Maintenance spares stolen and sold back to Tutuka, says Ramaphosa on energy crisis

President Cyril Ramaphosa says criminal activities at Eskom’s power stations have also contributed to South Africa’s load shedding crisis.

Addressing the nation on the country’s electricity crisis on Monday evening, Ramaphosa said while only 60% of installed electricity capacity is available at any given time due to some units going through planned maintenance and others having unplanned outages, the theft of equipment was also a big issue, especially at the Tutuka power station.

“Last weekend, I visited the Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga, whose performance has been badly affected by criminal activities,” said Ramaphosa.

“We heard of maintenance spares being stolen and sold back to Tutuka and other power stations. We were told of ongoing theft of oil in a massive scale and the deliberate damaging of equipment so that Eskom should hire equipment from private contractors.

“What is happening at Tutuka and other power stations is deliberate sabotage by well-organised criminal syndicates that are destroying the utility and damaging our economy.”

Ramaphosa said the South African Police Service (SAPS) has set up a special law enforcement team to help Eskom in confronting crime and corruption.

According to Ramaphosa, a number people have recently been arrested, while several others are already being prosecuted for corruption and fraud involving Eskom contracts.

In May, Eskom opened criminal charges after discovering the alleged sabotage incidents at the Tutuka Power Station.

According to spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha at the time, a cable was severed at Tutuka while the power station was finalising preparations to return one of its units to service.

“The damage to the cable had the effect of delaying the unit’s return to service by three days as it took some time to locate the fault. Once discovered, the cable was repaired in a short space of time. The return to service of Unit 5 was then resumed,” said Mantshantsha.

A few hours later, Eskom discovered that there was a station control air pressure drop and the same Unit 5 Turbine systems which consume control air for operation were de-energised.

Eskom said the acts of sabotage were done by someone who had access to the site where only employees have access and knows the security features in the area quite well.

This was the fifth incident of sabotage since March 2021.

Eskom staff being paid ‘well enough’

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has previously warned Eskom employees who might be involved in “mischievous” and “nefarious” activities to rather focus on doing their job properly as they’re being paid well enough.

Briefing the portfolio committee on public enterprises, Gordhan said though he did not want to get into it, there was “some indication” that there might be “mischief” going on at Eskom which was contributing to the power crisis.

“There hasn’t been the kind of attention required in order to figure out what’s really going on. But there is a message that needs to go to the Eskom staff on one hand and also to those who still feel aggrieved because they had to leave the opportunities for all sorts of mischievous stuff at Eskom, and now want to retaliate in one form or another because egos wouldn’t allow them to accept that it’s time for them to move on and leave the job to somebody else to do,” said the minister.

READ MORE: Gordhan warns Eskom staff involved in ‘nefarious’ activities