SA faces 'huge struggle' to overcome load-shedding: Pravin Gordhan

"It's going to be a huge struggle ahead of us to actually overcome this crisis."

This is what public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday during a joint media briefing with Eskom in Rosebank, Johannesburg.

"We understand the frustration. We don’t have a magic formula. This not about whether Pravin Gordhan or Jabu Mabuza or Phakamani Hadebe single-handedly have a magic wand that can actually enable us to wave that wand and say load-shedding is over."

Gordhan was flanked by Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza, Eskom CEO Phakamani Hadebe and Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer.

Gordhan said there was 48,000 megawatts (MW) of power installed in SA, but only 20,000 is available daily.

He said in his opening remarks that 10 to 12 engineers are currently travelling around South Africa, visiting different power stations to give an "independent" view of what needs to be done to fix the power utility.

"In answer to the question, how long will load-shedding last? The direct answer to that question is that we need to complete these investigations and that we will come back to you in the next 10 to 14 days in a similar forum and equally frankly tell you where do we stand on the particular challenges we have."

Eskom briefed Gordhan at the weekend about the collapse of the power supply imported from Cahora Bassa due to cyclone Idai in Mozambique, and a large number of tube failures and breakdowns at local coal-fired power stations.

This is a developing story.