Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona apologised to the nation on Monday for the recent power blackouts.
“Eskom apologises to the nation for the inconvenience of the past few weeks,” Matona told journalists in Johannesburg.
“The events were completely unexpected, especially on Thursday and Friday.”
The power utility implemented stage two blackouts on Thursday and stage three on Friday. Stage one allows for up to 1GW of the national load to be shed, stage two for up to 2GW and stage three for up to 4GW.
Eskom was doing everything possible to manage the outages, Matona said.
“It really pains us to have to load shed. We know the public is not pleased.”
He said a complete blackout would spell disaster for the country.
“We load shed out of responsibility… A complete blackout would be catastrophic and can take weeks to recover from.”
Meanwule Matona said the electricity supply is expected to be constrained in February and March, Eskom said on Monday.
“February and March are concerning for us. This due to budgetary constraints. Our financial director is looking at options in this regard.”
The power supply would depend on the availability of diesel during that period, he said.
The power utility used 140m litres of diesel to produce power in November.
“We have had situations during this past week where the ordering of diesel was delayed due to budget constraints. Sometimes, in terms of logistics, things do not go smoothly between us, PetroSA and other suppliers,” he said. — Sapa
