President’s load-shedding court papers confirm his abdication of responsibility, Cape Town ready to help

28 February 2023

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says national government is undoubtedly responsible for the country’s load-shedding crisis despite claims by President Ramaphosa that he has no legal obligation to do anything about South Africa’s biggest crisis

'President Cyril Ramaphosa – in court papers - has denied any legal duty to supply electricity, which he claims is the responsibility of municipalities alone. This only confirms what we have known for a long time now – that the President has no real plan to end load-shedding, and has long ago abdicated responsibility for our country's biggest crisis. Under national government's watch, Eskom was brought to its knees by state capture, power stations have been poorly built on the back of corrupt ANC-linked contracts, and any new generation projects have been unacceptably delayed. For years, national red tape has prevented local governments from taking steps to bring new generation online.

'Given that the President now views solutions to load-shedding to be the sole duty of local governments, Cape Town invites the President to support our programme to end load-shedding over time. We are ready to fix national government's load-shedding mess, and will welcome the transfer of additional tax revenues to us so that we can end load-shedding even further. If you're not going to spend the money fixing load-shedding, then at least send more of it to us, so that we can do it,' said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

Mayor Hill-Lewis said Cape Town would also alert the President of any red tape standing in the way of the City's plans to buy power on the open market.

Cape Town is the first city in the country to offer households and businesses cash for their excess rooftop solar power. The City is set to start paying businesses cash for power before June, and residents will be able to start selling power for cash later this year.

Cape Town is forging ahead with its three-phase procurement for Load-shedding Protection, with the goal of protecting residents from the first four stages of Eskom's load-shedding.

A 200MW procurement window for renewable energy concluded last year, with contracts to be awarded later this year.

The second of the three-phase procurement is the 'Power Heroes programme', an initiative to pay residents incentives for voluntary energy savings, which will entail automated remote switching off of power-intensive devices at peak times.

The "demand response tender" for this programme, launched in October last year, is currently in the evaluation phase, and will also be awarded within the coming months.

The third phase of procurement will be launched in March. This will take the form of a Dispatchable Energy tender, expected to yield around 500MW for Cape Town's grid.

This tender will focus on both renewable energy and dispatchable technologies, such as battery storage and gas to power.

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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office