Eskom dismissed as a 'malicious hoax' a viral statement about an imminent blackout across the country.
Eskom dismissed as a 'malicious hoax' a viral statement about an imminent blackout across the country.
In a statement on Wednesday 3 June, Eskom’s Acting Chief Executive Brian Molefe said, “The national power system has multiple layers of manual and automatic protection in place in order to prevent a national blackout from occurring.
Load shedding is one of the mechanisms implemented by the System Operator to protect the power system.
The eventuality of a blackout occurring is therefore remote.”
The power system is currently stable, and there has not been any need to implement load shedding in the past seven days.
Consumers are however, urged to continue to use electricity efficiently in order to minimise the risk of load shedding.
This is particularly important as we are currently experiencing cold weather across the country.
In April this year, the Government joined Eskom in dismissing a hoax statement which was going viral alleging that Eskom has notified Government in a special meeting that the national power grid could possibly crash and plunge South Africa into darkness for over two weeks.
In its statement issued on April 9 this year, the government said:
“South Africans are assured that the country’s energy challenges are receiving priority at the highest level to resolve the situation.
"The message regarding Eskom is not true and is meant to create unnecessary panic.
"Load shedding is a controlled and planned method to ensure that the power system is protected from a total blackout.
"The government is confident that the measures it is introducing will ensure that the country does not reach a point of a complete blackout.
The government is committed to finding a long-lasting solution to address the current energy situation and urges people to refrain from spreading rumours".
