“Eskom regrets to inform that loadshedding has been implemented….” These are the words that all South Africans have come to loathe in 2022.
This year has been depicted as the worst year for South Africa’s power utility. Eskom experienced continuous breakdowns, sabotage, and theft in 2022, resulting in endless rolling blackouts.
South Africa has experienced over 3000 hours of loadshedding this year. At this point, South Africans have experienced more days of loadshedding than not.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also addressed the nation about the energy crisis. During his address, he announced the appointment of a National Energy Crisis Committee.
The committee draws on the best available expertise from business, labour, professional engineering entities and community-based organisations. The relevant Ministers, who make up the committee, reports to the president directly on a regular basis to ensure that progress is made.
At one-point things got so bad that Ramaphosa cancelled his plans abroad and flew back to South Africa to attend to one of the highest levels of loadshedding the country has experienced.
Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer also announced that he will retire in April next year after over 30 years of service. The Hawks arrested someone for allegedly making a bomb threat against him. The bomb threat was allegedly from an anonymous and unregistered cellphone number in May 2022.
Eskom this year revealed multiple incidents of sabotage at its power stations. These include theft of oil, diesel, and coal. In the coal theft and tampering cases, the suspects, who are Contracted Eskom truck drivers, swapped out quality coal destined for Eskom power stations and deliver sub-par coal.
Right towards the end of 2022, CEO Andre De Ruyter announced his resignation, which sparked even more concern for the recovery of the power utility, and where that leaves South Africans.
Unfortunately, South African’s can expect power cuts for the next forseeable future, but there is a way to help: South Africans are asked to continue saving electritcity and to switch off appliances that are not used…
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