Government plans to challenge latest load shedding court ruling

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan now intends launching a bid to set aside a ruling by the High Court in Pretoria on load shedding. On Friday, the court ruled that police stations, schools, clinics and hospitals should be exempt from load shedding.

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The move comes after several political parties and other sectors of society, including the United Democratic Movement (UDM), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Action SA and the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) approached the courts, asking that several critical entities be spared from power interruptions.

GORDHAN CONCERNED ABOUT IMPLICATIONS OF RULING

Presiding Judge Norman Davis gave Pravin Gordhan 60 days to ensure that certain government facilities are not affected by the electricity crisis. Now Gordhan says his department has serious concerns about the implications of the court ruling on government’s current efforts to stabilise the national grid and eventually make load shedding a thing of the past.

“The department has studied the ruling and has determined through legal advice that the prudent step to take is to lodge an appeal to set aside the ruling and allow for the ongoing efforts to end load shedding to proceed without putting undue risk on the country’s grid infrastructure,” Gordhan said.

“While the department respects the independence of the courts, in this case the department believes that the judgement would have unintended consequences and undermine the very efforts to balance the protection of rights that were ventilated in this case, with the need to stabilise and protect our grid infrastructure”

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan

THE ELECTRICITY CRISIS COULD WORSEN

The court judgement comes as South Africans have had to put up with stage 6 load shedding recently – which equates to nearly 12 hours without electricity a day. The new Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who was brought in to solve the power crisis, had previously warned that the situation could get worse.

Ramokgopa says coal suppliers have to invest in refurbishing SA’s coal-fired power stations and that lack of investment will only lead to more load shedding.

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This article was originally published by Thabo Baloyi.