Ramaphosa: Impossible to exempt schools, hospitals from load shedding
President Cyril Ramaphosa says it is not practically possible for the government to exempt hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations from the power cuts as ordered by a High Court ruling.
Ramaphosa answered questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, where members of parliament questioned the government's decision to challenge the court ruling.
On Friday last week, Judge Norman Davis ordered Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan to "take all reasonable steps" within 60 days to ensure that the ruling is implemented.
The ruling follows various political parties and organisations like the UDM, IFP, ActionSA, and the National Union of Metalworkers launching a legal bid to spare hospitals and clinics, 23 000 public schools and police stations from load shedding.
They also applied to exempt water and sanitation services, small businesses that deal in perishable goods, and cellphone networks from load shedding, but the judgment only focused on education, health and policing facilities.
The judgment found that there had been repeated breaches by the state of its constitutional and statutory duties and that these breaches infringe citizens' rights to healthcare, security and education.
On Monday, Gordhan announced that his department will lodge an urgent appeal.
Ramaphosa said the decision to appeal the ruling doesn't seek to undermine the courts, but it is the only way to save the grid from collapsing.
"Load shedding is the last resort. If we ever wanted that there should be no load shedding, the grid will collapse because a number of units are not at the time available," said Ramaphosa.
"So, as much as we want that electricity must be generated for all at one go, it is just practically, engineering wise not practical.
“It is for this reason that government want to shed light through this whole process on the impracticality of doing all that.”
He told MPs that he would personally want all hospitals and schools to be exempt.
"But from an engineering point of view, I am told it is practically impossible to do.”
Ramaphosa said the reason for approaching the court through an appeal process is to clarify the impracticality of the decision.
"It is not being done in an arrogant way or second-guessing the court, it is actually being done to ensure that we save the grid because otherwise, it would collapse if we were to implement that judgment in full."
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