While Western Cape Premier Alan Winde understands the rationale for a Gauteng High Court ruling on critical services’ loadshedding exemption, he believes this is practically impossible.
Also read: And just like that, stage 6 loadshedding is back once more
This follows last week’s judgement, which would secure uninterrupted electricity supply for all public healthcare facilities, schools and police stations, has been criticised by the government and energy analysts for its nearly impossible implementation.
There is widespread consensus that even if the government and Eskom could manage to adhere to the ruling, the risk of a national blackout would become significantly higher, at an substantial cost to Eskom and the National Treasury.
The judgement ruled that where it was not possible to isolate and exempt facilities embedded in their surrounding networks, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan had to ensure that these facilities got generators or other alternate energy supplies to provide uninterrupted electricity.
According to Winde, provinces would need to build dedicated feeders for schools, police stations, and hospitals at tremendous cost, or municipalities would have to take the networks out of the schedules and increase loadshedding for the remaining areas.
‘Providing these installations with standby generators would also be very expensive and I’m not sure who is expected to pay for this, given that these installations are in both Eskom and municipal-supplied areas.’
‘The Western Cape government (WCG), however, wholeheartedly agrees with the court that power blackouts impact prejudicially on the constitutional rights of all South Africans.’
‘The WCG is already taking steps to protect key service delivery in the areas of healthcare and education,’ Winde said.
‘Our initiatives to protect the delivery of critical services to communities despite chronic blackouts, demonstrate the provincial government’s deep commitment to citizens.’
‘Eskom itself pointed out the dire situation with their operations, setting out in great detail the disastrous political decisions responsible for our present situation,’ Winde said.
Winde detailed the devastating effects that electricity disruptions were having in a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa sent in January.
‘In short, basic service delivery in this province, as I am sure in other provinces as well, is under severe threat,’ Winde said.
‘The question remains, who will pay for the massive expansion of grid capacity and emergency measures desperately needed to ensure critical services are safeguarded from load shedding? The cost implications are significant.’
‘Funds should be coming from the national government to provinces and municipalities to support this investment,’ he said.
‘Not forgetting that Eskom also conceded in their submissions to the court that rolling blackouts cause human suffering and have a detrimental impact on citizens’ fundamental human rights.’
Also read:
Industry CEOs warn that loadshedding could lead to food shortages
Picture: Western Cape Government / Facebook