Power cuts to homes and businesses – for up to 10 hours a day – is strangling Africa’s most developed economy.
President Cyril Ramaphosa plans on creating a new Cabinet post, Electricity Minister so that the government will be able to curb the rampant corruption and mismanagement that have left the country in the dark.
According to The Hill, Ramaphosa is to name the new minister in a reshuffle later Monday in an effort to focus solely on dealing with the crippling power cuts.
Last month, the Associated Press reported that during his State of the Nation address, Ramphosa declared a state of disaster to deal with the electricity shortages affecting the country’s 60 million people.
While Ramaphosa is expected to also announce the appointment of a new deputy president in the reshuffle and deal with Cabinet ministers who have openly challenged him, the naming of a minister to try to resolve the electricity shortage is what everyone is talking about.
South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom has implemented rolling power cuts across the nation for years but 2022 was the worst and 2023 has started with even longer outages and no solution in sight.
Eskom, which marks its 100th anniversary this month, is struggling with the frequent breakdowns of many of its aging coal-fired power stations. The biggest problem is corruption in which at least four gangs are draining the company of $50 million per month, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said recently.
Ruyter’s scathing indictment in a television interview of the government’s inability to curb the corruption led to his immediate resignation.
According to MyBroadband, Eskom has announced that load-shedding will increase to stage 5 from 16:00 on Monday, 6 March 2023. The increase comes after five generating units failed on Monday. Eskom provided no additional details.
Eskom said generating units at the Camden, Duvha, Majuba, and Kriel power stations suffered breakdowns. The return to service of generating units at Hendrina, Medupi, and Tutuka was delayed, while repairs to damaged towers from Cahora Bassa are taking longer than anticipated.
This does not include the five additional generating units that broke down on Monday. Several industry commentators sounded the alarm about Eskom’s declining energy availability factor (EAF).
