Ramokgopa lauds Eskom’s improved performance

Ramokgopa was giving the last power update for the year in Tshwane on Monday, where he stated that Eskom's managed to keep the lights on for over 270 consecutive days.

Last week Eskom revealed it expects to return to profitability for the first time in nearly a decade - projecting a R10 billion profit in 2025.

Ramokgopa says Eskom's ability to generate enough electricity in recent months is a small part of planned improvement to the grid.

“It’s an important milestone but we’re not celebrating the fact that we’ve had 272 days of no load shedding, we’re simply marking the fact that in our quest to end load shedding its important that we’re able to take account of these small milestones.”

At the same time, Ramokgopa acknowledged that the average South African household is battling to keep up with utility bills, which impacts revenue collection for municipalities.

Eskom has registered a significant hike in municipal debt, which is sitting at nearly R75 billion.

This comes as the National Energy Regulator of South Africa is expected to deliver its final determination on the tariff increase request for the next three years.

Ramokgopa said they were in talks with the utility and the South African Local Government Association to tackle the problem.

“It’s important that we fashion a solution to address this and accept that we have an economic problem, and the great majority of people have to make hard choices. It’s a black Christmas for some, and then we’ll be switching them off.

“Whatever the tariff increase will be, whether 10%, 15%, 30% or 36%, they can’t afford what’s before them and we’re just pushing them deeper into conditions of poverty.”

Ramokgopa added that while the utility managed to keep load shedding at bay, there were still communities experiencing load reduction and intermittent supply. He said the goal of providing universal access to uninterrupted power supply remains a priority for his department. 

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