WRAP | Load-shedding and the state of Eskom — here’s where we stand

South Africans can expect a load-shedding downgrade soon as Eskom plans to return more power to the system in the lead-up to the local government elections on Monday. 

During a media briefing on Wednesday about the challenges at Eskom, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said the downgrade would be gradual, starting on Wednesday night until the weekend.

SA has been plunged into rotational power outages since Friday.

On Wednesday, Eskom implemented stage 4 load-shedding after several units tripped at the Kusile, Medupi and Matla power stations.

Here's a wrap of the minister's responses. 

No load-shedding at the weekend 

There will be no load-shedding at the weekend until after the elections on Monday. This will prevent power disruptions at any of the country's 23,000 voting stations.

The Electoral Commission has secured lighting equipment to be used at the voting stations which do not fall under Eskom. 

“Eskom is doing everything possible to ensure the elections are not disrupted in any way. A number of contingency measures have been put in place in co-operation with the IEC,” said Gordhan.

Eskom officials will be on stand by at voting stations 

Gordhan said Eskom officials will be stationed at several voting stations including at the results centre in Tshwane to monitor and assist the elections process on electricity-related matters.

“Over 100 mobile generators have been made available by Eskom through the different clusters. They will be deployed appropriately at any of the voting stations that are part of the various clusters.”

Human error 

Gordhan said while elements outside Eskom’s control contribute to power cuts, human error also plays a role. The minister said the power utility has zero tolerance for employees responsible for such errors. 

“There was an incident at one power station where the piping was leaking, the operator did not act immediately when those signals were being relayed and as a consequence, a whole unit was lost with around 600-700 MW.”

Mismanagement and corruption to blame for load-shedding 

Gordhan said government institutions have seen financial losses as a result of state capture.

“We don’t only have financial damage but we also have a culture within an institution which is corrupted. It is well known that you can change the financial architecture, the organisational structures, but it is well recorded that to change a culture it is extremely difficult,” he said.