‘No Eskom sabotage’
|Published
REVEALED: De Ruyter. File picture: Sumaya Hisham/Reuters
Eskom executives have ruled out sabotage being behind the latest round of rolling blackouts which started on Wednesday.
The power utility’s chief operations officer Jan Oberholzer said they did not have any tangible proof that what has happened in the last few days was because of sabotage.
“We have found that in one of the power stations there may have been activities taking place that are not part of normal operation and maintenance of the power station,” he added.
In November, Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter revealed that there were deliberate acts of sabotage near the Lethabo power station in the Vaal that could have caused substantial load shedding.
The latest stage two load shedding was due to last until Monday morning.
Eskom group executive for generation Phillip Dukashe said at Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga the power utility has had for a number of years issues of poor performance.
“Investigations at Thuthuka have yielded a lot of wrongdoing, a lot of corruption that has been taking place,” he said.
According to Dukashe, 20 people have been suspended and another two have been arrested and more arrests will be taking place.
Eskom appeals to all South Africans to help limit the impact of load shedding by reducing the usage of electricity and to switch off non-essential items.
The City of Cape Town said it would be protecting its customers as far as it can with stage 1 load shedding during the day time.