South Africa deploys army at power plants amid energy crisis
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There are concerns about threats of sabotage, theft, vandalism and corruption at the power plants.
PHOTO: REUTERS
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa has started deploying its army at power stations as theft and vandalism adds to the inability of state-owned utility Eskom Holdings to meet electricity demand.
Members of the South African National Defence Force were deployed at the Majuba, Camden, Grootvlei and Tutuka coal-fired plants in the eastern Mpumalanga province on Saturday afternoon, the utility’s media desk said in a WhatsApp message.
The move follows a request to the minister of defence from the Presidency and the minister of public enterprises to respond “to the growing threat of sabotage, theft, vandalism and corruption at Eskom power stations”, Presidency spokesman Vincent Magwenya said by text message.
A minimum of 10 soldiers will be assigned to each of the four plants and further deployments will be announced in due course, he said.
Eskom is currently removing 6,000 MW – a process known locally as load-shedding – from the grid.
It would result in outages of as long four hours two or three times a day.
South Africa has endured power shortages for the past 15 years, but the cuts reached new extremes this year.
It has implemented power cuts on 191 days of 2022.
Supply has been constrained from its old and poorly maintained plants that continuously break down.
The power cuts have cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars in lost output as well as disrupting commerce and industry.
Anger is growing among South Africans, who are now having to do deal with power cuts several times a day, sometimes totalling up to 11-and-half hours a day.
Earlier this week Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter announced his resignation, citing crime and corruption as the main obstacles he faced in trying to turn around the troubled state-owned entity. AFP, BLOOMBERG