The Democratic Alliance on Tuesday called on Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to clarify Eskom’s latest threat of further rolling blackouts. Spokeswoman on public enterprises Natasha Michael said Ramaphosa had to disclose the reason four generators stopped working on Tuesday, the impact it would have on South Africans and what contingency plans were in place to resolve the issue.

Last week, Cabinet announced that Ramaphosa would oversee the planned turnaround at Eskom.

“It is unacceptable that we are given reassurances of power supply by Eskom on the one hand, and yet this morning we are told of four power units being down at separate power stations,” she said in a statement.

“The DA reiterates our call for load shedding to be declared a national crisis and for full transparency to be demonstrated in the problems facing our power stations.”

Earlier, Eskom announced that the risk of rolling blackouts was high after four generators stopped working at three power stations. On Friday, Eskom said the risk of power cuts during December was low. Spokesman Andrew

Etzinger said things were starting to look up for the power utility. In recent weeks, the utility has battled to keep the lights on since the collapse of one of its coal storage silos, diesel shortages, and maintenance issues. SAPA