SOUTH African power utility Eskom is facing deliberate acts of sabotage by unknown criminals, its chief executive said on Friday, as he showed images of a high capacity electricity pylon toppled when all eight of its metal support stays were cut.
Struggling under a mountain of debt, state-owned Eskom regularly implements power outages that have unnerved investors and cost Africa’s most industrialised economy billions of dollars in lost output.
Claims of sabotage at Eskom’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power plants supplying the bulk of South Africa’s electricity, and which are prone to mechanical breakdowns, have swirled around for years, but CEO Andre de Ruyter’s comments on Friday were the firmest yet from a senior executive.
“The evidence does appear to be, at least prima facie, incontrovertible that there is malice afoot and that we need to take action,” he said during a media briefing.
Discovered on Wednesday evening, the toppled
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