Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured delegates attending the Africa Mining Indaba this week that the government is doing all that it can to remove all impediments and create an environment that will drive sustainable growth in mining in South Africa.
Ramaphosa was delivering the keynote address at the mining indaba being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Tuesday.
He said the electricity crisis has had a huge impact on the mining sector.
“We have a responsibility as government, industry, labour and communities to ensure that our mining industry is able to grow, to become more globally competitive and to be a pioneer in the global drive towards sustainable development. To realise these objectives, we need to, firstly, achieve a secure supply of electricity; secondly, accelerate economic reforms to improve the operating environment; thirdly, tackle illegal mining and damage to infrastructure; and fourthly, improve the regulatory environment,” he said.
Ramaphosa added that the government was well on its way to addressing the load-shedding crisis.
“We are facilitating investment in new generation capacity by private producers by, among other things, removing the licensing threshold for embedded generation projects. Eskom is looking to purchase surplus power from companies with available generation capacity.
“Mining is leading the way in developing other new energy technologies. The mining sector has been making significant moves towards generating its own electricity. Not only will these projects support mining operations themselves and bring down operating costs, but they will also add much-needed power to the country’s overall supply and support South Africa’s decarbonisation process,” he said.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Monday that load shedding was costing the country R1 billion a day.
Mantashe said key focus areas to stem load shedding included the maintenance of existing power stations, buying electricity from neighbouring countries and improving the skill capacity at Eskom.
“At the centre of our current energy challenges is the decline in the Energy Availability Factor (EAF) from an estimated 75% to 49%. Therefore, the most feasible and logical option to exercise to resolve load shedding is by arresting the decline in the EAF. Failure to attend to and address the declining Eskom plant performance and subsequent higher stages of load shedding is an irritation to society and has the potential of pitting society against the government,” he said.
Cape Times