Eskom has 'no intention' of ramping up load-shedding to stage 5 and 6

Eskom on Tuesday denied reports that it was planning to increase load-shedding to unprecedented stage 5 and stage 6 levels.

This was after an earlier media report on Fin24 - citing an unnamed source - that the parastatal was considering the never-before-seen rotational power cuts to avoid a national blackout.

However, Eskom spokesman Andrew Etzinger told TimesLIVE that this was not on the cards. "No intention or requirement to go to stage 5 or 6," he said via e-mail.

On Tuesday, Eskom and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan jointly hosted a press briefing on the state of affairs at the parastatal.

Public enterprises department spokesman Adrian Lackay also denied the claims. "No one on the [press conference] panel today spoke about introducing stage 5 and stage 6 load-shedding. I don't know why the [Fin24] article makes that claim," he said.