In his 22-page statement, Kedikilwe said the South African government is committed to honouring its power commercial contracts with all the neighbouring countries that have Power Purchase Agreements with Eskom.
The minister said the spare generation capacity in Eskom was caused by unforeseen plant outages; problems with coal deliveries to the power stations; higher-than-expected economic growth; and inclement weather. "All these meant that on that fatal day (24th January 2008), the total load loss was a very significant proportion of the generation capacity. This caused a lot of disruptions and the only option was load shedding otherwise it would have resulted in total system collapse," the minister stated. He said that Botswana Power Corporation (BCP) imports power from South Africa because it was believed that electricity tariffs and electricity connection charges are very high in Botswana. "The business community, led by BOCCIM in particular, and supported by BEDIA and people's representatives, were at the forefront of this campaign calling on Government as well as the BCP to find more affordable means of reducing electricity tariffs and connection charges, as tariffs here, at home, were and still are, comparatively higher than those in our neighbouring states, and were said to be scaring away investment," he stated.
