Here are some of the lies and colluded messages from Eskom you deserve to know…

The Diesel debacle: Eskom said it could not get diesel from PetroSA to power generators because PetroSA had run out of diesel. But PetroSA’s Zama Luthuli said his company had been “able to meet its obligations to Eskom” right from when it first started making increased demands in November.

Medupi Madness: The deadline to bring South Africa’s new flagship power station, Medupi, online on Christmas Eve might not be met but that the deadline would shift to “early January”. The story from the engineers at the site, however, told the Sunday Times that, thanks to Eskom’s own bungling, there was no way it would get going until Easter at the earliest.

Eskom pledges it is working around the clock to keep the lights on, but it has emerged that nearly 13000 workers at Medupi in Limpopo have packed up and gone on holiday.

In Mpumalanga, at Hendrina, four of the 10 power units, representing a combined 800megawatts, were down. Two of those four units had collapsed because of preventable tube leaks. One technician said: “I’ve been working at this power station for more than 25 years. We never used to have so many tube leaks in such as a short space of time.

Load-shedding blame game: Politicians have been blamed for the load-shedding, as well as keeping the lights on for the 2010 World Cup and the elections, when turning the power off would have cost votes. President Jacob Zuma, finally breaking his silence on the power crisis, blamed apartheid for his government’s inability to keep the lights on.

For more on this check out Times Live