Eskom claims ‘deliberate act of sabotage’ at Lethabo Power Station
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter says a forensic investigation at Lethabo Power Station in the Free State has found clear evidence of sabotage.
The utility sent a forensic team to investigate damage to a pylon on Wednesday evening after it led to a trip in generation units.
The embattled power utility has had several of its power station experiencing continuous trips in generation units - leading to rolling blackouts.
De Ruyter told the media briefing on Friday that the preliminary investigation found that the power lines that feed electricity to the station's coal convey belt was cut.
He says they believe it was a clear act of sabotage.
“What further arouses suspicion that this was a deliberate act of sabotage, is that nothing was stolen. This was clearly now an act of sabotage, and we can call it as such.
“The consequences of this happening are quite significant, this means that if we had lost power supply to those conveyer belts feeding coal to Lethabo we would have run out of coal at the power station after six hours.
“This would have caused us to lose our most reliable unit and would’ve put us in much worse load shedding than stage 4, probably stage 6 through a deliberate act of sabotage,"
De Ruyter refused to speculate on the motive, except for saying it could be people out to destroy Eskom infrastructure.
“For some time now we have had suspicious indications, but this is the clearest indication that there are individuals out there who seek to really damage the economy by causing substantial load shedding.”
The matter has been reported to the Hawks for further investigation.
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