South African politicians have made many promises suggesting that Eskom’s load-shedding would be a thing of the past by 2024. However, energy experts disagree and anticipate that load-shedding will persist for years to come. Politicians such as President Cyril Ramophosa, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, and electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa have all made such promises, with some of their proposed deadlines already passing.
In October 2023, Ramokgopa said load-shedding would reduce significantly in the coming months and end in 2024. He said the outlook for ending load-shedding was positive, with additional generating capacity lined up to be added to the grid. This included the 800MW of generation capacity added by Kusile Power Station’s unit 5 generator, which was synchronised to the grid on 31 December 2023. Ramokgopa promised that South Africans would see substantially reduced load-shedding in the coming months and further indicated that the rotational power cuts would end within a year. However, his promises weren’t as ambitious as Mbalula’s