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Stage 8 rolling blackouts suspicion grows

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While Eskom’s rolling blackouts continue, there is growing concern that the country has already reached Stage 8. However, the utility has denied this.

The current stage of rolling blackouts leaves businesses and households with about 10 hours of darkness.

The country has been on Stage 6 for the last five days and there seems to be little chance of it abating.

In its latest update, Eskom says this stage will continue to be implemented until Tuesday and the pattern will be repeated until further notice.

It currently has 17 325 MW of generating capacity.

Weekend publications report that the utility may have “quietly” slipped into Stage 8 of rolling blackouts.

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Dr Naledi Pandor says, “I think it is dismal that we’re at stage 8 of load shedding, I really believe we’ve got to address this as a critical emergency because our economy cannot afford what we’re seeing today with respect to energy availability. And I believe that the government is taking steps to address this but we’ve got have a unity of the private sector of non-profit and the government working coherently together to address this problem.”

Delegates from the African continent have gathered in Cape Town for the Africa Continental Free Trade Area business forum.

The video below is reporting more on the story:

Business Leadership South Africa CEO, Busisiwe Mavuso says there is no way Africa can industrialise if there is no power to do so.

Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso says, “A big impediment and big enabler is having a conducive environment, you can’t produce and you can’t talk about agro-processing or beneficiation if you don’t have energy. Energy is a critical input into any production process. We are talking about Africa industrialising.”

“There is no way we will be able to industrialise without energy. That is actually critical. I think the issue of Africa’s development has to be treated as urgent. I worry that we are not treating [it] as urgent. The issue of energy in South Africa for instance, we knew that we were going to be seating here as a country, you know 10 years, 15 years ago, but we’ve done very little about intervening and making sure that we put interventions in place – that will make sure that we have a stable energy supply,” Mavuso adds.

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