Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, praised employees at Lethabo, one of the best performing power stations in the country, for “good work” in resolving load-shedding.
On Tuesday, Ramokgopa paid a visit to the Lethabo power station in the Free State.
“The last time I was here [in March], Lethabo station was number one in Eskom’s entire fleet.” “If you like, you were Eskom’s beacon, shining light, and lighthouse,” he said.
According to Ramokgopa, the station has lost its position as the best performing power generation station. He explained that the drop in Lethabo’s performance was due to generation issues with two of their units.
“I believe your performance has been very consistent. I’d like to thank you for your contribution and express our gratitude and pride on behalf of the cabinet for the work you’re doing at Lethabo to help us solve the country’s load-shedding problem.”
According to a report presented in parliament on Wednesday, Eskom will focus on sustaining performance at Medupi, Lethabo, and peaking stations over the next 12 to 18 months to increase the energy availability factor to 65% by March 2024 and reduce the severity of load-shedding.
Ramokgopa praised the Lethabo employees just hours before Eskom announced a load-shedding schedule that increased from stage 2 on Tuesday to stage 4 in the early hours of Wednesday.
Eskom attributed this to a lack of emergency reserves and generation capacity because of four power generating units failing to return to service.
The minister faced backlash on social media following Eskom’s abrupt implementation of stage 4.
Sibusiso Gigaba, a disgruntled resident, wrote: “The truth is that we South Africans are not proud and see no progress.” As we speak, we are in stage 4 load-shedding. We appear to be taking one step forward and two steps back. The cabinet can be proud of its mediocrity; it is accustomed to poor leadership and performance, but we are not.”
“Despite recent assurances from the minister of electricity that Eskom had turned the corner for the better, things are now getting worse,” said another social media user, Michael John Louw. What if we were still in the dead of winter? We would have been at or above stage 8.”