South Africans’ nine-day reprieve from enforced power outages ended this afternoon with the announcement by Eskom that stage one load-shedding would be implemented from 5pm. Earlier‚ SA’s power utility boasted in a statement: “There is currently no load-shedding taking place and Eskom has not implemented load-shedding for the past nine days”.But Eskom followed up the news with the cautionary message that “the power system is very constrained and vulnerable throughout the day today‚ with a high risk of load shedding being implemented at short notice”. This‚ Eskom explained‚ “is due to a number of Eskom’s generating units being unavailable as a result of technical faults”.Eskom’s comments didn’t go well with Twitter users.‏@Eskom_SA’s retweet of @mhayiseb’s positive post - “Congratution to @Eskom_SA for keeping the lights on this long. Keep it up. Well Done Brian Molefe and the team” – was met with scorn by some.@MarjWebster replied: “@Eskom_SA @mhayiseb You congratulating them for keeping lights on for a few days! Didn't you know their job is to keep them on permanently!”‚ ‏while @cda3108 was cynical: “@Eskom_SA @mhayiseb Have something to gain here? Mmmmm‚ some nepotism?”‏@Perks_ZA was equally sneering: “@Eskom_SA NERSA case over‚ load shedding suspended the next day. And keeping the electric on is your job. And you receive plaudits? Crazy”.June 29 saw Nersa – the National Electricity Regulator of SA - declined an application by Eskom to raise the price of electricity by 9.58%. ‏@Perks_ZA followed up his earlier tweet: “@Eskom_SA I believe the last lot of load shedding was only implemented to enhance your tariff application with NERSA. #cynical”. ‏ @JdkMoe wanted to know: “@Eskom_SA @mhayiseb just me or did they thank @mhayiseb for sarcasm?”One person Eskom would be unlikely to thank for his sarcasm was ‏@jarredcinman: “@Eskom_SA well done - the largest economy in Africa managed to supply electricity for 2 weeks. Take a day off guys.”..