Government and Eskom will find money for diesel

Arising from serious concerns about the risk of higher levels loadshedding in the coming months, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr Pravin Gordhan, on Sunday evening had an urgent meeting with Eskom Board members, led by the Chairperson, Mr Mpho Makwana.

Minister Gordhan was informed that the relevant Eskom Board Committee had recently engaged with power station managers and the generation management team to apprise the Board of the situation in the power stations.

The DPE is urgently working with National Treasury and Eskom for it to find the money to buy supplies of diesel.

In addition, DPE will be engaging Eskom on the following urgent issues:

1. Looking for savings within the existing Eskom funds for the ongoing purchase of diesel and maintenance;

2. The assessment of the Board on the challenges Eskom faces in current fleet of power stations and the exceptional interventions that must be made to create more reliability in the performance of power stations;

3. Urgently seeking the assistance of all the enforcement bodies to immediately bring a halt to the local level disruptions and criminal activities which impact on power stations; and

4. Eskom undertakes to continuously ensure that its officials are made more cognizant of the importance of a reliable electricity system to the economic and social well-being of all South Africans.

All possible efforts are being made to ensure that all of the measures in the national electricity plan are implemented. "