The Black Business Council says Eskom’s leadership is completely overwhelmed, inept, and out of its depth and is calling for its CEO Andre de Ruyter and the Board to step down over the rolling blackouts.
This comes as the power utility implemented Stage 4 blackouts this afternoon, which is expected to last until Friday morning.
Thereafter Stage 2 blackouts will be implemented until five o’clock on Saturday morning.
The power utility said this is due to the ongoing generation capacity shortages.
The Council’s CEO Kganki Matabane says since De Ruyter’s appointment two years ago, the country has recorded the highest number of blackouts.
“The Black Business Council which supported the appointment of the CEO of Eskom is now calling for him to step down including the Board because they’ve been unable to do their job. Their job is to provide reliable electricity in South Africa and as such are introducing policy uncertainty and South Africa will never be able to recover economically because of what happening in the country.”
Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented from 13:00 until 05:00 on Friday; thereafter Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented as previously communicated until 05:00 on Saturday pic.twitter.com/T2PRhEOaTm
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 8, 2021
Eskom Blackouts | Most parts of South Africa are in darkness:
Blackouts could see crime increase
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has warned that the current high level of crime may increase to greater proportions, as criminals are using power outages to their advantage.
The institute’s Dr Johan Burger says house and business robberies are already on the increase and fears that the same will happen with other criminal activities.
“Load shedding is just another opportunity which criminals are already exploiting. And they will continue to exploit. We will see a rise in crime such as burglary and other crimes such as house and business robbery. They will be able to follow load shedding schedules.”
