On Tuesday this week, Eskom said that Stage 8 loadshedding was not expected but was, however, planned for. This was in response to earlier news reports suggesting that Stage 8 loadshedding - which has never been experienced before - was imminent.
Last month President Cyril Ramaphosa held a meeting with the Eskom board and assured the public that Eskom committed to refraining from implementing loadshedding until Jan 13, 2020. However, faults at power stations meant that Eskom was forced to implement Stage 2 loadshedding during the first week of January.
Pressure is also mounting on the president to fire public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan amidst the EFF's and BLF's claims that he is responsible for Eskom's seemingly endless woes. Senior energy expert at OUTA Ronald Chauke believes that Eskom's recovery plans are failing and that there is a need for "technically competent" board members. "The main problem that we are having now is the failure of the recovery plan Eskom is always speaking about. It means that there is a problem on that front." "There is a lack of skills which means that you have engineers there but they are not experienced enough to be able to manage the vulnerable power system." Chauke added that Eskom is "not coming up with robust solutions that help us move towards a long-term maintenance strategy." President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his January 8 statement at the weekend whilst addressing ANC supporter that government was addressing concerns South Africans were having regarding loadshedding. He added that government would strengthen Eskom so that it could deliver energy "as it should". However, Chauke is not quite confident in what the President had to say. "The President needs to stand up and issue a bold leadership style. If he ever has to fire people inside the organization, he has to do that so that we can fix Eskom."
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AuthorZahid Jadwat is a South African writer, columnist, podcaster and radio show host. Archives
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