“A Gauteng without load-shedding is loading.”
These were the words of Gauteng Premier, Panyazi Lesufi, at the Gauteng Energy Expo earlier this month. The summit involved community organisations, municipalities, councillors, and businesspeople to determine how best to collectively tackle overwhelming load-shedding and other electricity challenges.
The Premier said that the provincial government is determined to connect areas such as Dobsonville, Slovoville, and Diepkloof in Soweto that do not have electricity to the grid. He said:
“We have committed ourselves that by the 1 of January 2024 these communities will be connected. We will do everything within our powers to replace the transformers, we will do everything in our powers that the substations that blew are replaced and we will do everything in our power that cables that were stolen are replaced come January.”
“We also commit that the power stations that are non-functional or they were closed in our province… we have two in Johannesburg, we have one in Ekurhuleni, and another one in Tshwane. We are moving in speed to make sure that they come and join the main grid and they are repaired by end of January next year.”
Some households have had no electricity because their transformers are not functional. Others because of criminality. Lesufi explained:
“We are stepping in as a department to tell Eskom it’s fine, we will take it as the provincial government through City Power. We will ask City Power to find a replacement for those transformers. We have appointed young people that are police wardens, we have given them the necessary tools of trade like cars, weapons, to now start to patrol strategic areas to eradicate criminals who steal infrastructure.”
In addition to dealing with the crime issue, municipalities around the region have been requested to submit proposals regarding their outstanding debts to Eskom for approval.
Gauteng has a Detailed Plan for Reducing Load-Shedding
Lesufi has been sharing the department’s load-shedding goals at various official gatherings this month.
While speaking to the media at the African National Congress (ANC)’s national working committee meeting at the Turffontein Racecourse, he confirmed that the provincial government has given itself a deadline of January 2024 to end the energy crisis.
One of the topics of discussion at the committee meeting was the province’s plan to deal with the revolving power outages that are causing a massive burden on communities.
Lesufi said the provincial government has a detailed plan that includes securing alternative energy while preserving the existing electrical infrastructure.
“And we are also putting up three power plants that are based in Gauteng alone, either through solar or [other sources], ensuring that those that don’t have electricity have access to solar.”
“We are also improving old electricity plants that were dead in our province, we are re-activating them; that is why we believe by January [2024] we will have an idea whether we can relieve Gauteng from load shedding.”
Things to do during load-shedding.