Cape Town - The Western Cape Government (WCG) has announced its plans to set up a task team to help mitigate the impact of load shedding in the province.
Premier Alan Winde and his Cabinet concluded a two-day meeting in the Karoo town of Prince Albert this week.
The power crisis and the WCG’s focus on further enabling energy resilience in the province emerged as key issues which need to remain front and centre in 2023.
“Eskom has been upfront about this. Load shedding will likely worsen as they seek to improve the reliability of our energy infrastructure through their proposed maintenance plan. There will be more pressure on the power grid, along with the possibility of unplanned breakdowns of generation units. We will do everything we can to ameliorate this in 2023,” Winde said.
South Africa is predicted to likely remain susceptible to regular load shedding through at least mid-2023.
A recent study by Cape Town-based research firm, Yazi, confirmed the far-reaching and devastating impact of load shedding on ordinary South Africans trying to eke out a living in the so-called informal economy.
Over 40% of respondents said that their loss of income due to power cuts ranged between R1 000 and R5 000 per month.
Winde said there is clearly added urgency required to find short-term and long-term solutions to protect developing businesses.
He added that the WCG has spent a significant amount of time across its departments working to mitigate the impact of load shedding.
“Work is under way to support businesses, households and vulnerable groups in the face of increased load shedding. While we are continuously reviewing and updating our energy crisis contingency plan and boosting efforts to ameliorate the impact of mass power cuts, the provincial government will still support Eskom in any way it can,” he said.
The cabinet-level task team will look at what the WCG needs to do to further enable businesses, local government, civil society, and other partners to work closer with each other to protect the economy, jobs and the well-being of our citizens.
The premier will work closely with cabinet to set up the task team.
Cape Times