South Africans face another day of traffic snarl-ups and disrupted business with no end in sight for rolling power cuts that started a week ago.
Browsing: Jabu Mabuza
South Africans looking for signs of an end to the latest round of power cuts were left disappointed after the minister responsible for power utility Eskom said he doesn’t have answers yet.
Long-serving Telkom chairman Jabu Mabuza is stepping down from the JSE-listed telecommunications board at the end of May, more than seven years after he assumed the role.
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.
Eskom should consider selling two coal-fired plants that rank among the world’s biggest to repair the state-owned utility’s finances, according to the head of South Africa’s biggest bank by market value.
Bloated by debt, bled by corruption and battered by structurally declining sales, Eskom is facing what’s known in the industry as a “death spiral”.
Eskom wants government to absorb about R100-billion of debt as part of a rescue plan for the state-owned utility, according to a report, a move that will put further strain on already stretched state finances.
It’s deja vu for South Africa as a chronic power deficit plunges large tracts of the country into darkness and casts a pall over the already struggling economy.
Eskom’s warning that the country was threatened by months of rotating blackouts became a reality in less than 24 hours.
Eskom will cut 2GW of supply from the national grid because it lost additional generating units overnight.