SA expresses shock and disbelief at Eskom’s stages 5 and 6 load shedding

At a press conference to brief South Africans on the sorry state of affairs struggling utility Eskom has found itself in, revelations from Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan that there are plans to implement stages 5 and 6 of load shedding in a bid to stave off a nationwide blackout appear to have taken South Africans by surprise.

READ UPDATE: Calm down, we’re not heading into Stage 5 or 6, Eskom says

An article on Fin24, which explains that it is now clear that Stages 5 and 6 are being planned for and that Gordhan had been forced to backtrack from his assertion at a previous briefing that government was committed to ensuring load shedding didn’t go beyond Stage 4, seems to have introduced some to the possibility of load shedding progressing to these stages.

The fact that stages 5 and 6 exist as possibilities has, however, been public knowledge since November last year. In fact, Stage 7 and Stage 8 exist too.

Eskom announced at the time that it had extended its load shedding regime from four stages – which allow up to 4,000 megawatts (MW) of demand to be shed – to eight stages, which would provide for up to 8,000 MW to be shed.

Stage 8 load shedding could leave a specific consumer without power for six or seven out of the 12 load shedding slots per day. Each slot is two and a half hours long, with consecutive slots overlapping by half an hour.

READ MORE: Now there are eight stages of Eskom misery

That means Stage 8 could bring more than 12-hour power cuts per day to any group of consumers, Moneyweb reported last year,  adding that according to Eskom this was “a necessary precaution” to avoid a blackout if the situation gets serious enough.

Now, it seems that some South Africans are learning that the possibility of load shedding escalating to stages 5 and 6 for the first time ever is on the table. Unsurprisingly, they are not happy, taking to Twitter to express their shock.

One of those tweeting about these two stages was comedian Casper de Vries, whose complaints about the possibility of stages 5 and 6 being implemented were accompanied by colourful language.

Other tweets on the subject expressed a mixture of shock and disbelief.

Former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko also tweeted about the two new stages. Koko has been slamming his former employers on Twitter frequently since vacating his position.

“Stage 5 would mean 16 million [South Africans] will be without electricity all at once [and] stage 6 will affect 19 million [South Africans],” he tweeted, adding that in his view “Pravin and [the ANC] don’t get it”.

WARNING: The following tweet contains strong language. 

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.