Eskom’s main focus is to improve generation capacity to mitigate against the rolling blackouts that the country is currently experiencing.
This was the assurance President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the nation while speaking during an oversight visit at Tutuka Power Station in Mpumalanga on Saturday. Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, energy and mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe, and police minister Bheki Cele accompanied him on the visit.
The power station’s general manager, Sello Mametja, briefed the president regarding the challenges affecting performance at the plant and the actions it was taking to deal with them.
Ramaphosa said Eskom was doing as much as it possibly could to generate the energy that the country needed.
“What is important is to put megawatts on the grid; that is our main focus and a whole lot of other things we will attend to as we move on. Right now my focus, the minister’s focus, the premier and everybody else is to put megawatts on the grid so that they can get all the six units operating at Tutuka Power Station,” Ramaphosa said.
There were currently two units operating at the plant, another one was about to come on stream, and Eskom would work very hard to get the other three on stream as soon as possible, he added.
“When this power station functions well it easily generates 3 500 megawatts, and that is what we want to see Tutuka doing. It is one of the power stations that have always worked well. With a whole lot of problems that we have had, including state capture and corruption, Tutuka has been brought down. Now we are going to lift it again and make sure that Eskom does rise,” he said.
Ramaphosa emphasised that Eskom needed to be repositioned so that it could generate sufficient energy for the country, which was the government’s main focus.
He also highlighted corruption, fraud and the need to procure equipment on time as the main challenges the Tutuka power station is facing.
He said part of the problem was with the government’s systems, in particular for the procurement of spares, that the station needed within a specified period so that units could continue operating.
“The other challenges is (sic) corruption and fraud that is very pervasive in the power station, with a number of people who are involved in fraudulent activities and theft to a point where the theft and fraud makes it very challenging for the power station to be able to operate optimally.
“There are shortages of spares when they are stolen, and they are not able to be replaced on time to be able to get the power station to function properly - that is a problem that is being attended to now,” he said.
He added that corruption was being dealt with and people were being arrested as a result of action taken by management.
“It is quite challenging to a point where some management have to get protection because they are threatened as they are dealing with corrupt activities. I am very impressed with the quality of managers we have here because they are not only dealing with those challenges, but they are displaying a great deal of commitment to get the power station to be working,” Ramaphosa said.
On the issue of maintenance, he said Eskom had a programme to ensure that all generating capacity would be restored.
“We are paying closer attention to maintenance and increasing the megawatts that will get onto the grid. I am pleased with the plans Eskom has in place. We should be able to have a great deal of relief from load-shedding in a short space of time,” Ramaphosa said.
Meanwhile, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said that load-shedding could be paused by the end of this week. He said that some of Eskom’s power stations could be back to generation next week.
SAnews.gov.za
