LIGHTS OUT: Apocalypse Now?

In 2018, we didn't know what to expect when Eskom made the decision to keep us in the dark. Five years later, and many dark seasons later, we're more prepared for the unexpected

- GEZZY S. SIBISI

By the end of 2022, Stage 6 had become a regular occurrence in our EskomsePush schedules. According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, continuous Stage 6 blackouts cost South Africa R560 billion in 2022 alone.

With the new year, a glimmer of hope was restored when Eskom chair Mpho Makwana said that Stage 6 would take a backseat to the permanent fixture of Stage 2 and Stage 3 for the next three years.

HELLO DARKNESS

For Soweto resident and accounting student Thabiso Selala, waking up to no electricity and sometimes no water too, due to supply problems caused by the electricity crisis, is just the first stage of his struggles in navigating never-ending power cuts. "The electricity in Dobsonville goes out twice a day, sometimes for more than two hours, and at times for two to three days," he says.

Thabiso is one of millions who are more than fed up with the empty promises, and there have already been several protests in the first half of the year by political parties, unions and citizens, calling for an end to the energy crisis. The future still looks dark, though, as former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter insisted in an affidavit that power cuts are still needed to save the country's ageing energy grid from total collapse.

The ripple effect of these outages was highlighted in January, when SowetanLIVE published a list of businesses facing closure due to Stage 6 load shedding. This was a week after the National Energy Regulator approved Eskom's 18.65% tariff increase, which coupled with rolling blackouts could lead to business closures, job losses and loss of work opportunities for the youth, economists warn.

The SA Government has now declared a State of Disaster and appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa as the country's first Minister of Electricity to get to the bottom of Eskom's challenges at its 14 power stations. Could this really mean light at the end of SA's dark tunnel?