For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines: DA wants State of Disaster declared on Eskom, Eskom says power cuts to resume and WHO urges Southern African countries to scale-up health response as Covid-19 cases surge

DA wants State of Disaster declared on Eskom

DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises Ghaleb Cachalia has called for a State of Disaster to be declared on power utility Eskom following a heavy run of load-shedding this year.

The DA has also written to Presidency Director-General Phindile Baleni requesting a State of Disaster on Eskom and asking for the electricity sector to be placed on the agenda of the next Cabinet meeting.

The party believes that the significance of a State of Disaster on Eskom and the electricity sector will help galvanise the national effort towards incremental energy projects with specific deliverables.

Cachalia said load-shedding is job-shedding and he called for an immediate response to the crisis.

Eskom says power cuts to resume

Power utility Eskom will again implement rotational power cuts from 117:00 to 22:00 today, as it struggles with breakdowns at its generating units.

Eskom said in a statement the outages will be under Stage 2, which requires up to 2 000 MW to be cut from the national grid.

Eskom said a generating unit at Lethabo Power Station was taken offline for repairs on Wednesday night.

Eskom currently has 2 379 MW out on planned maintenance, while another 15 365 MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.

WHO urges Southern African countries to scale-up health response as Covid-19 cases surge

The World Health Organization is urging Southern African countries to step up preparedness to ensure that they can effectively carry out a health response as the continent faces a fifth Covid-19 pandemic wave.

The region is facing an increase in Covid-19 cases for the third consecutive week as the winter season approaches.

This comes after a two-month-long decline in overall infections recorded across the continent.

The sub-region recorded 46 271 cases in the week ending on May 8, a 32% increase from the week before. 

This uptick in cases is an early warning sign, which the World Health Organization says it is closely monitoring.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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