Eskom Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter says there has been a considerable improvement in generating capacity at Eskom since stage four blackouts were introduced.

De Ruyter was addressing a virtual media conference. Stage three blackouts will continue until 5 am on Friday morning when it is expected to drop to stage two.

De Ruyter says total unplanned generating losses stand at just over 11 000 megawatts which is considerably better than the 16 000 megawatts before stage four was introduced last week.

Eskom briefs the media on the current power supply situation in South Africa:

Meanwhile, Parliament has heard that Eskom is facing debt repayments totalling R152 billion over the next five years. The cash-strapped power utility has received a qualified audit opinion from the Auditor-General (AG) with irregular expenditure totalling R11 billion.

The Office of the Auditor-General briefed Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Eskom’s audit outcomes for the 2020/21 financial year.

The AG says the debt repayment can be met with government support combined with cost-reflective tariffs.

African National Congress Member of Parliament, Sakhumzi Somyo, found it hard to believe that the power utility is performing when the country is being plunged into darkness.

“When the country experiences such telling blows in as far as the provision of such basic necessity getting into the instances of dark days, dark nights which hit the markets, our people who are suffering currently in terms of their jobs, making ends meet, SMMEs, that impact is derived from key performance of Eskom to provide energy and your actual outcome as far as performance is concerned is good, indicating that Eskom is meeting their own standards.”