And as the unprecedented shutdown of mines went into a fourth day, Reuters reports, South African blue chip shares fell as much as 3 percent when the JSE opened on Monday.Analysts estimated that hundreds of millions of rands have already been lost by the mining sector.DA leader Helen Zille met President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria on Monday afternoon and reportedly presented him with the party's emergency proposals to alleviate the crisis. According to a Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs report, load-shedding is a last resort to prevent a collapse of the national grid.
The risk of load-shedding remained high at least until 2013 unless immediate actions were taken to "ameliorate" the situation, the report said. And South Africans could expect to pay much more for electricity in the future, as current pricing only covered half the value of power plants. Electricity generation reserve margins had to be maintained at levels which calculated peak demand, otherwise the national supply system could become unstable, leading to an interruption of supply.
