Month: August 2023

Eskom has recorded a significant improvement with its energy generation moving from an average of 28 000 megawatts (MW) to close to 29 000 MW in the past week, Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, announced on Sunday.

“There’s a considerable improvement on the generation side, you can see that we’re beginning to normalise available capacity to be upward of 29 000 MW,” he said.

He also took the time to thank the leadership of Eskom, starting with the Board led by Mpho Makwana, followed by the Acting Eskom CEO Calib Cassim, and the entity’s Head of Generation Bheki Nxumalo and his team.

According to the Minister, from 7 to 11 August, Eskom had a generation capacity of 28 932 MW and exceeded 29 000 MW on two occasions.

Ramokgopa was updating the media on the progress made regarding the one-year implementation of the Energy Action Plan (EAP) and provided a weekly generation outlook.

“During winter, demand did surge and of course, the instrument that the system operator has to balance the grid was to ensure we intensify the stages of load shedding.

“The expectation now is that we’re entering a less severe period of cold and demand is going to tamper down.”

As the team improves generation capacity, they are also working to ensure the long-term sustainability of the units to become more reliable by ramping up planned outages.

“Remember when we went into the winter period, the deliberate act to take out the units for service was going to be reduced so that we have many units as possible producing the megawatts.”

He also told the media that Eskom breached the 60% energy availability factor (EAF) as the demand comes down.

“However, for long-term sustainability, it’s important to take out these units as at when we deem it necessary because when these units come back they sustain levels of performance.”

On unplanned capacity loss factor (UCLF), he said it was also decreasing as well.

By definition, UCLF is the ratio between the unavailable energy of the units that are out on unplanned outages over a period compared to the total net installed capacity of all units over the same period.

According to the Minister, UCLF is still at an average of 15 000 MW from 18 000 MW in previous weeks, with plans to keep it under 14 000 MW.

“An area that continues to be at albatross is on the partial load losses these are the units that are performing at the right levels although they are giving us the megawatts, are not at the level that is desired, which is currently sitting at 6 226 MW.”

He assured the citizens that the state-owned entity that these were receiving attention.

“What we’re going to do and not compromise on is the philosophy of maintenance plan so you’re able to guarantee the performance of these units going into the future.”

He noted the underperforming units were due to historic reasons, including a lack of investment in maintenance.

“I think it’s important that we’re transparent in our conversations and take everyone along in relation to the progress or lack of progress could be making against the target we set ourselves.”

The Minister acknowledged that load shedding is causing “untold” devastation to the South African economy.

“There are people out of jobs and there are many companies that folded and finding it difficult to continue to produce. Retailers have to spend an upfront capital cost to meet the requirements associated with buying generators and operational costs for purposes of keeping the cold chain and their operations going.

“Small businesses in the townships are finding it difficult to continue and investors can’t find a legitimate reason to invest in the South African economy and therefore, there’s an opportunity cost associated with load shedding.”

However, Ramokgopa stressed that Eskom is working around the clock to turn this around by improving underperforming power stations and addressing breakdown issues.

“I’m very optimistic about the future. We set the bar very high. We’re going to improve this energy availability factor.”

Source: South African Government News Agency

Dr Elijah Ogbuokiri, President, Chartered Institute of Development Studies and Administration of Nigeria (CIDSAN), on Saturday attributed the infrastructural deficit in Nigeria and Africa to scarcity of trained developers.

Ogbuokiri said this at a news conference after a stakeholders meeting in Abuja to announce the formation of an institute that would focus on administration and development.

According to him, the purpose of the meeting is to inform Nigerians and the world that a new institute has been chartered in Nigeria with focus on managing the totality of the nation’s administration and development.

He said the meeting discussed strategical measures to make the programmes of the institute viable enough to meet its aims and objectives.

“The stakeholders met to discuss how to handle the programmes of the institute such as examination, induction of new members and inauguration of the council.

“The Chartered Institute of Development Studies and Administration of Nigeria has come to fill critical developmental gaps.

“The board members over the years have been restless with Nigeria’s and African’s developmental failures and mis-steps. This led us into thinking out of the box for a way forward,” he said.

