Eskom have announced that they will reduce load shedding to Stage 3 on Wednesday, however Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter conceded that the embattled power supplier may need to ramp up the blackouts even more aggressively in order to mitigate capacity losses in the grid.
De Ruyter provided an update on the current state of operations at Eskom, which has implemented the most aggressive round of loadshedding over the past week since the beginning of the year. The CEO also insisted that he remains committed to fixing the problems at Eskom, and said that he has no intention of resigning
During the briefing, De Ruyter announced that Eskom will shift from Stage 4 to Stage 3 load shedding on Wednesday at 5:00 until Friday morning.
The Stage 2 schedule will be implemented at 5:00 on Saturday, after which Eskom “intend to suspend load shedding and wish to return to normal operations”, according to the CEO.
“We understand that this is a huge inconvenience to the country, we apologise for the negative impact this has had, not only on the business industry, (but) particularly (to) those students who are currently writing their matric exams and we want to request the support and cooperation of everyone to play their role in reducing demand particularly during people hours,” De Ruyter said on Tuesday. He said that his job remains secure, but conceded that ultimately the decision to axe him rests with government.
“In turn the board is appointed by the minister of public enteprises who in turn is appointed by the president of South Africa. We serve at the pleasure and discretion of our board. Instead of offering the frustrated South African public reassurance that Eskom is confident of fixing the infrastructure crisis forcing them to implement blackout schedules, De Ruyter blamed his predecessors for the current dismal state of affairs at the state-owned power supplier.
“You can flog a dead horse. You can even go one step further and you can change the jockey on the dead horse. But that will not necessarily solve the problem,” he said.
“And I think given the current circumstances, it is probably more important to have continuity of management rather than to fall back into the trap that Eskom has been in over the past 10 years – when we had 11 different different executives. That lack of continuity has contributed significantly instability in the organisation.
Source: IOL
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