‘We can’t keep pointing fingers at Eskom’: Makhura responds to frustrations over load-shedding

Gauteng premier David Makhura responded to frustrations at the electricity crisis in the province, saying he is as “sick and tired” as everyone else. 

Makhura recently returned from a  trip to Germany and the Netherlands, where he was working on developing catalytic green hydrogen projects.

The DA called for the premier to return after Eskom implemented stage 6 load-shedding and warned high stages would likely be enforced for the rest of the week. 

The party said if Makhura was a true leader, he would have cut his trip short and returned to deal with the load-shedding disaster.

Speaking to the media during his site visit at the BMW Rosslyn Plant with Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, Makhura said he shares the same frustration as everyone else regarding the constant load-shedding. 

“I was saying earlier on we can’t keep complaining about the energy problem. We can’t keep pointing fingers at Eskom. Those who derive pleasure from complaining should do so. Many of us are sick and tired of not having energy in our homes,” said Makhura. 

“We need to encourage young people to innovate and build these big batteries. We want to support businesses that want to produce microgrids in this industrial zone. If we wait for one big solution one day, it will never come.”

Makhura said a solution was for economic zones to build their own microgrids. 

He said microgrids are smaller energy systems that can supply a power park. 

“Our solution is simple: in the different industrial zones, special economic zones or township enterprise zones, the department of economic development in Gauteng has gone out to the market to look for people who can build microgrids,” he said. 

“We need several interventions to deal with the energy. One is to deal with the problems at Eskom, that's very important and our president is seized with that ... we no longer have the 100MW limit [generation threshold for companies without a licence].”

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