Ogbuokiri said the new institute was established besides corruption and poor leadership.

He said that these developmental failures and mis-steps were traceable to the paucity of professionally trained and equipped development experts that could effectively facilitate the nation’s development journey.

Ogbuokiri said that poor management of development had kept the country where it’s today.

On what motivated the establishment of the institute, the CIDSAN president said “I and the other board members found out that nations are re-thinking development approaches to ensure sustainable development.

”This can only be undertaken comfortably by professionally equipped experts in development studies and administration.

“We felt Nigeria should not be left out, hence our effort in seeking the establishment of the institute,” he said.

On qualification for membership of the institute, Ogbuokiri said CIDSAN as a multi-disciplinary institute, prospective members must go through a certification programme and must be graduates or equivalent.

He said that membership would be drawn from development studies, Social Sciences, Business Administration, Health Science, Engineering or Liberal Arts.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Home Affairs Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has welcomed the interception of 67 Pakistani nationals at the OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng after allegedly entering the country without complying with the immigration laws of the country.

According to the statement released on Sunday, the Pakistanis were denied entry into South Africa in the early hours of today, 13 August 2023, after they failed the immigration test, which included questions about how long their visas entitled them to be in the country.

The department said the 67 Pakistanis with questionable visas were in a flight of 268 passengers that departed for South Africa from Dubai.

“This is a result of a sting operation that was put together after observing certain trends that were suspicious and did not make sense.

“They were interviewed by Immigration Officers and they were asked about where they going and about the purpose of being in South Africa and where they were going to stay given that they were coming here for the first time. They provided conflicting evidence like giving names of non-existent hotels, names of alleged relatives, some of whom did not even exist,” said Motsoaledi.

The Department of Home Affairs Counter Corruption Branch, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), the State Security Agency and the Border Management Authority (BMA) led the sting operation.

The group has since been sent back to their home country at their own cost.

“Essentially, these people wanted to come to South Africa but were unable to explain where they were going and for what reason. There is no other way. They have to return to their home country. We can’t allow such people to enter the country,” Motsoaledi lamented.

Motsoaledi noted that some hotels have complained that there is an increase in the number of Pakistanis who book accommodation and then end up not showing up.

“This means that the hotels lose money with these dubious bookings and also on other potential visitors who are unable to book because the hotels are supposed to be full.”

He said the department has been forced to be more vigilant than ever before.

“We are extremely worried by this new trend and we have noticed that the newly acquired e-Visa system, which is meant to facilitate easier entry into the country by tourists, is being seriously abused by some nationals. We will never allow this,” he added.

Source: South African Government News Agency

Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille has welcomed the agreement reached by the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town to end the devastating taxi strike.

“On behalf of the tourism sector, I wish to express our collective relief that the taxi strike in Cape Town has been called off,” she said on Friday, a day after the stay away was called off immediately.

The strike also dealt a heavy blow to many industries and has severely impacted the lives of residents in Cape Town with children not being able to get to school, people not being able to get to places of work or access other essential services like hospitals and clinics.

Meanwhile, almost a dozen of Golden Arrow buses were torched due to arson attacks since the taxi strike that started on 3 August 2023.

“Visitors to South Africa have also been impacted by the strike and the violence, which affected residents and visitors, is strongly condemned.”

De Lille said she hopes that all parties do all they can to implement the agreement peacefully with no further disruptions, damage to infrastructure and attacks on people.

“The loss of human life during the strike is deeply tragic and we convey our deepest condolences to all families and friends who lost loved ones during the taxi strike violence.

“We sincerely hope that such devastating acts are never repeated again and that all organisations together with government, will work to resolve disputes amicably and within the framework of the law.”

The Minister said the violence and attacks on human lives are unacceptable and uncalled for in the tourism sector.

“We urge all parties to continue to engage peacefully and collaboratively to see progress and fairness for all.”

As a society, she said it was important to acknowledge the important role that all sectors play in the country, including the taxi industry.

“But we must all obey the rule of law and show respect for others as no one is above the law. We hope that all aspects of life, work and travel can now continue as we all work together to grow our economy and create more jobs for our people.”

