The sorry state of South Africa’s state power utility starkly illustrates just how far the country slipped during former President Jacob Zuma’s scandal-marred rule and the enormity of the task of rebuilding the nation’s stricken finances.
Finance minister Tito Mboweni is looking for a way to keep the country’s main power producer from sucking the life out of the economy.
South Africa will deploy police and intelligence officers at Eskom power stations to prevent sabotage as the government implements a plan to end outages and help the utility recover.
A lobby group representing South African banks has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to prioritise the country’s wider interests rather than securing votes for the ANC.
Eskom said it will likely end rolling blackouts on Friday after it repaired some power plants and replenished diesel and water supplies at others.
President Cyril Ramaphosa reached out to labour unions that oppose his plans to break up the state power utility on Thursday, reassuring them that the move is not aimed at privatisation.
South Africa entered a fifth day of rolling blackouts on Thursday as the government prepared to announce a raft of measures to end electricity shortages that are having a debilitating impact on the economy.
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South Africa’s struggling power utility started a third day of power outages, blaming issues including failures at two huge new power stations that are also the main source of the company’s massive debt.
Eskom is moving to stage-4 load shedding with effect from 1pm on Monday. This means that the utility will shed 4GW of electricity, up from the 2GW it was shedding on Monday morning.