Cape Town - The Department of Social Development (DSD) has set aside R29 million to roll out alternative power supply in the form of generators at about 90 South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) offices.
The department is the third to take this route after the Justice and Constitutional Development and Health Department which are installing generators in courts and conducting due diligence to roll-out solar panels and generators at health facilities, respectively.
This emerged when Social Development minister Lindiwe Zulu was responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Alexandra Abrahams when she enquired about the date generators will be rolled out at all Sassa offices to enable staff to assist grant recipients during load shedding.
In her written response, Zulu said due to the emerging national crisis, a task team has been established to focus on priorities and develop a strategy for implementation of alternative power supply roll-out for 2024/25 financial year.
“This will ensure that scaling up is in line with the strategy and also allow for sufficient funds to be secured for this project,” she said.
Zulu said Sassa has started planning for the rolling out of alternative power supply countrywide.
“The first phase will start at the beginning of the 2023-24 financial year and the second phase at the third quarter of the same financial year,” she said.
The minister added that during the first phase, appropriate alternative power supply will be considered for each local office such as generator, solar, back-up power and others.
“For implementation of the phase, Sassa has identified 90 critical local offices countrywide – 10 per region.
However, in the medium term Sassa plans to develop a strategy to roll out alternative power supply in all local offices across the country.”
Zulu said it was anticipated that the procurement processes for the first phase will be finalised by the end September.
The second phase, which involves the initial roll-out, would begin by October 1 and be completed before end of March 2024.
Zulu said an amount of R44m was budgeted for in the 2023-24 financial year.
“R29m of the funds will be utilised to secure alternative power supply and R14m will be used for local office improvements, which will include physical accessibility, branding, provision of dignity services and network connectivity for 54 offices,” she said.
Zulu said the needs of each office were unique and the assessments should be done for all offices to ensure specifications were accurate before the supply chain processes begin.
“The strategy will inform the second phase (2024/25) of the roll-out which will also determine the allocation and availability of funds.”
The move by the DSD comes as Eskom continued on Monday with Stage 6 load-shedding. Stage 5 will be implemented from 5am until 4pm and then again Stage 6 thereafter.
“This pattern will be repeated until further notice.
“Eskom will publish a further update as soon as any significant changes occur.”
Eskom said breakdowns were standing at 17 325 megawatts of generating capacity while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance was 5 457 megawatts.
“Over the past 24 hours a generation unit each at Camden, Koeberg and Medupi power stations were returned to service.
“In the same period, two generating units at Kriel Power Station were taken offline for repairs. The delays in returning a unit to service at Kendal, Kriel, Medupi and Tutuka power stations have contributed to the capacity constraints.”
Cape Times