Mantashe was speaking at this year’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Monday.
According to eNCA, Mantashe said that the power disruptions in 2022 have led to a decline in mining production across commodities. “It is estimated that load-shedding costs the economy about R1 billion a day. Mining production fell by about 9% in November 2022, having a significant negative impact on mining production.
Mantashe says there are plans to resolve continuous blackouts within a year, namely by maintaining power stations, buying electricity from neighbouring countries, and hiring more skilled personnel at Eskom, as reported by SABC News.
“As the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, we’ve put forth four points that we think need attention if we’re going to overcome load-shedding within the next 12 months.
“The first one is improving the availability factor of electricity through a focused, funded plan of maintenance at existing power stations, the procurement of emergency and short-term power from existing facilities in other private power plants, as well as the purchase of additional electricity in neighbouring countries… and, finally, to improve Eskom’s skill capacity.
“This proposal has been put forward for resolving load-shedding in the next 12 months, and this will give us space to work on long-term energy security for the country.”
