South Africa’s energy war room, a grouping of the main cabinet ministers responsible for the power industry, will meet for the first time this week since being reconstituted by President Cyril Ramaphosa in December as the country battles an electricity crisis that’s stalling economic growth.
The team — which is headed by deputy President David Mabuza and includes the ministers of finance, energy and public enterprises — will meet on Thursday, according to the deputy president’s office, which didn’t give further detail.
The so-called war room was previously established in 2014 to tackle the power shortages that have dogged the country since 2008 and was tasked with improving maintenance of power plants and the payment of debts to state-power utility Eskom by state companies and municipalities. While neither issue has been resolved, Eskom’s new CEO, André de Ruyter, has made maintenance a priority, saying it is necessary to boost and stabilize power generation in coming years. — Reported by Antony Sguazzin and Amogelang Mbatha, (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP