Tutuka Powerstation Standerton - Photos: Delwyn Verasamy
South Africa has been thrust into high levels of load-shedding as the 15-year power crisis deepens as criminals continue their siege on Eskom and City Power’s infrastructure.
On Thursday in a statement, Eskom said that the increase in the theft and vandalism of its infrastructure in Gauteng was posing a threat to its liquidity and mandate to provide electricity to residents.
The power utility said it had recorded a concerning number of incidents involving infrastructure vandalism.
City Power is the latest to be affected by infrastructure vandalism after it announced that illegal miners were allegedly causing instability at the Roodepoort substation by drilling next to it.
City Power’s Isaac Mangena said that the illegal miners were working right outside the Roodepoort substations.
“We are extremely concerned about the illegal mining practices. There’s a huge threat should the electricity infrastructure collapse or cave in.”
Water trouble
Rand Water said the power supply in Ekurhuleni had been interrupted as a result of vandalism.
Eskom confirmed that the bulk water supplier’s insulators at its Mapleton line in the city were tampered with on Wednesday. This puts residents in multiple metros at risk of water shortages.
The utility has urged residents to help report any information regarding those responsible for acts of vandalism at its substations. It said people were left without electricity long after their scheduled power cuts.
Speaking to Mail & Guardian, two power station managers said vandalism and sabotage nationwide has impacted Eskom’s ability to work.
“Our technicians are at a point where we are afraid to work because if they are deployed to go fix the vandalised equipment they [fear they] will be attacked,” one source said.
“The main culprit behind the country’s power problems is rampant criminality, including acts of theft and sabotage. The problem is that the police are not helping us too, which gives criminals the opportunity to make a killing from our equipment,” another source said.
Eskom said that vandalism and theft of infrastructure also come at a great financial loss to the company, which is forced to replace the same at significant and unsustainable costs, further threatening its liquidity and mandate to provide electricity.
Looking ahead
The utility nationally is being assisted by the South African National Defence force which is helping to protect coal plants and infrastructure from vandalism.
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.
Eskom chair, Mpho Makwana suggested that load-shedding will be a factor in the lives of South Africans for the next two years, at least.
Despite the move to renewable energy, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that coal would continue to provide 80% of the country’s energy needs, and that the government had no plans to exclude it from its future energy mix.
“We’ve built two mega power stations — Kusile and Medupi — that generate some 8 000MW at great cost and there is just no way we are going to shut those two stations down,” he said.
Eskom debt
The utility is waiting for finance minister Enoch Godongwana to bail it out, after he announced in his October 2022 mid-term budget speech that the National Treasury would be working on a deal to take over one to two-thirds of Eskom’s R400 billion debt.
In an interview with Bloomberg, outgoing Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter said that this was highlighted in the company’s financials. Even though Eskom showed an operating profit of R20.3 billion in the previous financial year, the bottom line sank to a loss of R12.3 billion. The reason? A staggering interest and finance bill of R35.4 billion.
Without a solution to Eskom’s debt problem, the struggle for whoever replaces De Ruyter at the end of March 2023 will continue.
De Ruyter also stressed that cost-reflective tariffs are needed. “Without both the debt relief and higher tariffs, Eskom will simply end up back at the National Treasury asking for further bailouts,” he said.
Mandisa Nyathi is a climate reporting fellow, funded by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa