The Chief Executive of the South African National Energy Development Institute, Zwanani Mathe, has outlined some measures and interventions which could be pursued to improve the availability of energy at Eskom.

He says a national state of disaster has to be declared right away as a possible solution to the country’s worsening energy crisis. Eskom has downgraded rolling blackouts from stage four to three with effect from five o’clock this morning.

Mathe explains what other measures are needed to deal with the energy crisis.

“A national command centre needs to be set up, we are really safe with a disaster. It’s no longer an emergency, or crisis once the President declares the nation’s state of disaster for electricity, the necessary infrastructure and all command centres can then be set up. It will enable [Eskom CEO] Andre [De Ruyter] and his team to put security measures in place to avoid the theft issues we heard about, the sabotage and corruption we have heard about across the entire value chain of electricity generation.”

Source: SABC News