by Thinus Ferreira
While Eskom's debilitating rolling blackouts are once again damaging South Africa's economy and having a massively negative impact on the country's TV ratings and available viewing audience the struggling power utility announced on Wednesday night that it will temporarily halt load-shedding on Thursday between 10:00 and 14:00 so that a national TV audience can watch the broadcast of the Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini's memorial service.
The memorial service of King Goodwill Zwelithini will be broadcast live today on SABC News (DStv 404) as well as on other TV news channels like eNCA (DStv 403) and Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405).
"In order to allow the nation to participate in the memorial service of His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzule, Eskom has decided to suspend the implementation of load-shedding between 10:00 and 14:00 tomorrow," Eskom said in a statement on Wednesday night.
"This extraordinary measure has been implemented to allow the nation to witness a key and significant historical event at this difficult time in the life of the Zulu nation. Afterwards, load-shedding will then be implemented and continue as previously communicated," Eskom said.
The memorial service of the Zulu king is seen as an event of national importance for which Eskom would "save up" electricity by spending more even more money to try and generate electricity to make up for its constant capacity shortage.
Eskom, for instance, pumps water to dams to then generate hydroelectricity during short periods and burns money to run its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT) to keep the electricity and TV sets on during the broadcast of things like the opening of parliament and the State of the Nation address.
