Eskom Denies Misleading The Public

Eskom has denied that it mislead customers by increasing load shedding earlier this month to stage 6 without informing the public.

Energy expert Ted Blom accused the power utility of shedding more than what is expected during stage 4 load shedding.

Official information shared by Eskom showed load-shedding of 5,359MW on Wednesday 2 September and 5,642MW on Thursday 3 September.

This far exceeds stage 4 load-shedding, which “allows for up to 4,000MW of the national load to be shed”.

However, Eskom’s spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha denied Blom’s claims.

“At no point did we lie to anybody and I’m quite pleased to note that he acknowledges that Eskom is not able to fully supply power to the country, which Eskom has now been admitting for a while. Unfortunately, that is where we are at this point,” he said.

“Load-shedding is what Eskom sheds from the public, and that is what Eskom announced at Stage 4 on Thursday.”

However, when pushed on the amount of load-shedding which truly happened on Thursday, Mantshantsha said “Eskom did shed 4,400MW on the day in question”

Mantshantsha, however, would not answer questions on whether the power utility implemented at least stage 5 load-shedding.

It is not clear why Eskom refused to admit it implemented stage 5 load-shedding.