Broken promises: Ramokgopa, Mbalula in firing line as stage 6 load-shedding hits week before December

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula is in the spotlight as his assertions that load-shedding would be a thing of the past this festive season fall flat.

Minister of electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on Thursday said load-shedding would be implemented this festive season but would be at lower stages. The minister made the remarks during his visit to Medupi power station.

“We are returning a lot of these units. We see a festive season of extremely low levels of load-shedding,” Ramokgopa said in an interview with SABC.

Ramokgopa said Eskom needed to continue load-shedding in December as power generating units at major power stations experienced breakdowns.

When power generation capacity deteriorated on Friday, Ramokgopa received backlash for his earlier statement that load-shedding would ease.

As power generation capacity deteriorated this week, the blackouts moved from stage 2 on Tuesday to stage 4. On Friday load-shedding worsened as Eskom announced implementation of stage 6 for the weekend until Monday.

Mbalula was not spared from criticism on social media as his “load-shedding before the end of the year should have been something of the past” statement made in May came back to haunt him. 

People on social media labelled it a “broken promise”. 

Ramokgopa expected the grid to gain some stability when companies consuming large amounts of energy close their doors during the holidays. He said the holidays would provide an opportunity for Eskom to do maintenance work. 

“Your large energy users are going to close, which means there will be less demand on the grid. We will use that opportunity to ramp-up maintenance.” 

Here are some reactions from social media: 

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