No load-shedding over Christmas, Ramaphosa says, as tampering partly blamed for blackouts

Citing  a mix of sabotage, wet coal and an ageing fleet of power stations as reasons for the crippling electricity cuts across the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged that load-shedding will come to an end on Tuesday — and that it will not be a dark Christmas.

The president said on Wednesday that from December 17 to January 13, and “hopefully thereafter”, the lights would stay on, adding that he was cancelling all leave for Eskom’s managers throughout the holiday period.

This as Eskom pledged that problems which caused thousands of megawatts of energy to be lost over the past week — resulting in SA being plunged into darkness and unprecedented stage 6 load-shedding — would be resolved by the end of the week.

Ramaphosa cut short his trip to Egypt and met the beleaguered power utility’s board and management alongside deputy president David Mabuza and ministers Gwede Mantashe and Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday.

The president said the sabotage, allegedly at the hands of an Eskom insider, led to two boilers being disconnected.

“The sabotage happened in a way where we lost 2,000MW. The wet coal led to a loss of additional megawatts. All that was a combination.

“Sabotage is not the only factor that led to load-shedding,” Ramaphosa said.

He first said that “someone in the Eskom system” disconnected an instrument that led to two boilers tripping, which resulted in the 2,000MW loss.

At the same briefing, Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer said that this took place at the Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga.

Eskom group executive for generation Bheki Nxumalo it had been discovered that tampering with the monitors at the station had led to the tripping of two boilers.

The implementation of stage 6 load-shedding on Monday prompted mines to suspend underground work, economists to warn that the country could struggle to escape 2019 with economic growth, and the rand to fall to multi-week lows.

Ramaphosa said the energy grid was unreliable and unpredictable for a number of reasons.

He said the management and board of Eskom were trying to stabilise the system so that there would be no load-shedding from mid-December until January 13.

“We will investigate the sabotage. We directed the sabotage acts to be investigated.

“Eskom will work with SAPS and the intelligence agency as well to find out exactly how anyone within Eskom could have disconnected the instrument that led to the loss of 2,000MW,” Ramaphosa said.

Nxumalo said there had been a recovery of the system and that, by Monday, all units should be up and running.

General manager of systems Bernard Magoro  said Eskom should be able to bring back 9,500MW to the grid on Monday, allowing for stability.

Ramaphosa also took aim at Eskom’s managers, saying they had responded correctly to this bout of load-shedding but “we feel they have not acted with the urgency as is required. The maintenance process of fleet is rather slow and not as deep as it should be”.

Eskom needed to be more proactive when it came to management of the system and more accountability was required at management level, “so there should not be blame-shifting when people need to own up”, he said.

“We want the board to rigorously enforce accountability by all. Everyone in Eskom must be held accountable,” he said, while also emphasising his support for the board.

The president said ministers Mantashe and Gordhan would present to the cabinet on Friday ways to increase electricity capacity,

Ramaphosa said Eskom’s management had asked for increased capacity of 5,000MW, which could be relied on while its ageing power stations underwent critical maintenance and refurbishment.