Yesterday at 10:30, a media briefing was held to give the country a loadshedding update to “shed some light” on the situation. Yes, they actually said that and hopefully, this was just an oversight as nothing about Stage 4 loadshedding is funny. The Minister of public enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, as well as an Eskom chairperson, Jabu Mabuza, addressed the media and it definitely isn’t good news, to say the least.
Related: Eskom is Apparently Not Following its Loadshedding Schedule – Protect Your Gaming Equipment
I’m just going to rip off the bandaid here and cut to the chase. Loadshedding is very likely not going to stop anytime soon. In fact, Eskom will only be able to give us another update in 10-14 days, according to a report by TimesLive and multiple other media outlets that attended the briefing. This loadshedding update from Eskom means that you will experience those controlled, rolling blackouts we all hate for at least another two weeks, or possibly much longer.
Mr Gordhan revealed that 10 to 12 engineers are travelling across South Africa to visit power stations and give their “independent view” of the situation and what needs to be done to fix the issues.
We understand the frustration. We don’t have a magic formula. This not about whether Pravin Gordhan or Jabu Mabuza or Phakamani Hadebe single-handedly have a magic wand that can actually enable us to wave that wand and say load-shedding is over.
In answer to the question, how long will load-shedding last? The direct answer to that question is that we need to complete these investigations and that we will come back to you in the next 10 to 14 days in a similar forum and equally frankly tell you where do we stand on the particular challenges we have.
That’s simply terrible news for South Africans that we will only get another update on the issue in nearly two weeks time. Yes, this isn’t directly gaming or geek related, but it is such an important issue that we do need to tell our readers about it. With that being said, try to keep things civil and refrain from political discussions in the comments. This is about the loadshedding update and I, for one, won’t share my personal feelings about the issue or point fingers.
What do you think about the loadshedding update and specifically, the time frame for the next update given at the media briefing? Let us know in the comment section below.
