Johannesburg – 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 that there may have been activities taking place that is not part of normal operation and maintenance of the power station,” he added.
In November, Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter revealed that there was 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 be implemented from yesterday 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.
He said investigations were still ongoing.
“Correcting that and ensuring that we have people that are focused on the plant rather than focus on other things and wrongdoing. That is what I believe is biting Tutuka at the moment and also getting the necessary maintenance that is required to get Tutuka where it should be,” Dukashe explained.
Oberholzer refused to state if the risk remains of load shedding remained until next month.
”But if I have to predict now I will not be telling the truth, but the risk remains if we have a bad patch and time that we had the last five, six days we will definitely find ourselves wanting and the risk will be obviously high.
“But I cannot now say we are going to have another five days, 10 days. I do not have that crystal ball to give you that, but we will do whatever we can to make sure that we do not put the country through the pain of load shedding,” he said.
He added that Eskom fully understood the mandate that it has to the economy of the country.
Political Bureau