Ramaphosa says Eskom system sabotaged, adds bosses are working on recovery plan

An emergency meeting on the electricity crisis took place between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Eskom's board and executives at Megawatt Park in Johannesburg on Wednesday. 

Eskom bosses briefed Ramaphosa on the reasons for the latest round of load shedding after he cut short his working visit in Egypt to attend to the crisis. 

"They have given us the assurance that from the 17th of December right through to the 13th of January we should not be in a position to have any form of load shedding and going right through to March they will be seeking to do everything they can to restore the stability of the network."

READ: 'No doubt' more load shedding expected this week says Eskom

Ramaphosa says some at Eskom will need to work throughout the holidays.

"All leave is cancelled. No one goes on leave, if we are to have the system restored to stability, all executives must remain in place, and all key managers must remain in place to make sure that we do not have load shedding."

While Eskom has attributed the blackouts to the breakdown of generation units, wet coal and technical problems at Medupi,  Ramaphosa says there has also been an act of sabotage.

"Someone in the Eskom system disconnected one of the instruments that finally lead to one of the boilers tripping and us losing as two boilers." 

Find KZN's load shedding schedules here.

Ramaphosa says Eskom's electricity system is unreliable and unpredictable, because of old infrastructure and the design challenges being experienced with the country's two new power station. 

"A few weeks ago I went to launch unit 2 of Medupi and the whole country felt that we had now seen the last of load shedding and lo and behold load shedding then visited us once again which showed that our system is unreliable, it's unpredictable for all the reasons that I have cited."