Cosatu, however, said Eskom was not to blame for the crisis.

"They warned the government years ago that they needed money to invest in new power stations, and applied to the government for this.

"But the government refused to provide the money, which President Mbeki has now admitted and apologised for," said Craven.

Because the government was set on privatising Eskom and other public utilities, and selling them off to the highest bidder, they had made the supplier inefficient.

Cosatu consistently opposed privatisation precisely because we insisted that it must be a national service, efficiently providing secure and affordable power to the people and to industry."

Craven said this could never be achieved by a utility that was motivated to maximise its profits.

"We demand that the government and industry now speed up the process of providing Eskom with the money they need for capital investment, so that we can bring an end to the crisis as quickly as possible."