- South Africans are sharing claims that Eskom is planning a 14-hour outage in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal next month.
- Eskom has dismissed these claims as misinformation that does nothing but cause panic.
- The claim appears to originate from a website that has peddled other misinformation as fact this week.
Last week Eskom was forced to implement Stage 2 loadshedding between 16:00 and 22:00 from Tuesday to Thursday. This as outages exceeded allowable thresholds, triggering the need to curtail the demand for energy.
However now, there are rumours swirling on social about 14-hour power outages that Eskom is planning for May and June. Fortunately, these rumours are false. Unfortunately, given Eskom’s long history of incompetence, inability to provide a stable supply of electricity and last minute loadshedding, many believe these rumours without a second thought.
Locals are sharing screenshots of a news article which reports that 14-hour outages are going to affect Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape in June. The article comes from ipiafrica.org which bears the name, Families 4 Veterans. This website also carries the claim that SASSA grants will be doubled soon, a claim that has been called misinformation by the social security agency.
The Families 4 Veterans article provides no evidence to back up its claim and most of the article is what we call SEO bait here in the Hypertext office. That is, content that has no purpose other than to drive clicks and claim ad-revenue as a result.
On Tuesday morning, the utility rejected the claims circulating online that a massive outage was secretly being planned.
“Eskom categorically rejects the false claims circulating online about a 14-hour outage or imminent load shedding. These reports are completely untrue. The power system is stable, and loadshedding has remained suspended since 22:00 on 15 May 2025. There are no planned outages of this scale,” the utility wrote on X.
“Misinformation causes unnecessary alarm. Stay informed—trust only official Eskom updates on our official platforms,” Eskom added.
However, that second part is a bit of a problematic statement in our view. Twice this year EskomSePush (ESP) has alerted South Africans to loadshedding being implemented long before Eskom made the announcement.
What makes ESP a more trustworthy source than Families 4 Veterans is that ESP likely has folks feeding it information from municipalities given that it needs access to a municipality’s data in order to populate loadshedding schedules on its app. As such, ESP will likely know loadshedding is being implemented at the same time municipalities are informed that they will need to dip the power switch.
While loadshedding is currently suspended, Eskom did state last week that if outages exceed 15GW, Stage 2 loadshedding would be inevitable. The system is reportedly stable but with a cold front set to grip parts of the country from today onward, it remains to be seen whether Eskom can keep up with demand.
With that having been said, Stage 2 is not a 14-hour outage so take claims that Eskom is dropping the ball in such a massive way with a carton of salt.
