As the country woke up to a heightened level of power cuts yesterday , fed up workers staged an evening picket in the dark against the rolling blackouts.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) picketed outside Eskom’s Megawatt Park headquarters in Johannesburg last night, demanding an immediate end to load shedding and load-reduction, among an array of demands.
Saftu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said Eskom had shattered the hopes that the country was moving towards suspension of load shedding when the utility ramped up to stage 4, representing a regression from the improved or lowered stages over the weekend.
Eskom yesterday implemented Stage 4 load shedding without prior notice at 05:30am, saying this was ‘due to breakdown of five generators at five power stations overnight.’
Vavi said it was apparent was that Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter was failing to maintain the Eskom fleet and restore it to stability, so that electricity could at least be supplied uninterruptedly.
“Records have shown that under de Ruyter load shedding has worsened, and the country has shed more megawatts of electricity than it has ever shed since load shedding started in 2007,” Vavi said.
“Many experts and critics have argued that de Ruyter is not fit to run Eskom simply because he is not an engineer and lacks knowledge to enable him to achieve proper maintenance whilst keeping the lights on.
“Due to the mismanagement of Eskom, 15GW of more than 46GW base capacity of Eskom is constantly out of use due to maintenance.”
The struggling power utility said that a generation unit each at Arnot, Camden, Tutuka and Kusile power stations remained out of service following breakdowns in the past 24 hours.
“We currently have 5 106MW on planned maintenance, while another 15 576MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns,” said Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha.
“Eskom will publish a further update on Friday afternoon, or as soon as any further significant changes occur.”
Yesterday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government was working very hard on implementing the reforms he had announced in July, to eliminate the energy crisis facing the country.
Eskom’s rotational power cuts have severely disrupted economic activity for the better part of this year, with gross domestic product decreasing by 0.7% in the second quarter.
The weakness was most pronounced in the goods-producing economic sector, with significant negative contributors to growth recorded in the manufacturing, agriculture, trade, and mining sectors.
“This can largely be attributed to the record levels of load shedding experienced this year,” said Nolan Wapenaar, the co-chief investment officer at Anchor Capital.
“It is important to remember that Eskom implemented electricity outages for over half of the days in the second quarter, with the third quarter also reaching new record levels.”
Growth in 2022 is now expected to slow to a meagre 1.9% year-on-year, as the economy is simply not growing at an adequate pace to sustainably boost long-term employment prospects.
In rand billion, the South African economy remains at 2018 levels which speaks to the structural issues holding back the country’s growth.
Momentum Investments economist Sanisha Packirisamy said the ongoing load shedding would also affect the National Treasury’s growth forecast when it tables the medium-term budget next week.
“Treasury is expected to downwardly revise its near-term growth forecasts on the back of intensified load shedding and strike activity affecting exports,” Packirisamy said.
“However, a more sizeable upward revision to medium-term inflation projections will likely result in a higher estimate of nominal gross domestic product (GDP).”
BUSINESS REPORT