South Africa was hit by the latest round of load shedding this week, with Eskom saying this could continue right into winter.
PARLIAMENT’S standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) is on Wednesday visiting Medupi power station in Lephalale as power outages continue.
South Africa was this week hit by the latest round of rolling blackouts, with Eskom saying this could continue into winter. Eskom first implemented stage 2 load shedding and this was later scaled up to stage 4.
Members of Scopa will on Wednesday visit Medupi, be followed by another visit to Kusile power station in Emalahleni on Thursday.
The two coal-fired power stations have been under construction over the last few years and there have been delays in completing their construction.
They were supposed to come on stream a few years ago but this has not happened due to delays.
Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said the committee needs to understand the problems behind the two power stations.
Its visit to Medupi and Kusile will also be followed by a meeting with the Eskom board on Friday in Gauteng.
Hlengwa said there were a number of issues that Eskom had not addressed since the committee’s last visit in 2019.
He said they would not allow the problems to continue for a long time.
“This visit is a follow-up to the August 2019 oversight visit the committee conducted at Medupi and Kusile power stations. Scopa’s recommendations after the 2019 oversight visit were not adequately addressed by Eskom, and there has been a continued shift in terms of the projected completion dates of the projects,” said Hlengwa.
He added that these problems at Medupi and Kusile needed to be addressed immediately to resolve the energy crisis.
The two power stations were expected to bring additional energy capacity in the country to ease loadshedding.
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