By: Natasha Archary
Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan has reiterated that government remains committed to ending loadshedding and relieving the hardship that the power crisis has caused.
In a statement issued on Monday, 29 May, Gordhan noted that his department had already initiated efforts with the Department of Health and Eskom to identify 213 hospitals for exemption from loadshedding.
Of the 213 hospitals, 76 were already excluded, according to Gordhan, with work underway to exempt a further 46 hospitals from loadshedding.
The Minister expressed regret at the hardship that loadshedding has imposed on South Africans and vowed to push ahead with coordinated efforts to urgently increase the country’s electricity generation capacity to mitigate the impact and severity of loadshedding.
“The Department of Public Enterprises initiated the work to segregate these hospitals, working with the Department of Health. As government, we are continuously working to determine what other facilities can be isolated from the integrated grid.
In certain instances it’s not possible.
It is regrettable that as a country we do not have an adequate supply of electricity. This is the reason we have loadshedding, and out efforts are targeted at ensuring that our generation capacity is urgently increased.”
Public Enterprises Minister, Pravin Gordhan
Gordhan said it was disheartening that some political elements were devoid of any empathy and were seeking to use the suffering caused by loadshedding to score cheap political points.
This comes after Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader, Mmusi Maimane sought to lay culpable homicide charges against Gordhan and government, following the death of a 3-year old due to loadshedding.
On Thursday, 25 May, 3-year old Neyamiah Eaton from Bromhof, Johannesburg, died in her mother’s arms en-route to hospital, after the inverter for her breathing machine ran out of power due to ongoing outages in the area.
“Most notable in this regard were the attempts by BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane to capitalize on the suffering of citizens for political mileage.
The DPE’s decision to appeal the recent ruling by the North Gauteng High Court on loadshedding was about ensuring that current and ongoing efforts to stabilize the national grid were not compromised due to the ongoing need to balance supply and demand for electricity.”
Gordhan in response to BOSA leader, Mmusi Maimane seeking to lay culpable homicide charges against him
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