City Power said it was suspending maintenance plans due to the rolling blackouts.

JOHANNESBURG –With South Africans battling yet another afternoon of load shedding, City Power said it was suspending maintenance plans due to the rolling blackouts.

Eskom de-escalated the power cuts to stage one load-shedding on Friday morning, which is expected to last until Saturday morning.

The struggling power utility has consistently cited capacity shortages which it said were caused by maintenance-related problems.

City Power said it suspended the maintenance to spare South Africans of planned and unplanned power cuts.

Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said, “Already load shedding is causing an inconvenience to our customers, and it would be inconsiderate for us to subject our customers to both maintenance and load shedding – during planned maintenance we switch electricity off for about 8-9 hours a day.”