De Ruyter said in a virtual media briefing on Tuesday afternoon that the power utility needs continuity from a leadership/management perspective and whilst it’s easy to cast blame on the utility alone, the reality is “we are where we are and therefore need to work together” to get out of this predicament. 

De Ruyter and the rest of Eskom’s management briefed the public on the latest developments regarding load-shedding. They announced that from Wednesday 05:00, the country moves to level 3 of load-shedding till Friday, whereupon we move to level 2. It is expected blackouts will be phased out at the weekend.

De Ruyter has blamed endless red tape as one of the reasons that are making maintenance at the utility challenging. “Current procurement methodology is not well suited to the running of large complex industrial enterprises like Eskom”. 

He has also criticised municipalities that are not playing their role in implementing load-shedding at local government level. This has exacerbated the utility’s plethora of issues which include financial limitations.