Exempting hospitals, schools, other critical public facilities from power cuts not possible

JOHANNESBURG - The South African government says exempting schools, hospitals and other critical public facilities from load shedding is not possible.

Last year, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria made a landmark ruling that stated government should take reasonable steps to ensure critical public facilities were exempted from load shedding.

The court found that load shedding these facilities was unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the same court is hearing arguments from government and Eskom on their leave to appeal the decision.

State representative, Marumo Moerane, said the court order was inappropriate and breached the principles of the separation of powers.

Moerane said the case had over 20 respondents, ranging from the electricity and finance ministers, Cyril Ramaphosa and the Eskom CEO.

He said the order did not make clear what each person or entity should be responsible for.

"The order, as granted by the court, not only suffers from the question of vagueness but also it’s not readily implementable."

During Moerane's arguments, Judge Norman Davis reminded the State advocate that the electricity minister submitted an affidavit to court saying he was chief co-ordinator of all government entities that related to curbing load shedding.