa says the appointment of Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the Minister of Electricity is already yielding positive results that will improve the economy.

The President was speaking to the media in Pretoria on Friday after a government dialogue with the National House of Traditional and Khoi-San leaders on Friday.

Ramaphosa says, “I’m really pleased that at this early stage, we are beginning to see that the measures we have been taking in the National Energy Crisis Committee, Eskom and the board management level and now added with the work of the Minister, we now are moving forward. So, I think we are going to see a great deal of progress with the reduction and bringing down of load shedding, which will make South Africans happy, but which will also improve the performance of our economy.”

He adds that the country is not yet out of the woods.

“We are not yet out of the woods. So, I wouldn’t like to celebrate and say to South Africa that load shedding is now a thing of the past. We are still going to have to do much more work to bring down and eliminate load shedding.”

Eskom reduced load shedding to stage two after six coal-powered stations reached an Energy Availability factor of 70%.

President Ramaphosa says this is all due to the work government and the staff at the power utility have been doing. The economy of the country bore the brunt of the frequent power cuts and contracted in the 4th quarter of last year.