Minister of Energy and Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has lauded the performance of Eskom and its fleet over the past two months, as not a "miraculous” act but a testament to science, leadership and the workforce of the State-owned company.
Ramokgopa was speaking during a media briefing on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, held at the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State on Monday.
On Sunday, the power utility marked 200 consecutive days of not implementing load shedding.
READ | Eskom records 200 consecutive days of no load shedding
“There was an effort to ensure that at a station level, we get people with the right skills, credentials, people with the opposite experience to be able to help us to resolve that challenge.
“[The team] identified about six stations that are responsible for about 70% of the losses. There’s a great deal of science that the board and the executive team applied in the resolution of this question. So, this is not an act of miracle (sic)…. It’s steeped in science and the team was able to fashion a cogent response,” he said.
He praised the leadership and ongoing efforts shown in all spheres to turn around the power utility.
“When we dissect these 200 consecutive days of no load shedding, there’s an appreciation that there are multiple elements – some not in your face – that contributed to this. [What] I want to put first and foremost is the issue around leadership.
“Someone had to be in the leadership of executing that. Leadership is key…[and] sacrosanct to the resolution of any problem.
Eskom is an exceptional template and illustration of what can be achieved if we were to invest in leadership,” Ramokgopa said, adding that tackling the load shedding question also required finding the right people with the right skills.
“What the team did was to ensure that all the critical vacancies are filled. The team could do that on the back of an Eskom that is performing but also on the back of the fiscal support that was received from National Treasury.
“Leadership stability and not just stability but appointing the right people with the right credentials and not only that, but ensure there’s alignment in relation to their credentials and where you assign to discharge their responsibilities,” he said.
Energy Availability Factor
Although the Minister praised the Eskom team, he warned that there is more work to be done to completely eradicate load shedding.
“When we come to a period in our life here in South Africa, and I suspect it will be very soon, where we stop celebrating and counting the number of 'no load shedding' days, then that will represent a major victory for us. The fact that we are celebrating this, it means that we [are] still in an awkward place. We are not necessarily out of the woods yet, so we will not tell any lies or claim easy victories.
“This generation recovery has not necessarily reached its full potential. We are on the right path and all matrices are pointing to a positive performance. In fact, we are far exceeding where we expected to be at this time. We still have an ambition of achieving that 70% [Energy Availability Factor] by 2025 and the team is on course to do exactly that,” Ramokgopa said. – SAnews.gov.za
