Eskom investigating suspected sabotage that took down one of its stations
Power utility Eskom says that is launching an investigation into the conduct of one of its employees after the shutdown of Camden Power Station due to demineralised water contamination last week.
Camden power station in Mpumalanga was pulled offline this past week after a senior technician ‘opened the wrong valve’ and ended up contaminating the plant’s demineralised water supply.
While seven of the units at the station were returned to service over the weekend, the remaining units remain offline and anticipated to be brought back in the coming days.
The incident caused the entire plant to be taken offline to prevent damage to its components. The shutdown came amid the worst-ever levels of load shedding implemented by Eskom and exacerbated the deepening energy crisis. Camden supplies 1,561MW of power or 3.4% to the national grid.
The company said that it is looking into the incident, and the technician in question has been suspended pending further investigations.
“Eskom can confirm that an employee has been suspended and an investigation into his conduct is underway. Once the investigation is complete, Eskom’s disciplinary process will kick in, and the appropriate action will be taken,” said Eskom.
An anonymous source told City Press that it was likely that the incident was intentional, as the valve in question required a grown man to open it with both hands – adding that it is not an action that an experienced technician would have done accidentally.
Addressing the incident, Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said that the act was deliberate.
“The events that unfolded there [at Camden power station] a few days ago is clearly an example of… let’s call it ‘resistance’ to be euphemistic,” he said.
Gordhan alluded to similar incidents happening at the power utility, noting that some Eskom employees were “resisting” moves at the company to root out corruption and apply higher performance standards.
Eskom targeted by looters
Speaking to Bongani Bingwa on 702, political commentator and analyst Ebrahim Harvey said that factions within the ANC who oppose president Cyril Ramaphosa are likely the ones behind the sabotage, trying to re-establish lucrative corruption channels.
“Eskom has long been a battlefield, and African nationalists within the ANC have used Eskom as a cash cow for years,” said Harvey.
He added that since Andre De Ruyter took office around three years ago in a bid to root out corruption, the stats clearly show a sharp increase in sabotage cases within Eskom.
Harvey said that the corrupt individuals target Eskom due to the sheer size of the state-owned enterprise, adding that it’s too big to monitor all aspects of the power utility to weed out corruption.
The corruption network within Eskom runs from the very top right down to the labour unions and their members, he said.
“These people don’t give a damn about the people of Soweto and African working class, and they want De Ruyter out of the way so they can re-establish a very lucrative corruption network that has been embedded into Eskom,” said Harvey.
These are the same people who called for De Ruyter’s neck amid the restructuring of Eskom’s Broad.
Harvey also noted that the key is in the timing of recent events, as there are clear signs that sabotage at Eskom is intesifying in the run-up to the ANC’s national elective conference in December.
He claims that the opposing factions to Ramaphosa are sabotaging the power utility in a bid to make President Cyril Ramaphosa look weak as the party prepares for its 55th national elective conference.
Sabotage at Eskom
This latest incident at Camden adds to the growing pile of sabotage allegations at the power utility.
In November 2021, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter confirmed a deliberate act of sabotage near the Lethabo power station in Vereeniging, where there was clear evidence that an electricity pylon had been deliberately cut and felled.
According to City Press, Eskom’s special investigation team has been operating for the past few months, and it has highlighted other incidents of suspected sabotage that also require deeper investigation, including:
- Medupi’s unit 4 generator explosion in August 2021, where procedural failure caused the generator to blow up and tripped another, requiring around R2.5 billion to fix.
- In an incident at the Matimba power station, someone allegedly dropped an extension cord onto a transformer, putting three units out of action.
- An incident where a technician closed the wrong valve at the Koeberg power station.
Gordhan said that these actions undermine not only Eskom, but the entire country.
He added that one must start looking at whether Eskom is now being abused for specific political gain, similar to what happened during state capture.
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