Software giant Oracle has pulled off IT support for South Africa’s power utility Eskom. Eskom spokesperson on Friday told News24 that “there haven’t been any positive development between the parties”.
Two weeks ago, Eskom lost a court battle to stop Oracle from withdrawing its crucial services over a dispute relating to billions of rands owed by the power utility.
Eskom failed to convince the Johannesburg High Court to stop Oracle from withdrawing its crucial services.
Oracle provides an online vending system that records 77 million transactions of electricity a month.
The embattled power utility also uses Oracle’s products and services for load monitoring of electricity generation by power stations.
Eskom also uses Maximo, a maintenance tool used for asset management and power outages,. logging of faults and control of electricity grids, which allows areas to be switched off.
Maximo also enables Eskom to distribute electricity in prepaid areas, collect revenue and detects and records faults in the distribution system.
Eskom’s chief adviser: strategic IT alliance, Tshifhiwa Ratshimbilani, argued in court papers seen by the Sunday World that cutting the IT support would have catastrophic consequences for Eskom and countless members of the public and business.
“It would thus have a crippling effect on the economy, which is already under strain due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.”
For more read: Eskom lodges leave to appeal as software giant Oracle pulls IT support
