Political and economic analysts have described Eskom’s announcement of stage 6 load shedding as a blow to the Government of National Unity (GNU) and a crisis for the economy.
This was after Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced during a media briefing on Sunday that the country’s power utility has implemented stage 6 load shedding due to the loss of four units at Camden Power Station in Mpumalanga.
However, Ramokgopa vowed that the issues would be resolved by the end of the week.
Detailing the sequence of events, Ramokgopa said five units tripped at Majuba on Saturday, taking about 3,000MW off line, which prompted stage 3 load shedding.
He added that overnight to Sunday, four units went down at Camden Power station at about 01h30 in the morning, which resulted in the escalation of load shedding to stage 6, while over 7,000MW is off line for planned maintenance and emergency reserves are being used up and need to be replenished for the week ahead.
Ramokgopa said there was no indication of sabotage.
Professor Ntsikelelo Benjamin Breakfast, a political analyst and acting Director of the Center for Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution at Nelson Mandela University said the stage 6 load shedding is a blow to the GNU, because there is a minister appointed to make Eskom up to scratch.
“This is a setback on the large scale, because it means that the past is still with us and that we are not out of the woods yet. We thought that in the build-up to the elections that power outage was a thing of the past, but it looks like we were wrong. We are back to square one. What is the purpose of the minister if the job cannot be done?” Breakfast said.
He added that there have been many plans previously, “I mean the first speech of President Cyril Ramaphosa when he addressed Parliament in 2018. He spoke about unbundling Eskom — which is about renewable energy and allowing the public to procure power from different service providers— as opposed to Eskom enjoying a monopoly. So, what has happened since then? Why are we going around in circles? I thought by now we should have covered much ground.”
He added that even though previously, the ANC would have to take full responsibility for these problems, because even during the times of former president Thabo Mbeki they never invested in Eskom — now that they are in the GNU, all partners must take “collective blame for this setback.”
Breakfast noted that the DA has on many occasions claimed that the successes of the GNU are as a result of the DA, but they don’t take responsibility for the failures.
On how the load shedding will affect the GNU parties come 2026 local government elections, he said the ANC is the biggest loser in this regard, because it has a history of slow-paced service delivery.
On how these setbacks reflect on the current G20 meetings that are under way, he said it sends a bad message that investors cannot rely on this country because for any business to flourish it needs water and electricity. “We still have problems with water shedding,” Breakfast concluded.
Economist Duma Gqubule said stage 6 load shedding is a huge crisis for the economy and it is going to have wide implications in terms of economic growth and it will also affect jobs.
Gqubule said stage 6 load shedding is going to shake the national and international confidence in the economy and that the recovery of Eskom and Transnet are far from complete.
He added that there has been a collapse of the public investment funds for the past 15 to 20 years, and yet the government is chasing private sector investment, which “is not going to come at this stage”
“The government has not been investing in infrastructure. They must invest in the transport and energy infrastructures. In Johannesburg, there is a huge load reduction due to infrastructure breakdown at a distributor level and they also have water infrastructure failures, which is bad for the economy,” Gqubule said.
He said the stage load shedding looks bad to the world leaders. “We’ve just come out of the budget crisis and now we are dealing with stage 6 load shedding.”
Ramokgopa expressed regret and conveyed apologies to South Africans for the level of severity of the load shedding— which is after over 300 days of consecutive supply of electricity in an uninterrupted fashion. He said the level of anger and disappointment is well understood.
He said the high levels of planned maintenance are in line with Eskom’s calculated aggression in tackling maintenance. He added that the aggressive maintenance regime needs to be upheld with its risks so that the grid can become more reliable and stable. “Neglecting maintenance would just lead to more trips and breakdowns, making load shedding more frequent as was the case in previous years,” he said.
Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said that of the 10 units lost, six have been returned to service, with 3 200MW being brought back online, with two more units expected to come back on Sunday (today).
“All units should be online by Tuesday, with all systems recovered by the end of the week.”
“Stage 6 load shedding is necessary to protect enough capacity to restore emergency reserves, which will likely be used extensively this coming week,” he said.
Marokane added that on Monday (tomorrow), Eskom will look at stepping down from stage 6.
