Soldiers to Be Deployed at Several Power Plants in South Africa After Sabotage Incidents

As South Africa's power sector is going through a crisis due to increasing demand for electricity and insufficient generation, incidents of diesel theft and vandalism are reported at various power stations of the state-owned power company Eskom, which produces nearly 95% of the country's electricity.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Soldiers will be deployed at a number of power plants of South Africa's state-owned energy company Eskom following several incidents of theft and sabotage, presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya said on Sunday.

"The minister of defense [Thandi Modise] has responded positively to the request from the presidency and the minister of public enterprises [Pravin Gordhan] to deploy soldiers to power stations, mainly to Tutuka, Camden, Majuba and Grootvlei... The reason for the request is that we are still plagued by theft of diesel... We are still plagued by sabotage when critical machinery is deliberately broken," the spokesman told South African broadcaster eNCA.

A minimum of 10 military personnel will be deployed at each power station, SABC, the state broadcaster, reported citing Magwenya.

As South Africa’s power sector is going through a crisis due to growing electricity demand, the government along with its state-owned power company Eskom is making efforts to take control of the situation across the country by increasing power generation capacity and storing energy.

Earlier this month, Eskom, South Africa’s main electricity supplier, kicked off the construction of the country’s first two energy storage facilities in the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal. The capacity of the energy storage is expected to be about 8MW, equivalent to 32MWh of distributed electricity, which is sufficient to power a town such as Howick with its 22,000 population for at least four hours.