South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denied that his administration had failed due to crippling power outages, claiming that planned interventions would relieve grid strain.
Due to the frequent breakdowns of the state power utility Eskom’s aging fleet of coal power stations, many homes and businesses in Africa’s most industrialized economy are without electricity for more than 10 hours per day.
Despite Ramaphosa’s government’s repeated promises to increase energy availability by repairing faulty coal plants and procuring new generation capacity, experts predict that outages will worsen as South Africa enters the southern hemisphere winter.
During a question-and-answer session, Ramaphosa assured lawmakers that “we are not sleeping on the job.”
He argued that South Africa should implement emergency powers, citing other countries that had done so.
Investor confidence in the rand and South African bonds has plummeted as a result of the country’s ongoing power outage.
