Eskom’s doing its best to avoid winter load shedding – De Ruyter

Eskom cannot give any guarantees about electricity blackouts this winter.

Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter on Friday could not could say how Eskom plans to tackle its power supply challenges as the country braces for the cold season.

He said there were no guarantees that power outages or load shedding were going to be avoided with the utility’s old infrastructure.

“We are doing our utmost best to avoid load shedding this winter,” De Ruyter said.

“At this point in time, if we can keep our partial load shedding under control the prognosis is positive. The Eskom generation system is old and not as reliable as we want it to be, therefore we can’t make promises, we can give the nation the comfort we are doing the best we can.”

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De Ruyter is being investigated by the utility on allegations of racism.

This is after suspended chief procurement officer Solly Tshitangano accused De Ruyter of favouring white-owned companies over black-owned companies.

Tshitangano also accused De Ruyter of purging black managers.

The Eskom board last month appointed advocate Ishmael Semenya to lead the investigation.

De Ruyter on Friday said that he was happy to cooperate with Semenya and the whole investigation process.

“Senior council advocate Semenya has been appointed by the board to conduct the investigations, he has started and I am very happy to cooperate with the investigation and to abide by the outcome,” De Ruyter said.