The Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, has directed the management and Eskom board to work hard to get the country out of Stage 6 loadshedding with immediate effect.

“I met the board of Eskom yesterday. I have directed them to meet and act with a great sense of urgency in order to ensure that the management of Eskom gets the country out of level 6 loadshedding with immediate effect,” said Minister Gordhan.

“Power-cuts are having a devastating effect on households and livelihoods, investment and
economic climate. This is totally unacceptable. The frequency of breakdowns is certainly attributable to some element of malfunctioning within the Eskom systems and possibly sabotage as well”.

“We have had to call on law-enforcement agencies to show a stronger presence at all Eskom power stations. Those who are involved in nefarious activities, beware. We will not tolerate any activities whose purpose is not in the national interest,” he said.

“We apologize to the country about the impact and disruptions caused by loadshedding and will keep the nation informed about the status of electricity.” said Minister Gordhan.

Meanwhile, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has accused Eskom of “actively agitating for the overthrow of the state”.

At a signing ceremony for 13 new independent power projects on Thursday, Mantashe said load shedding was becoming worse than state capture because of how it directly affects citizens and takes a toll on the economy.

The minister said Eskom simply had to fix its operational problems, but Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has repeatedly said that corruption, mismanagement, and lack of planning and maintenance have brought the power utility to this point.

Earlier, Eskom said Stage 6 loadshedding will continue to be implemented until 05:00 on Friday morning, whereafter Stage 5 will be implemented until 05:00 on Saturday morning.

Since Tuesday night, breakdowns of two generating units at Grootvlei Power Station occurred, as well as a unit each at Arnot, Duvha, Kendal, Kriel and Tutuka power stations.

In addition, two units at Arnot, a unit each at Camden, Kendal and Kriel power stations have been delayed in returning to service.

Eskom has been forced to strictly preserve the remaining diesel for any extreme emergency situations such as multiple, simultaneous trips of generators. The pumped storage dam levels also need to be replenished during loadshedding.

Eskom says the refueling and maintenance outage, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of loadshedding over the next 6 -12 months.

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