South Africa
#Eskom denies load-shedding reached stage 6─── 10:48 Wed, 16 Sep 2020
Eskom denied claims that it lied to customers by ramping up load-shedding earlier this month to stage 6 without telling the public.
Energy expert Ted Blom accused the power utility of shedding more than 5,000 megawatts during stage 4 load-shedding.
According to Eskom’s own descriptions, that amounts to stage 6 rolling blackouts.
Blom said that he had evidence to prove that the utility was not being honest with South Africans.
“On the second day, Eskom load-shedded 5,389 megawatts, which is supposed to be level 6. I saw that they load-shedded more than 5,000 megawatts [and] according to their own rules, that’s level 6,” he said.
However, Eskom’s spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said that Blom’s claims were not true.
“At no point did we lie to anybody and I’m quite pleased to note that he acknowledges that Eskom is not able to fully supply power to the country, which Eskom has now been admitting for a while. Unfortunately, that is where we are at this point,” he said.
