Pravin Gordhan urges Eskom to take SA out of Stage 6

Minster of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan has urged Eskom’s management and board to get the country out of Stage 6 load shedding with immediate effect, according to a statement issued by the department on Thursday.

The embattled power utility escalated rolling blackouts from Stage 4 to Stage 6 on Wednesday citing a high number of breakdowns at several power plants since the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Eskom says while it currently has 4 984MW out on planned maintenance, another 19 052MW of capacity remains unavailable due to breakdowns.

In response, Gordhan says he met with the power utility’s board on Wednesday.

“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 load shedding with immediate effect.”

“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 malfunction 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 purposes is not in the national interest,” he adds.

“We apologise to the country about the impact and disruptions caused by load shedding and will keep the nation informed about the status of electricity.”

Meanwhile, Eskom has also warned that refueling and maintenance outages will further reduce generation capacity and worsen load shedding over the next 6 to 12 months.

Nondumiso Lehutso is a Moneyweb intern.