Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter says they are not anticipating any blackouts this coming weekend and the outlook for the coming week looks positive although power generation challenges remain at the power utility.
He says he’s reluctant to blame sabotage for the current situation because it is difficult to distinguish between sabotage and negligence.
Eskom suspended rolling blackouts at 5 am on Friday. This after generation capacity recovered enough to enable it to stop the blackouts.
Eskom media briefing: 12 November 2021
On Thursday, Eskom said that improvements in the power system had allowed the power utility to return electricity to normal ahead of schedule.
The country was plunged into darkness when stage four was announced earlier this week. This was scaled down to stage two yesterday. De Ruyter briefed the media on power challenges.
“It’s very often rather difficult to distinguish between negligence and sabotage. I’m quite reluctant to play the sabotage card. It is a phrase that is related to whole all sorts of historical connotations. So, I don’t want to claim that there is widespread sabotage. From time to time we have cable theft at power stations. They seem to be closely related to common criminality and acts of sabotage.”
