Criminal case reportedly lodged against Eskom ‘saboteur’

Presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko confirmed on Monday, after President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed a Reconciliation Day gathering in Bergville, that a suspect has supposedly been charged with alleged sabotage at an Eskom power station.

She told eNCA the case had been opened at the Standerton police station, but the police minister would be able to provide further details.

Last week, speaking during a long-awaited media briefing after his visit to Eskom HQ Megawatt Park following a week of heavy load shedding, Ramaphosa confirmed that the loss in energy generation capacity suffered by the power utility had allegedly partly been due to acts of sabotage.

Ramaphosa acknowledged that it was not the only contributor to the utility’s ability to generate power, since wet coal also played its part along with other breakdowns and system issues.

About 2,000MW of loss was due to the alleged sabotage, he said, which amounted to about two stages of load shedding.

Two generating units at Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga had tripped on the Thursday before last, which was later suspected to be where the “sabotage” took place.

“Someone in the Eskom system disconnected one of the instruments that finally led to one of the boilers tripping,” was all Ramaphosa divulged last week.

He added that the SA Police Service and intelligence services would need to probe what actually happened.

The president added that the festive season leave of all key senior managers had been cancelled until the crisis could be resolved, but he promised there would be no load shedding over Christmas.

Load shedding stopped over the weekend.

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