South African power giant investigates sabotage at plants

Acts of sabotage are being investigated at South Africa’s state-owned power stations after a number of “suspicious events” caused a fresh wave of crippling power cuts.

The head of Eskom, the state power provider, said evidence of malicious interference had been uncovered after the sudden collapse of a pylon that was found to have had its eight steel supports cut. Forensic investigators have been sent to sites where faults and defaults could not be attributed to malfunctions.

“This was clearly now an act of sabotage and we can call it as such,” André de Ruyter, Eskom’s chief executive, told a press conference today after cleanly sliced rods were discovered at Lethabo power station in Free State province, the country’s most reliable producer.

De Ruyter has previously blamed gangs “which had previously benefited from Eskom coffers” for maliciously targeting plants that are already battling to function after years of corruption and underinvestment. One plant is expected to be out of operation for 18 months.

Eskom produces about 90 per cent of South Africa’s power but is now regarded as the biggest risk to the economy, according to the National Treasury. A decade of load-shedding — in which supply is interrupted to avoid overloading generators — is estimated to have cost it up to R338 billion (£16 billion), according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The largest state-owned enterprise, it was milked for jobs and lucrative contracts during the presidency of Jacob Zuma according to testimony heard at a corruption inquiry into so-called “state capture”. It reported a net loss after tax of £890 million for the financial year that ended in March and has its own debts of £19 billion, which it is unable to service.

After years of neglect and sleaze, regular breakdowns in its mostly coal power stations throw millions of homes and businesses into darkness and pose the biggest risk to the country’s already sluggish economy. A system of rotating outages, known as “load-shedding” was first introduced in 2007 to save the national grid from collapse.

Since his appointment to reform Eskom in January 2020, De Ruyter has become an unpopular figure among staff and unions for taking a hard line on corruption and the bloated workforce, accusing some employees of tolerating mediocrity and having a “victim mentality”.

Some analysts have speculated that recent sabotage could be part of a plan to force De Ruyter out. During his nearly two years as head of Eskom there have been record outages, which the Black Business Council and National Union of Mineworkers have cited as a reason for him to step down.

President Ramaphosa’s announced plan to split Eskom into three parts —generation, transmission and distribution — to improve efficiency and transparency also led to protests against potential job losses.

During the first half of 2021 power cuts were imposed for 650 hours — or 15 per cent — of the period, data from the CSIR showed, with the current year likely to be the worst on record.

The pressure on De Ruyter has intensified since South Africa announced a £6.3 billion financing deal with European countries to help Eskom’s move away from coal to clean energy.