Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter says the power utility has come to an arrangement with the eThekwini district leadership and has suspended load-shedding in the area.

KwaZulu-Natal is dealing with devastating flooding that destroyed homes and crucial infrastructure and killed dozens.

Listen to what Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter had to say: 

De Ruyter emphasised in a media briefing on Wednesday morning that unplanned outages and system failures are “uncomfortably high” and that two decades of sub-par maintenance has left the utility in a difficult position, with a generation capacity shortfall of 3,518 megawatts.

De Ruyter outlined how neglect for the inclusion of new generating capacity over the past two decades has hamstrung the utility into resorting to load-shedding to conduct routine maintenance.

He said Eskom is working tirelessly to bring load-shedding to an end.

The EFF and DA have been united in their calls for load-shedding to be suspended in KwaZulu-Natal while the province deals with devastating flooding.

The EFF said implementing power cuts in affected areas was “inhumane” and would “actively aid the trauma, dislocation, and death of our people”.

DA leader in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature Francois Rodgers said: “Given the circumstances, the provincial government has a duty to ensure those who have been badly affected are not put through any further misery as a result of load-shedding.”

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