Eskom’s load shedding briefing gets load shed

The media is currently waiting for Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan and Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza to address the media on the Eskom’s current electricity supply problems and, in a perhaps not-so-surprising twist, the building where the briefing is taking place is currently being load shed.

The briefing is happening at the Crowne Plaza in Rosebank, which is currently undergoing Stage 4 load shedding according to City Power’s schedule.

The Citizen’s reporter at the briefing told us that at the venue of the briefing “the diesel generator thudding away in the basement parking is working hard”.

And the building we’re in for the #Eskom briefing has been load shed. I shit thee not. https://t.co/16npZp74ZE

— Amanda Watson (@_amandzing) March 19, 2019

Eskom has said before that it was not immune to load shedding.

The struggling utility recently took to Twitter to respond to a user who asked if the struggling power utility had to deal with planned outages like the rest of us do.

“Do you also get load shedding at your office headquarters?” asked a Twitter user.

“Good morning, as a matter of fact, neither our head office nor any of our other offices are exempt from load shedding,” was the official Eskom account’s reply.

READ MORE: Gordhan to brief media as stage 4 load shedding set to continue throughout Tuesday

This revelation was met with a mixed response, with some expressing doubts about the truth of Eskom’s reply.

“This is silly though. Scary even. How do you fix things while you sit in darkness?” asked one user.

One user linked to a 2014 Sandton Chronicle article about how the utility also made an effort to curtail its usage, noting that even Eskom has its own generators.

“We do have back-up generators like most businesses to light our offices, including Megawatt Park,” Eskom’s media desk said at the time.

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