Not enough skills at Eskom to deal with load shedding - Mabuza

Jabu Mabuza took the stand at the state capture commission on Friday and is expected to conclude his testimony on Monday.

JOHANNESBURG - Eskom board chair Jabu Mabuza has conceded that the power utility doesn't have sufficient skills set to deal with load shedding.

Mabuza took the stand at the state capture commission on Friday and is expected to conclude his testimony on Monday.

He has told the commission that when the new board he chairs arrived at Eskom, it realised the power utility was the main theatre where corruption and state capture took place.

He also revealed to the commission that Eskom has filed criminal charges against Gupta-linked company Tegeta after a Treasury report found that an advance of over R600 million given by the company to Eskom was irregular.

South Africans experienced load shedding last week, the first time this year and the most severe stage 4 in years.

Ageing infrastructure, poor maintenance, governance and operational challenges, these were some of the reasons given when several units went offline resulting in the power cuts.

Mabuza has made a frank admission: “Knowing what we now know, we need skilled people to replace the current skills set and make space for the people with the necessary skills to address issues of an operational nature.”

The power utility has previously been accused of lacking skilled people in its board and top management.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has since announced engineers from Italy will be coming to assist Eskom.

(Edited by Mihlali Ntsabo)