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<\/a><\/p>\nWhile issues such as load shedding and the high rate of unemployment have previously been seen as the country’s biggest risk factors, Treasury officials were relatively upbeat on the progress being made under president Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic recovery plan.<\/p>\n
However, they acknowledged that more ‘decisive action’ is needed going forward.<\/p>\n
“Embedded generation regulation will be eased within three months; emergency power procurements bids, as well as procurement of additional power in line with the IRP2019, will be announced in the coming weeks,” Treasury said.<\/p>\n
“Electricity regulations were amended to enable municipalities to procure power from IPPs.<\/p>\n
“By the end January 2021, over 430,000 jobs of varying duration had been supported through the stimulus and an additional 180,000 jobs are in the recruitment process.”<\/p>\n
Majority of vaccines coming later in the year\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In a separate presentation to parliament on Thursday afternoon, health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said that his department originally estimated that at least 40 million people will need to receive a vaccine to ensure population immunity.<\/p>\n However, he indicated that it is increasingly likely that more people than this will need to receive a shot.<\/p>\n He indicated that talks were still ongoing with vaccine producers, including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, and that final figures would be announced soon.<\/p>\n The country will have access to 500,000 doses from Johnson & Johnson within \u2018the next few weeks\u2019, with a further 600,000 doses being delivered by Pfizer, he said.<\/p>\n The majority of the country\u2019s vaccines are only expected to arrive in April, May and June.<\/p>\n
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