Eskom started implementing load-shedding on Sunday after it warning that that it had lost generational capacity to meet the country’s demand.
Yesterday, the department of public enterprise told a portfolio committee on public enterprises that Eskom would go down if did not get cash injection from the government by April. But President Cyril Ramaphosa said he would outline a plan to rescue the power utility from its financial problems on Thursday when he responds to the debate on his State of the Nation Address.
In his address last week, Ramaphosa announced that the government would split Eskom into entities – generation, transmission and distribution under Eskom Holdings – a move that angered trade unions. The unions believe the move would benefit independent power producers.
NUM also rejected government’s move to bring international engineers to help identify the problems at Eskom. NUM said it has 15,000 members working at Eskom, about 3,000 at the utility's subsidiary Rotek Industries and 25,000 members at the coal mines in Mpumalanga.