By John Ikani
South Africa’s state-run electricity provider Eskom has increased power cuts amid a protest by its workers over wages.
Eskom said in a statement on Friday that “due to the ongoing unprotected labour action” it was being “compelled to take precautionary actions to conserve emergency generation reserves”.
The utility firm has been struggling to meet power demands in South Africa for years amid an energy crisis blamed on poor maintenance, rising costs, falling revenues, crumbling infrastructure, corruption and mismanagement.
The power company, which has implementing “Stage 2” rotational power cuts since the beginning of the week, said on Friday that it was expanding them to the more severe “Stage 4 from Friday 11:00 am until midnight”.
It made an appeal to its striking workers saying it was exploring for possible solutions to unlock the deadlock with the unions.
“Eskom appeals to its labour partners and striking employees to embrace the higher purpose of putting the people of South Africa first,” it said.
