Eskom clarifies its media briefing statement on rolling blackouts while the new Eskom board sets ambitious targets and hints at staff incentives to boost embattled power stations.

A few short hours after an "urgent media briefing", Eskom backtracked somewhat hastily, saying some media headlines that screamed dire warnings of permanent rolling blackouts for two years were incorrect.

"Eskom has considered implementing permanent stage two and three load shedding to give the public more predictability. However, this is not possible as it would not guarantee that load shedding would remain at the lower levels," spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshasha clarified on Sunday afternoon.

The confusion from the press came in when chairman of the Eskom board Mpho Makwana quite clearly said that the execution of the recovery plan relied on power stations being given the space to add additional capacity and do proper maintenance without firefighting, "... or create some predictability by implementing a permanent stage two or three (load shedding) for the next two years in order to give sufficient space for maintenance while giving the country a level of predictability or consistency to...