President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the National Council of Provinces that the government is working on exempting critical infrastructure, especially hospitals, from rolling blackouts.
“As many as 77 hospitals have been exempted to date. Eskom has identified a further 46 hospitals which can be excluded from load-shedding with additional infrastructure,” Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
He said the government’s primary focus was reducing the severity and frequency of load-shedding through interventions coordinated by the National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM).
Earlier this month Ramaphosa made changes to his cabinet, announcing Kgosientso Ramokgopa as the electricity minister, who has been tasked with focusing solely on ending load-shedding.
“Work is under way to ensure that critical facilities are excluded from load-shedding where the network configuration allows for this and where it is feasible to do so without increasing the risk of higher stages of load-shedding,” Ramaphosa said.
Other critical infrastructure includes commuter rail, bulk water systems and facilities essential to the production of energy.
“Many of our public health facilities, including hospitals and community health centres, have back-up power supply systems, which include generators. This will reduce disruptions to service provision.”
Eskom working on shielding hospitals from load-shedding, says Ramaphosa
Image: GCIS.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the National Council of Provinces that the government is working on exempting critical infrastructure, especially hospitals, from rolling blackouts.
“As many as 77 hospitals have been exempted to date. Eskom has identified a further 46 hospitals which can be excluded from load-shedding with additional infrastructure,” Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
He said the government’s primary focus was reducing the severity and frequency of load-shedding through interventions coordinated by the National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM).
Earlier this month Ramaphosa made changes to his cabinet, announcing Kgosientso Ramokgopa as the electricity minister, who has been tasked with focusing solely on ending load-shedding.
“Work is under way to ensure that critical facilities are excluded from load-shedding where the network configuration allows for this and where it is feasible to do so without increasing the risk of higher stages of load-shedding,” Ramaphosa said.
Other critical infrastructure includes commuter rail, bulk water systems and facilities essential to the production of energy.
“Many of our public health facilities, including hospitals and community health centres, have back-up power supply systems, which include generators. This will reduce disruptions to service provision.”
Court grapples with government’s plan to alleviate impact of load-shedding
He said the department of health has been working with Eskom and municipalities to exclude health facilities from load-shedding where possible and the two were working on exempting more hospitals.
In the past two weeks Ramokgopa has been visiting power stations speaking to managers, workers, trade unions and engineers to find solutions to load-shedding.
“Through this we should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this is an initiative that will lead to less load-shedding.”
Ramaphosa said efforts were also under way to fight illegal electricity connections, vandalism and destruction of infrastructure in communities.
“We have set up teams in our law enforcement agencies and quite a lot of progress has been made to pinpoint some of those who are through syndicate activity involved in all of this.”
Partnerships should be forged between police, communities and private security.
“We are not sitting back and doing nothing, we are involved through our various agencies from intelligence, criminal intelligence and the SAPS working together with a number of private entities and Eskom. We are making progress.”
Eskom to insist load-shedding exemption to hospitals and schools poses risk of grid collapse
Ramaphosa said discussions were continuing between Eskom and water supply entities as well as local governments.
“There are some local governments who have already set up generators to ensure that when there is load-shedding it does not interfere negatively on their water works or pump stations.”
Ramaphosa was also asked about a Sunday Times report which revealed that ministers and their deputies were being shielded from blackouts, with the government spending more than R7m to buy generators and inverters for their official homes.
It emerged in parliament last week that the department of public works has been “procuring and installing alternative power supply systems” at ministerial homes in Pretoria’s affluent suburbs such as Waterkloof at a cost of R7.04m since 2019.
These alternative power supply systems include generators, solar systems and inverters that keep the lights burning and appliances on for ministers and their deputies while ordinary taxpayers remain in the dark during load-shedding.
This was revealed by new public works minister Sihle Zikalala in response to written questions by DA MP Leon Schreiber.
Ramaphosa said the government was not prioritising ministers’ homes over hospitals and other critical infrastructure.
“It’s not one over the other, it is a process that is looking at particularly how load-shedding impacts on those in hospitals. So it is not making a choice over the other,” he said.
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