Most of SA Plunged into Darkness

South Africa’s Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona has given the assurance that critical institutions such as hospitals and airports will not be included in its load-shedding blocks.

He has been addressing the media at the power utility’s Megawatt Park head office in Johannesburg.

Matona has confirmed that the load-shedding exercise will last for at least a week.

Many parts of the country are still without power. Widespread load-shedding has hit Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. This after a coal silo collapsed at Eskom’s Majuba power plant in Mpumalanga.

There are rolling blackouts after Eskom lost 1800 mega watts following the incident.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber in Port Elizabeth believes Eskom’s load-shedding will affect manufacturing companies and businesses.

The chamber’s CEO Kevin Hustler says: “Obviously companies will have to do some burning around load shedding and hopefully reduced the impact on the production and their shifts the best they can. Hopefully a lot of businesses have contingency plans for these types of situation and hopefully those contingency plans can be applied quickly for the week ahead.”