During his first presidential briefing for the year on Thursday, Magwenya said the president remained seized with finding a sustainable solution to the current energy crisis.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has demanded the national energy crisis committee work with more urgency and speed to implement the national energy plan as a means to end load shedding.
During his first presidential briefing for the year on Thursday, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the president remains seized with finding a sustainable solution to the current energy crisis.
His comments came as the country was plunged into stage 6 power cuts this week.
“Over the next day or so, there may very well be meetings of the national energy crisis committee to look at urgent measures that can be taken, but also to give more direction with respect to the execution of the national energy plan,” he told reporters.
Magwenya said Ramaphosa was being briefed regularly about the situation at Eskom.
Meanwhile, discussions have also been underway about whether millions of rands in debt owed to Eskom by municipalities should be written off.
“More details will be provided by the Minister of Finance, hopefully in his budget address. It’s still early to give a definitive response in that regard at the moment.”
On the back of the power outages, consumers will now also be expected to fork out more for less electricity after the national energy regulator, Nersa, approved an 18% price hike on Thursday.
The presidency said the ever-increasing cost of living was concerning to the president, but he could not get involved in a statutory process governing price hikes.
By:Lindsay Dentlinger
For more information visit: ewn.co.za
Comments