So-called shortage of coal is fictional nonsense – Floyd Shivambu

Although South Africans are understandably annoyed by the inconvenience that is loadshedding, no one seems as annoyed as EFF chief whip and deputy president Floyd Shivambu.

After telling his Twitter followers to not trust the ANC with long-term planning and solutions in light of former president Jacob Zuma’s promise that there would never be load shedding ever again, Shivambu has shared yet another one of his thoughts on the matter.

According to Shivambu, the so-called shortage of coal is fictional nonsense just like the “Day Zero”.

He went on to allege the DA wanted to raise money for elections so they used Day Zero and Cape Town’s water crisis as a cover to do so.

“Coal shortage is used as a mechanism to justify and legitimate the nonsensical and costly Independent Power Producers. We are Back to square One,” added Shivambu.

This was in reference to an article by News24 publication The Witness titled Eskom’s big coal whopper.

In the article, the publication states there is no shortage of coal as Eskom claims and that the coal remains uncollected by the power utility. As a result, it is piling up at the mines.

Coal (or a lack thereof) is not the reason for the current bout of loadshedding faced by the country.

The problem is reportedly due to the fact that the power utility has not been able to run the necessary maintenance on their power units over the years due to financial mismanagement.

As such, the power units lack the capacity to meet the increasing demand for the output of units of electricity needed to service the nation.

Speaking to YFM’s Oliver Dickson on Tuesday evening, Eskom deputy spokesperson Dikatso Mothae confirmed: “R11.5 billion has been set aside to address maintenance in the next 12 months as part of the recovery plan.”

The country is currently in stage 2 load shedding and the power utility will host a media briefing this afternoon to give an update on Eskom’s current operational challenges.

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