Pranksters trash Medupi’s Wikipedia page, as Eskom warns of ‘vulnerable grid’

It never rains, but it pours for the folks at Eskom – and its long-suffering consumers, too. The firm is sticking its head above the parapet, after becoming the laughing stock of the continent last week. Sudden Stage 6 load shedding schedules and major breakdowns at the Medupi Power Plant crippled South Africa’s electricity supply.

Medupi gets a Wikipedia make-over

We’re all fed-up with the situation. Some choose to Tweet about it, others will have a good old skinner around the water cooler. But one person has taken it upon themselves to go down the funniest route of them all: Editing a Wikipedia page.

Medupi Power Station is the unlucky recipient of this online vandalism. The Limpopo-based plant became the figure of ridicule earlier this month, when a number of operational breakdowns – and the wet coal fiasco – were reported to have sparked the worst load shedding ever seen in South Africa. Needless to say, they’ve been had here:

Bless you, unknown gatvol South African. pic.twitter.com/qkw67vPNA7

— Tom Eaton (@TomEatonSA) December 16, 2019

Eskom: Load shedding forecast for Wednesday 18 December

Meanwhile, Eskom have issued a statement on the current status of the electricity grid. No load shedding is forecast, but the supply has been described as ‘vulnerable’ for Wednesday 18 December:

“Eskom has not load shed for four consecutive days. There is no load shedding planned for today, as demand has dropped over the holiday period and some generational units have returned to service. Eskom will continue to use emergency reserves to supplement capacity if necessary.”

“We remind customers that, as the system continues to be vulnerable an unpredictable, the possibility of load shedding remains. Our techincal teams willl continue to work over the holiday period to monitor the situation. We ask customers to reduce demand as a collective effort to avoid or lessen the impact of load shedding.”

Eskom statement

Ramaphosa clears the air on load shedding

Cyril Ramaphosa has continued to address the most pressing of all matters, just a day after Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer wavered from the President’s stance on “sabotage”. Ramaphosa has since moved to accept that other factors sparked the Stage 6 fiasco, but the DA’s Ghaleb Cachalia isn’t impressed with his response:

“Ramaphosa has penned an opinion piece in the Daily Maverick. It’s indicative of the ANC closing ranks and embarking on a media campaign. The everyman translation of Ramaphosa’s stance is: We’ve squandered financial resources, neglected crucial maintenance over decades, and enabled theft via opaque procurement.”

“But there is still no mention of transparency and accountability. It is still command and control and the same levers to address issues that are systematically entrenched in the utility will not be opened to scrutiny. Only a forensic audit will uncover the crooked contracts and procedures that delivered us to the brink of shutdown.”

Ghaleb Cachalia