Jacob Maroga became Eskom CEO in 2007, right as SA was entering its first national load shedding. He says the crisis didn’t ‘suddenly appear’. "The warning signs were ignored for years because of policy paralysis over who should build new generation: Eskom or the private

Maroga clarifies that the 2007/08 load shedding was planned. "It was not a grid collapse. Engineers shaved demand to prevent a national blackout. He says the shortage was triggered by one thing, years of delays in approving new power stations.” #AfricanRenaissancePodcast

Maroga says January 2008, was the only time SA came close to a dangerous, uncontrolled blackout. "Eskom warned the mines to keep workers out of shafts because if the grid collapsed, people could die underground. That moment changed Eskom’s risk protocols forever."

Maroga: It was not a blackout. It was still load shedding, but we had to do an extensive load shedding that particular day because the shortage was quite extreme. This is the instance for which the head of the state at the time had to apologize #AfricanRenaissancePodcast

Ndlozi asked Maroga about claims of deliberate sabotage. Maroga "engineering reports can only show ‘technical failure’, but sabotage requires forensic investigation. And yes, the power system is a soft target for anyone wanting to destabilise a country."

Maroga describes 2008 coal arriving ‘wet, muddy, sometimes unusable’. On paper, it looked like logistics. But he admits the question remains: were these failures accidental, or engineered to break confidence in Eskom and shift momentum to private suppliers?

Maroga links Eskom’s instability to 2007-2008 political changes: the Polokwane conference, a new president, and a new board. He says SOEs became ‘politically complex spaces’, and his biggest dispute with the board was the future role of Eskom, public good or private market?

Maroga says SA forgot how to build power stations. After the 1980s boom, Eskom went 30 years without constructing new plants. By 2007, the in-house expertise had evaporated and even world-class contractors struggled to rebuild that institutional memory.

Maroga: Before national load shedding, the Cape actually experienced a full regional blackout in 2003/04. Two Koeberg units failed, a key transmission line dropped, and the entire region went dark for a day. It didn’t hit national headlines, but it foreshadowed what came next.

To understand Eskom today, Maroga says you must understand 1923-1994: Eskom, Sasol, IDC and ISCOR were engineered to industrialise South Africa and uplift white Afrikaners into an industrial class. Post-1994, the model was never fundamentally redesigned.

Maroga reveals that between 1998 and 2007, South Africa could not decide: should Eskom build new power stations, or should private IPPs take over generation? That 9 year delay is what pushed SA into the 2007/08 crisis. #AfricanRenaissancePodcast

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So that was an indication of the major crisis of loadsheddin that followed years later. Jacob Maroga African Renaissance Podcast #AfricanRenaissancePodcast youtube.com/@african_renai…

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