Pressure is mounting on public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and the Eskom board to take action against CEO André de Ruyter as the country was again plunged to stage 6 load-shedding this week.
After moving to stage 4 on Saturday morning, load-shedding was back at stage 5 in the afternoon after breakdowns at Hendrina, Kendal and Kriel power stations. The ANC national executive committee meeting on Friday heard calls from some of its members that De Ruyter be shown the do or.
Insiders say the charge against De Ruyter was led by ANC Limpopo provincial secretary Reuben Madadzhe. But no decision was taken by the meeting on the matter. Earlier in the week, mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe accused Eskom of agitating for regime change by implementing the power cuts.
From what we have had from De Ruyter, there is no solution. Every time he talks, he threatens us about stage 8. That is not a solution
But on Saturday President Cyril Ramaphosa came to De Ruyter’s defence, telling reporters in Cape Town that Eskom management was not deliberately causing load-shedding.
“The government has committed to bring load-shedding to an end and load-shedding is not a deliberate act by the government [or] by Eskom management. It’s just what we are dealing with in terms of the power stations that keep breaking and this has been happening for quite some time and we are dealing with the problem.
“I am not saying this as an excuse; a number of other countries are dealing with energy challenges. In our case, we are dealing with this problem with the seriousness it deserves and we are putting resources behind it — money, billions and billions of rand. There is no-one deliberately instigating load-shedding but we are deliberately trying to bring load-shedding to an end,” he said.
The Sunday Times understands that Gordhan briefed the ANC NEC about the energy crisis plans to end load-shedding. But not everyone was satisfied with Gordhan’s presentation.
“We wanted them to come with a solid solution,” said an NEC member who asked not to be named.
“From what we have had from De Ruyter, there is no solution. Every time he talks, he threatens us about stage 8. That is not a solution.” Gordhan is said to have told the meeting about cases of sabotage and theft.
An NEC member sympathetic to De Ruyter said the calls for his removal were unfair.
“You get a message that these guys who work at Eskom are being intimidated by unscrupulous suppliers... the pressure on De Ruyter is not an honest pressure.”
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe would not be drawn into discussions about the NEC meeting, but said: “What is happening at Eskom has hallmarks of sabotage meant to maintain commercial interests. We have to identify those saboteurs. We are told p eople come with trucks to steal diesel.”
Government insiders say Gordhan is losing patience with the Eskom executives. An official privy to discussions between the government and Eskom executives says it is now up to the board to take a decision on De Ruyter.
“Those guys don’t want to be agile,” said a senior government official.
“They don’t seem to care. We had a meeting. They don’t seem to have a sense of what is happening in the country. They are complaining about money. They are tone deaf. They live in their own world.”
Meanwhile, energy experts say South Africans should brace themselves for load-shedding on Christmas Day, but not at the high levels seen this week. South Africa was plunged into panic mode on Wednesday, when Eskom implemented stage 6 load-shedding due to what it said was “a high number of breakdowns since midnight, as well as the requirement to strictly preserve the remaining emergency generation reserves”.
Independent energy expert Lungile Mashele said there is a high likelihood of outages on Christmas Day.
“But going into the new year, things may get worse and the stages may get severe,” she said.
We are in deep, deep trouble. Only 40% of the coal-powered power station fleet is producing, with all of these carrying serious maintenance issues, which require urgent addressing or we risk a catastrophic domino-style collapse
— Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson
Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson said if there was a reduction in load-shedding in December, it would not be as a result of units being fixed, but because demand decreases.
“We are in deep, deep trouble. Only 40% of the coal-powered power station fleet is producing, with all of these carrying serious maintenance issues, which require urgent addressing or we risk a catastrophic domino-style collapse.
“Of the 40GW that should be produced, only 16GW is [being] produced. We will see load-shedding continue throughout the festive season,” said Mallinson. Hilton Trollip, from the Global Risk Governance programme at UCT, said Eskom’s coal stations are unreliable because “they have been hammered so hard and there is so much pressure on the system”.
“We have been told by Eskom there could be more than stage 6 load-shedding. All that needs to happen when we are on stage 6 is for another two or three of these big machines to break down.” Eskom on Friday said it expects loadshedding to ease during the festive season due to a large portion of industry closing.
“However, this is factored into our planning and higher maintenance cycle for this time of the year. Load-shedding depends on the actual status of the network at any given time to balance supply and demand. It therefore does not automatically mean less or lower stages of load-shedding over the festive period.”
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