The Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has blamed municipalities for implementing load reduction, even though most parts of the country did not experience loadshedding for more than 100 days. The minister was briefing the media on electricity distribution and generation performance today.

BLAMING THE MUNICIPALITIES

Ramokgopa said that mismanagement and poor technical capacity at the municipal level have resulted in the recent implementation of load reduction, causing electricity shortages for some consumers. "Today I stand before you with a new crisis that has emerged. We are having a situation where many households go on for hours in a day with no electricity," he said. He added that they are now dealing with a different problem, exposed by the fact that the Eskom generating side has been doing exceptionally well in ensuring that they meet demand. "We had load shedding, where demand exceeded supply. Now we're sitting with a different problem,' he said.

MAINTANANCE ISSUES

 He said that by now, they know that the threat and risk have come to pass as a result of perennial underinvestment in the distribution infrastructure by municipalities. "So, I'm talking about transformers and substations. So as a result of that and the issue of poor planning and mismanagement from one municipality to another, there are issues of poor capacity in other municipalities, such as technical capacity." Ramogkopa said there's little to no investment that has been made in the replenishment, maintenance, upkeep, and modernisation of infrastructure. "As a result of that, municipalities are under severe strain, and then they are forced to implement load reduction," Ramokgopa said.