Eskom working to keep the lights on at Christmas
Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan has vowed to
do everything in his power to keep the lights on during the festive season.
Gordhan and Eskom's management held a media briefing at the Megawatt Park on Thursday amid the latest bout of load-shedding.
Gordhan said the objective is to move away from Stage 2 load-shedding over the next two weeks.
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"Between the 15 December and 15 January - there is lower demand in any case because of the shutdown of industries - no load-shedding should be expected during that period and management must give us the insurance that they're working towards that particular objective.”
He said the hope is that Stage 2 load-shedding would be a thing of the past come the new year.
"But the essence of this is we need to start managing our power stations or generators repairs all in a way which will remove this problem," he added.
Gordhan also announced that all senior Eskom managers have been asked to cancel their leave over the festive season to attend to operational challenges.
The managers will be deployed to power stations to deal with the rolling electricity cuts.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will also appoint a task team from Cabinet to help Eskom deal with its problems.