Umamah Bakharia

Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has given an update on the current rolling blackouts at a media briefing, saying he was hopeful that the power entity will be able to lift load shedding – although only in about 10 days.

South Africans have experienced a total of 74 days of load shedding since the beginning of the year. De Ruyter said at the moment, the system was unpredictable with a very high unplanned outage of 9 097megawatts.

In a discussion with Radio Islam, energy expert Ted Blom says South Africans should expect 300 days of loadshedding this year despite Eskom’s assurance that loadshedding will be a thing of the past. 

“We are now at 74 days and my predictions are we are going to end up with almost 300 days of loadshedding,” says Blom. He adds: “The one paradigm is the level of loadshedding and I would be surprised if we hit level 6 again and secondly, its the duration,” which Blom says is according to Eskom’s own schedule which he saw.

Meanwhile, Blom says that de Ruyter should step down as he is “not similar with the territory” and adds that de Ruyter is blaming others for the blackouts. On the strike by Eskom employees, Blom says, “the strike by Eskom was self-inflicted.”

It is alleged that Eskom had walked out of negotiations with the unions over a wage increase. “You can’t tell the unions, you are essential workers, you are not allowed to strike [but] Eskom and walk whenever they feel like, that shows the balance of justice,” argues Blom.

This can be bad news for South Africans as they continue to deal with rolling blackouts.