Former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the leadership of both President Cyril Ramaphosa and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s handling of the country’s energy crisis.
Eskom is expected to lift load shedding on Friday, with Stage 2 load shedding expected to remain throughout the weekend.
In an exclusive interview with Independent Media, Molefe questioned the latest bout of load shedding, and warned that the state-owned enterprise was not being managed properly.
He warned that if one more unit tripped this week the country could be plunged into stage 6 load shedding, with seven units already out.
During last week when Eskom started stage 2 load shedding, it said the reason was “an incident in Zambia”.
Molefe blamed the media and the public for not holding Eskom to account.
“What incident in Zambia can cause load shedding in South Africa?” asked Molefe, adding that Eskom must explain this incident to the public.
He said during his time at Eskom there was no load shedding because the system was properly managed.
“To stop load shedding 75% of our fleet has to be available. When I joined Eskom the EAS (energy availability factor) was 69% and we increased it to 81% and we stopped load shedding,” he said.
Speaking in Soweto on Monday, Ramaphosa described the move to stage 4 load shedding as a calamity.