Light at the end of the tunnel? Eskom vows to suspend blackouts at the weekend
Embattled power utility Eskom has vowed to switch the lights back at the weekend following a week of crippling blackouts.
The country was plunged into darkness a day after local government election results were released last week.
Residents and businesses bore the brunt of a shortage of capacity at the power utility, with Eskom often giving notice of 15 minutes to an hour before implementing load shedding.
Eskom executives gave a system update on Tuesday afternoon.
CEO Andre de Ruyter, who had cut short a trip abroad, was also in attendance.
He assured the nation load shedding would be suspended on Saturday.
“The outlook therefore for load shedding is that we will reduce load shedding to stage 3 from tomorrow morning [Wednesday] from about 5am. This will then be maintained until 5am on Friday and then we will maintain stage 2 until 5am on Saturday - after which we intend to lift load shedding.
“We should then be able to return to normal operations,” he said.
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De Ruyter believes non-compliant municipalities are also to blame for Eskom’s woes.
“A recent new challenge that has reared its head, which is quiet unfortunate, is that some municipalities have not played their role in implementing load shedding and during stage 2 load shedding we saw a number of municipalities either not abiding by the obligations to implement load shedding or implementing only on a fractional basis of what their commitment should be.
“We have engaged with those municipalities. We obviously know who they are.”
The address also comes amid calls for De Ruyter’s head.
He refuted claims he had dropped the ball, further dismissing claims of sabotage at the power utility.
“I do not intend to resign of my own accord,” he told media.
“Given the current circumstances, it is probably better to have continuity of management rather than to fall back in the trap that Eskom has been in over the past ten years when we had eleven different chief executives.
“These frustrations will not be resolved by changing horses at this time, or even changing jockeys for that matter.”
Watch De Ruyter below:
#Loadshedding | De Ruyter responds to calls for his resignation...
— Jacaranda News (@JacaNews) November 9, 2021
"I will not resign out of my own accord. Changing horses or jockeys at this stage in the race will not do the crisis any good." pic.twitter.com/zCmNQHrJrz
