Eskom Drops the Ball

Load Shedding Back: Electricity Minister Lambasts Power Utility

- Antoinette Slabbert

Energy and Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is lambasting Eskom for "dropping the ball" with recent incidences of maintenance and increased unplanned breakages.

According to the EskomSePush app, South Africa has seen 175 hours (seven days) of load shedding so far this year. It was mostly at very short notice after the sudden loss of several generating units and comes after a drastic reduction in load shedding in 2024 compared to 2023.

"I am very disappointed with Eskom's performance in early 2025," Ramokgopa said on the sidelines of the 60th anniversary of the commissioning of the SAFARI-1 research reactor at Pelindaba near Pretoria on Tuesday.

A week ago, he said Eskom had surplus energy during the morning peak, only to lose several generating units over the next five to six hours, which cost the utility 3 500MW of generation capacity and necessitated stage 2 load shedding without notice.

"This erodes sentiment," he said. "The public has started to believe load shedding is something of the past, just to be subjected to it again."