Stage 6 power cuts are ‘short-term pain’, says Cyril Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africans will have to brace themselves for continued rolling blackouts as Eskom carries out planned maintenance.

He did, however, assure the nation that the lights would be back on soon. 

“The stage 6 that we are going through now is occasioned by what Eskom is having to do to reposition the generation of our fleets.

“They are maintaining our fleet, making sure incidences of load-shedding … are of a short-term nature,” the president told journalists on Tuesday after answering questions in the National Assembly. 

Ramaphosa said electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa had briefed him thoroughly on processes under way at the power utility.

“So there is short-term pain for longer-term gain. I think that we are obviously worried whenever there is load-shedding, but as we go through this process, we must see it in a positive light because in the long term, these are things we need to do to ensure we say goodbye load-shedding,” the president added.

TimesLIVE reported Eskom as saying it would implement stage 6 load-shedding from 5am on Tuesday until further notice because of an increase in planned maintenance and the loss on Monday of another two generation units. 

“Overnight, a further two units at Lethabo and Matla power stations will need to be shut down for urgent repairs,” it said.

Breakdowns are at 16,210MW of generating capacity, while capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 5,894MW, Eskom added.

It said the delay in returning to service a generating unit each at Hendrina and Tutuka power stations was also contributing to capacity constraints. 

TimesLIVE