Meanwhile, she conveyed her heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the tourist who was killed in this incident in Nyanga, Cape Town last week in an incident that is believed to be related to the taxi strike.

“I plead with law enforcement agencies to find the perpetrators of this violent crime as soon as possible.”

According to the reports, the tourist British tourist has been identified as Kar Hao Teoh, 40, who was shot from close range after taking a wrong turn into Nyanga as he drove from Cape Town International Airport with his wife and two-year-old son.

The BBC said Teoh was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex.

Source: South African Government News Agency

The Federal Government on Saturday expressed commitment to transform and promote geological survey activities to global best practices.

The Director-General (D-G) of Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), Dr Abdulrazaq Garba, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Garba said that the agency had trained a lot of its staff members on geological survey activities, adding that the effort was to ensure that the NGSA developed necessary global standard practices required.

“When I came on board as the agency’s D-G, having been in the system and having understood most of the problems or challenges in the system, I came up with three plans, first is generation of data for development, the second is to put in place infrastructural development in the sector that is within the system,” he said.

Garba said that the third plan was to build a strong capacity development across the sector.

According to him, “we have visited geological surveys and institutions across the world and we discovered that both non-technical and technical members of the staff are geo-scientists.

“The non-technical members of the staff work together with the technical and they work in a very good mutual understanding.

“So, in our own effort, we ensure that all the staffers are fully trained – the technical, the administrators, accounts and all the members of staff in general.

“The NGSA is an institution whereby we need to continuously build the capacity of the people because it is a research institution,” he said.

The agency’s boss said that the NGSA has done a lot of training and put credible efforts to ensure a strong collaboration with relevant institutions.

He said that the NGSA partnered Colten University in the area of capacity development, adding that the agency had engaged with embedded staffers on various projects.

He said that the essence of involving such people was not just about getting people to work and get money, but offering knowledge and the necessary experiences to the people.

“When we were about to start our project, we insisted that we must have what is called internationally-recognised competent persons driving the project.

“The reason why the embedded staffers have to be part of it is to ensure that the capacity development of the people trained will be able to do investigation and report according to international policies.

“The same thing with our support staff, we make sure we train them online with the international accounting reporting standard.

“We make sure our accountants are well trained.

“We have a system with the server whereby all the components in the system are available and we ensure that all our staffers will report on international best practices.

“Also, our administrative staffers are sent on training at the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) in Lagos State, to upgrade them on recent developments,” he said.

The director-general said NGSA officials visited other African countries such as Morocco and Nairobi, among others, where non-geologists were trained to enhance their knowledge on geological survey.

He said that the agency had also collaborated with China Geological Survey Bureau Development and Research Center, adding that some of the staffers are presently at the China University of geological survey.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

A social enterprise organisation, Illuminating Minds, said it trained 67 teachers in the Mangu IDP camp in Plateau State on trauma-informed classroom care.

Founder of the organisation, Dr Itari Turner, said in a statement on Saturday that the training tagged “A Teacher with a Difference”, was conducted in collaboration with its partners Shamiri Institute and Charis Healthcare & Community Support Initiative.

Turner stated that the training was carefully designed to help teachers better understand the signs and symptoms of trauma, and how to create a safe and supportive learning environment for children who have experienced trauma.

Turner said that the training was also essential for teachers in IDP camps as many of the children they teach have experienced significant trauma.

“Children who have experienced trauma often have difficulty learning.

“They may be withdrawn, aggressive, or have difficulty paying attention.

“By understanding the signs and symptoms of trauma, teachers can better support these children and help them succeed in school,” she stated.

Turner also stated that the training equally focused on trauma healing for the teachers themselves.

“Teachers need to be able to heal from their trauma to be effective in supporting children who have experienced trauma.

“Teachers who have experienced trauma may find it difficult to connect with children who are also struggling.

“By healing from their trauma, teachers can be more present and supportive for the children they teach,” she said.

Turner called on stakeholders to support and pay attention to the mental health, trauma and education needs of Internally IDPs.

She said that her mission was to visit and train teachers in at least 100 IDP camps across the country by the end of 2024.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria