Photo by: Bloomberg
Eskom on Thursday said there was no truth to suggestions from the Democratic Alliance (DA) that the power utility would again embark on scheduled blackouts later this month but conceded that the system remained fragile ahead of its summer maintenance programme.
"Eskom would like to assure its customers that there is no planned load-shedding expected in September or October as indicated by the Democratic Alliance," the company said in a statement.
It was responding to a call by DA public enterprises spokesperson Natasha Mazzone for clarity after, she said, she had reliably been told that load-shedding was planned for this month and October as the company had warned municipalities it was on the cards.
Mazzone said the official opposition had written to Eskom executive chairperson Jabu Mabuza to ask for an explanation.
"We have not communicated to any stakeholder that there will be load-shedding. Eskom communicated its summer plan on the 4th September 2019 at a media briefing held at Megawatt Park, where we indicated that while no load-shedding is expected over summer the risk however remains as the system is still tight and vulnerable, as we ramp up plant maintenance."
It said Mabuza was open to discussing the details of the progamme with Mazzone.
"Eskom has time and again landed our country in deep trouble. Experts estimate that each stage of rolling blackouts, costs the country R1-billion per stage, per day."
Mazzone had warned that the country could ill afford another bout of load-shedding after one earlier this year had a dire impact on the economy.
"South Africa cannot afford another recurrence of economically crippling rolling blackouts."