South Africa has returned to higher stages of power outages, or load shedding, with the state-owned power utility Eskom implementing stage 6 of rolling blackouts across the country.

Stage six load shedding means that Eskom has to cut off 6,000 MW of power from the national grid to prevent a total collapse of the system. This is the highest level of load shedding that Eskom has ever implemented, and it indicates a severe shortage of electricity supply in the country.

Speaking at a South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) event on Friday (November 24), President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “shocked” but expressed his confidence in the government’s handling of the energy crisis.

At the event held at the Durban International Convention Centre, Ramaphosa addressed the two elephants in the room: Stage 6 load shedding and the crisis at the national freight rail and port authority Transnet, News24 has reported.

Ramaphosa said there was an “intention to rebuild the economy”, “reform” it and address challenges, adding that as “much as it [Stage 6 load shedding] was a shock to us”, the government now knew they would be able to quickly revert to lower levels of load shedding.

“We have been facing the load shedding challenge and today we got the bad news that we now will be moving, for a few days, into Stage 6 load shedding. But we now know that we have the capacity to address those challenges, to address them quickly and to bring us to lower levels of load shedding,” the president was quoted as saying.

Last week, News24 reported that about 71,000 containers were stuck on ships outside the Durban port, a backlog that could only be cleared in 2024. Ramaphosa reassured the delegates that he had given “a clear message” that “all these things must be resolved” by January.

The president urged his African National Congress (ANC) ruling party to take SANCO seriously. He said the rebuilding and revitalisation of SANCO, the ANC-led alliance, should translate into solutions, because “civic organisations enable people to organise based on specific local issues that affect the lives of our people.”

“The time for taking a backseat is over. The road to the 2024 election requires effort from all of us. Start by keeping informed. We commit to giving you factual, honest news ahead of this landmark poll if you pledge to make your mark and show up for your country,” Ramaphosa said as quoted by News24.