Electricity minister says it does "not look possible" to end load shedding this year

JOHANNESBURG - ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told the nation that rolling blackouts could be history by the end of the year.

But the man tasked with that job, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says it's practically impossible.

READ: Energy minister outlines plans to end power cuts

Ramokgopa said, "I'm on record that it does not look possible for us to end load shedding by the end of the year and I provided the reasons. So you're going to get close to around, the four units that will come on stream, three at least they're going to give you about 2,400 megawatts, and then you add unit, that will be fully on stream by April 2024, it's about 3,200 megawatts."

"Then there are issues on the demand side although we are very aggressive in relation to the geysers like is said, well be going out public, going on the request for information, and then we got those solutions providers who are designing a facility to help us to finance that."

"You're not going to reach to eight million geysers in a space of the next six months to be realistic, and there's issues around new generation, even if we got the dispensation I've explained, even if we were to get the powership solution from the time of giving them the go ahead to the time we're able to get the megawatts on stream, it's anything between three to four months."