The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Thembi Nkadimeng, has urged South Africans to join government in making power cuts a thing of the past.

“Let me urge all South Africans to join hands and support all measures of government to make load shedding a thing of the past and where possible conserve the use of energy to ensure that all of us are able to have access to electricity,” the minister says.

Nkadimeng was speaking during a media briefing to provide an update on the National State of Disaster. The minister was joined by the Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Government announced on Wednesday that it has terminated, with immediate effect, the National State of Disaster declared by the minister of CoGTA on February 9.

This comes after a legal challenge to stop the State of Disaster by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, which questioned its rationality.

“Our decision to terminate this national state of disaster is motivated by the fact that the number of measures that have been taken to achieve the objectives on relieving the impact have been able to assist in getting our systems and processes in place to ensure that government is ready to deal with the challenges,” Nkadimeng says.

Nkadimeng says that since the declaration, government has adopted a wide range of responsibilities in areas of different state organs to mitigate the impact of load shedding and to ensure that they avert a national emergency.