{"id":660361,"date":"2023-01-29T07:14:36","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T05:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=660361"},"modified":"2023-01-29T07:14:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T05:14:36","slug":"sabotage-at-eskom-is-rampant-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/660361\/sabotage-at-eskom-is-rampant-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabotage at Eskom is rampant: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Power station managers say that Eskom’s problems aren’t necessarily a lack of skills and messy operation plans – the main culprit behind the country’s power problems is rampant criminality, including acts of theft and sabotage.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong> on condition of anonymity, station managers said that criminal elements are actively sabotaging Eskom’s power stations on a regular basis – either motivated by political ends or out of spite for being passed over for promotions or other perks.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Eskom also confirmed that some acts of sabotage were by contractors looking to secure further work from the power utility after a culprit was caught in the act and confessed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eskom is under siege by criminals, from low-level opportunistic and petty thieves to complex and highly organised syndicates. The list of criminal activities it has had to suffer is storied and long<\/a>, with coal theft, diesel theft, contract exploitation, high-level corruption and even threats of violence adding to the stresses.<\/p>\n

Late last year, the national government opted to deploy soldiers from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to four of the hardest-hit stations; however, this has had little effect, the Sunday Times reports.<\/p>\n

The managers told the paper that there is little that a couple of soldiers trained for warfare can do against widespread criminality and that the stations themselves never requested the SANDF deployment, knowing that it would be a waste of time.<\/p>\n

They said that the Hawks or the State Security Agency would have better luck stamping out crime by going undercover.<\/p>\n

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter revealed this past week that Tutuka Power Station – one of the four stations the SANDF was deployed to – is the worst-performing station in its fleet, where criminality is the direct cause.<\/p>\n

The station operates at an energy availability factor of 15% to 17%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe station\u2019s manager has to wear a bulletproof vest when walking the stations and is accompanied by two bodyguards. His wife has bodyguards, and his children go to school with bodyguards \u2013 all as a result of threats being made on his life,\u201d de Ruyter said.<\/p>\n

He said criminality is an egregious problem that needs to be addressed.<\/p>\n

If this problem isn\u2019t resolved, Eskom\u2019s entire recovery plan is at risk of not delivering the megawatts it needs to the national grid, as Tutuka is a key element of this plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil the criminality at Tutuka is addressed, we will have a significant risk to delivering megawatts to the grid,\u201d de Ruyter said.<\/p>\n

As criminals continue their siege, South Africa has been thrust into the worst-ever levels of load shedding as the 15-year power crisis deepens.<\/p>\n

Load shedding has been implemented on a near-permanent basis since September 2022, and has hit the country at high stages every day in 2023 so far.<\/p>\n

Eskom has warned that load shedding will not be going anywhere any time soon, with the group’s chair, Mpho Makwana suggesting that it will be a factor in the lives of South Africans for the next two years at least.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Eskom\u2019s worst-performing power station \u2013 where workers fear for their lives<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom is under siege by criminals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":645573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-660361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660365,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660361\/revisions\/660365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}