A brief History
The issue of energy crises is a long-standing issue in South Africa making history for over 15 years. When the government of Nelson Mandela came into power, South Africa was blessed with a surfeit of electricity. At that time government provided electricity to over 2.5 million black households in the first four years. Currently, around 86% of South African households are connected to the electric grid, compared with 40% for Africa as a whole. The positivity of such recommendable work end here as all of these electrified households now go without electricity for at least 10 hours a day. Back in the years, this upcoming failure was well spotted as the lack of planning by ANC governments. The government failed miserably in building new plants whilst maintaining those that were already there, thereby destroying the continent’s most industrialized nation.
The current state of the country
In recent times, the issue of power cuts in South Africa has worsened than ever before. In the year 2022, the country experienced the worst power outages in history. Eskom, the state-owned power utility responsible for generating and distributing electricity across South Africa, has been at the core of this crisis that the country is facing. Improper management of financial assets, technical failures and allegations of corruption along with political interference all have disrupted the working of the outlet. Although with the continual crisis in the state, people of South Africa have been more frustrated than they ever were before.
NAI associate Henning Melber describes the problem confronting Ramaphosa as being “like tentacles”. “The replacement of Zuma by Ramaphosa is not enough because the problem is in the system. State capture is surviving beyond Zuma and the Gupta brothers. And its faction in the ANC is so strong that even if Ramaphosa wants to change, he has to tread lightly”.
This energy crisis in South Africa has prompted continued calls for a government response. The only response the people of South Africa can avail from their government is more power-cut measures in the country. As per the reports of South Africa’s Central Bank, the ongoing crisis in the country is costing them 51 million dollars each day resulting in power rationing. It has also been reported that this year the country will be witnessing 250 days of blackouts which also indicates that the 13-billion-dollar hit will be faced by the economy. In a recent news conference, government minister Mondli Gungubele said, “There is no immediate panacea to this crisis,” leading the people to be more frustrated. Eskom has gone ahead and announced stage 7 load shedding. This means that the government will be removing more than 7GW of electricity from the national grid.
The constant blackouts and burnouts have increased the overall crime rate in the country leading to major issues like murder, rape, fires, cable thefts, ruthless cartels, and powerful politicians. As the energy crisis in the country is having rambunctious behaviour development among the people, life has become cheap, and people are trying to loot as much as they can from every sphere possible.
Some ways to overcome this crisis
The only way left out for the country to overcome this ongoing crisis is to adopt more renewable energy. Over the years the hell-bent attitude of government officials on promoting renewable energy, or diversifying ways to generate electricity has indeed led to the situation that the country is currently facing. Breaking down the Monopoly of Eskom and promoting a more innovated approach in the market will help the country come up with alternative energy resources. Understanding these possibilities, the government has recently traded a huge number of social panels which have cost the nation 110 million dollars. The government has also loosened their restrictions on building renewable power. This approach should be accelerated in the country to solve this constantly deepening crisis.
Written by – Saba Shaikh
Edited by – Monishka Agrawal