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For every day that there is load shedding, South Africa loses hundreds of millions of rands.

We know that certain political factions in this country aren’t worried by such trivial matters, as evident by the widespread looting and violence which broke out in July of this year.

Much of that was orchestrated by a pro-Jacob Zuma faction in order to destabilise the country and it appears something similar might be happening at Eskom.

CEO André de Ruyter says Eskom is investigating suspicious circumstances around the breakdowns of several power stations recently.

Via MyBroadband, here’s de Ruyter discussing one fishy incident involving three units at Matimba power station that went down simultaneously:

De Ruyter explained that a team had been working on the station’s dry cooling fans when they dropped an extension cord onto the unit 2 transformer.

This caused a flash, which tripped the station board and shut down all cooling to units 1, 2, and 3, leading to all three shutting down.

“We have difficulty in believing that this is entirely coincidental, so we have dispatched a forensic team to site,” said De Ruyter.

While saying that it’s dangerous to speculate, de Ruyter made it clear that some of those who have been profiting from years of unchecked Eskom corruption aren’t on board with trying to turn things around.

On top of what occurred at Matimba, Wednesday also saw a pylon collapse near the Lethabo power station in Vereeniging that stinks of sabotage.

Senior Eskom sources told News24 that this represents “the clearest indication yet of a deliberate campaign to sabotage the country’s electricity supply”:

The pylon, which fell immediately before evening peak demand time, supported power lines that feed electricity to a long overland conveyor that delivers coal to Eskom’s second most reliable power station, Lethabo.

It fell, as an exclusive picture obtained by News24 shows, uphill onto a second power line installed as a backup in case the main line should fail, situated a few metres above the main pylon on a small incline. The picture shows there are no obvious signs of corrosion or other damage to the pylon’s support structure.

Sure, falling uphill as those pylons do from time to time.

One source went as far as to tell News24 that “It looks like it’s war.”

Have we not suffered enough for one year without people sabotaging our national power supplier?

De Ruyter again:

“I think there is definitely significant push back from some of the networks that have benefitted extensively from criminal activity in and around Eskom. We are tightening the screws.”

…”So, there are quite a few people who are not fully aligned with the new direction Eskom is taking to clean up its operation.”

You start cracking down on the crooks, and this is what it gets you.

This might be a good opportunity to revisit the cost of getting off the grid.

[sources:mybroadband&news24]