Ramaphosa’s empty promise as Eskom ramps up load shedding to Stage 6

Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s assurance that power cuts are a thing of the past, South Africans have been thrust into Stage 6 of load shedding this weekend.

The power utility Eskom has announced Stage 6 load shedding would be implemented indefinitely. The announcement was made in the early hours of Saturday morning.

In a statement, Eskom said in spite of returning two generating units to service in 24 hours, two generating units were also taken off-line.

“This, combined with the need to replenish the pumped storage dams in preparation for the week ahead, necessitated the implementation of Stage 6 load shedding from midnight until further notice.”

During his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday, February 10, Ramaphosa has reassured South Africans that loadshedding will possibly be phased out as government has cracked a nail to put an end to the roll out of power cuts.

“We set out clear plan to end loadshedding which we have been implementing with a single-minded focus through the National Energy Crisis Committee.

We have delivered our commitments to bring substantial new power through private investment on to the grid, which is already helping to reduce load shedding,” Ramaphosa said.

However, this resulted intoa rapid turn of events earlier this morning where Eskom made a shocking announcement of Stage 6.

In his speech, Ramaphosa said the government implemented a major debt package for Eskom to make investments in maintenance and transmission infrastructure and ensure its sustainability going forward.

“Since we revived our renewable energy program five years ago, we have connected more than 2,500 MW of solar and wind power to the grid with three times the amount already in procurement or construction.

Through incentives and financial support, we have doubled the amount of rooftop solar capacity installed across the country in just the past year,” Ramaphosa said on Thursday, adding that there are 120 new private energy projects now in development, through private investment in electricity.

Eskom says is working diligently to return the generation units back online and would communicate any significant changes.