While all eyes are on President Cyril Ramaphosa after he blamed wet coal and sabotage for the recent load-shedding, former public protector Thuli Madonsela has questioned the motives of the alleged “culprits”.
On Wednesday, Ramaphosa said there had been possible acts of sabotage that led to recent blackouts.
“The sabotage happened in a way where we lost 2,000MW. The wet coal led to a loss of additional megawatts. All that was a combination. Sabotage is not the only factor that led to load-shedding.”
He said investigations were under way "and I’ve urged management to speed up those investigations so that those who are found to have participated in this act of sabotage are held to account".
Without giving a clear plan on ending load-shedding, Ramaphosa said there would be no power cuts over Christmas.
Taking to social media, Madonsela questioned the reasons for the “sabotage” and the “culprits” behind it.
What if the #eskomloadshedding is an act of industrial sabotage for nefarious reasons? Who could be the culprits?
— Prof Thuli Madonsela #KindnessBuilds (@ThuliMadonsela3) December 11, 2019
In another tweet, she explained that her thoughts came from an industrial sociology dissertation she did “years ago”.
My thoughts come from an industrial sociology mini-dissertation I did years ago and got frightening stories from HL&H, among others, and a book titled “The Machine Breakers”
— Prof Thuli Madonsela #KindnessBuilds (@ThuliMadonsela3) December 11, 2019
TimesLIVE reported that Ramaphosa also said Eskom would be working with the police and the intelligence agency to find out exactly how anyone within Eskom could have disconnected the instrument that led to the loss of capacity.
According to Eskom's COO Jan Oberholzer, the loss took place at the Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga.
