Explosive allegations that Eskom engineered load-shedding — and BEE delayed Kusile

Former president Thabo Mbeki has made explosive allegations about Eskom, including that load-shedding was “completely unnecessary” and “deliberately engineered from within Eskom”.

Mbeki recently said the narrative that the government was to blame for the early days of load-shedding was false.

Eskom did indeed warn the government in 1998 that urgent steps were needed to build new generation capacity. It also cautioned that load-shedding could occur in 2007.

However, he dismissed the claim that this was behind load-shedding, Instead, it was engineered from within Eskom.

“The January 2008 national load-shedding was completely unnecessary and had been deliberately engineered from within Eskom,” he said.

Mbeki added that it had absolutely nothing to do with any failures by the government. Instead, it was Eskom’s making.

“Eskom’s executive management and board did not heed employees’ warnings that it was facing a potential coal shortage by December 2007,” he said.

“The declaration of an emergency could thus have been avoided with the exercise of reasonable care.”

The Eskom station managers had defied instructions to replenish their coal stocks until they ran out at many power stations.

“This was a deliberate attempt to compromise the electricity supply,” Mbeki claimed. “Eskom deliberately engineered the 2008 national load shedding.”

Mbeki added that mismanagement and corruption within Eskom, including deliberate delays in building new power stations, caused the country’s energy crisis.

Former president Thabo Mbeki

Last year, he also alleged that black economic empowerment requirements were used to deliberately delay completing the Kusile power station.

“Seven years after the construction of the Kusile power station started, there was not a single megawatt of electricity generated,” he said.

Eskom then contracted an Indian company to help build Kusile. They completed the first unit in a much shorter time than expected.

Because of their exceptional performance, the Indian company expected its contract to construct the other units to be extended. This was not the case.

“A strange thing happened. Eskom said it would only extend the contract if the Indian company gets a BEE partner,” he said.

The company did not understand the BEE requirements, and a dispute around this issue resulted in the termination of the contract. “To this day, Kusile is still not finished,” Mbeki said.

“This is why I am saying it is deliberate. It is people who wanted to produce this electricity crisis,” Mbeki alleged.

Independent energy expert Mohamed Madhi said former president Thabo Mbeki would not make these comments with credible information.

“From our perspective, it is plausible. The load-shedding in 2008 was sudden and an unusual event,” he said.

Another matter to consider is that load-shedding essentially disappeared after it initially occurred in 2007 and 2008.

These chronic power shortages, which resulted in load-shedding, disappeared for six years before they raised their head again.

“This strange situation raises questions and requires some explanation. It has not been fully investigated,” Madhi said.

In the early 2000s, Eskom was ranked among the top electricity utilities globally. It even won the Power Company of the Year award in the Financial Times’ annual Global Energy Awards in 2001.

He said going from being the best in the world to running out of power and having to implement load-shedding is unusual.

“Load-shedding in 2008 was unusual, and Mbeki’s claims are plausible. However, without the necessary information, it is not possible to conclusively say what is true,” he said.