Well, about the recovery plan, the Minister of Finance is doing the final touches. He has received a lot of inputs from the public. Where necessary, these inputs will be integrated, and the final strategy will be published. I am sure that the Minister has consulted far enough.
Economic strategy is not something that is cast in stone; it will always be improved as we go. But somewhere we should agree and say, this is what we agreed upon. Let's steam ahead. So, that will happen. But when it comes to the current load shedding, on behalf of government, I think that we must apologise to all businesses and students that could not write, for the inconvenience that was caused.
We are looking at the problem that has affected Eskom. We want to assure South Africans that this problem will be attended to and things will come back to normality. Of
course, it must be stated, in order for the country to know that the capacity of our country that stood at 47 000 megawatt in yester years, but now it has reduced to almost 35 megawatt.
Because of the aging fleets, there are number of units that are now out of operation, because these fleets or power stations are old. For instance, the Hendrina power station. Out of six units that should be operational and functioning, only two units are working. The rest have reached their lifespan. That accounts for a number of power stations that are now old.
We welcome the introduction of the Integrated Resource Plan, IRP, by the Minister of Mineral and Energy. We take it that it's a right step in the right direction that will inform the energy mix for the future of this country. Of course, in the current situation we must gradually open up more and more space for independent power producers to augment the current shortages, and I'm sure the country will be stable. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Question 9: