ANC national executive committee member and former deputy finance minister Mondli Gungubele says the blame for the state of electricity provider Eskom lies squarely with the governing party.
Gungubele, who was also part of Parliament’s committee looking into state-owned enterprises, told News24 the objective reality was that Eskom had financial, management, maintenance, capacity and reinforcement challenges.
"We were sleeping on the job, even where there is reinforcement, due diligence had not been done very well," he said.
"Even when we were reinforcing, we were not tight on due diligence," he added.
South Africa has been hit by a series of power cuts, with Eskom announcing on Monday that it was implementing Stage 6 load shedding, a first for the country as it battles to keep operations running.
The electricity provider has warned that the rolling blackouts will continue for the rest of the week, amid severe capacity restraints and the flooding caused by the continuous rain, which has also affected some power plants.
The Presidency, in a statement on Monday, said President Cyril Ramaphosa had received an update on developments around the crisis and was in constant contact with Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan .
Ramaphosa is set to cut his trip to Egypt short, returning home to deal with the ongoing power crisis.
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