The current power crisis at Eskom has forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to cut his international trip short and return home. It has now been learnt that Ramaphosa is expected to come back from London on Monday, 19 September 2022, in the wake of the embattled power utility’s decision to implement stage 6 load shedding indefinitely.
Eskom announced in the early hours of the morning that Stage 6 loadshedding will be implemented from Sunday. This comes after the tripping of generation units at each of the Kusile and Kriel power stations. The country has been under different stages of loadshedding since Monday, with the main cause being the trip of old generation units, the low dam levels and diesel supply.
RAMAPHOSA COMING BACK HOME
President Cyril Ramaphosa was first in the US to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, before jetting to the UK for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Ramaphosa was expected to return to the US and address the UN General Council, but the current electricity crisis means this is no longer on the agenda.
“The President has just finished an urgent virtual meeting which he convened with all the relevant Ministers and officials. This was in between attending to the lying in state of Her Majesty and the King’s reception tonight. He wanted a briefing on what led to so many units tripping taking the country back to a situation that had been managed. He further wanted to understand what could be done immediately to resolve the current state of load-shedding,” said Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.
The DA had previously called for Ramaphosa to return home and address the load shedding situation.
“Over the past few weeks, Ramaphosa has ignored several DA warnings that his Energy Response Plan had veered off the track due to an ineffective National Electricity Crisis Committee (NECC),” the party’s Kevin Mileham said.
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