South Africa in state of disaster.

South Africa has declared a national state of disaster over its worst spate of rolling blackouts, as the

government scrambles to remove obstacles to investing in energy supply outside the broken Eskom power monopoly. Eskom has had to cut off swaths of customers for up to 10 hours a day in recent months to prevent the accelerating collapse of ageing coal power plants, the mainstay of South Africa’s power network, turning into a total grid breakdown. As a result, Ramaphosa’s governing African National Congress is facing the wrath of South Africans in national elections next year as factories halt, crops wither without irrigation and food rots in refrigerators. He promised funds would not be abused under cover of the disaster, acknowledging public fury at corruption and mismanagement when South Africa declared similar emergency provisions over the Covid-19 pandemic.

South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance said the state of disaster would «empower the ANC to abuse procurement processes and issue nonsensical regulations that have nothing to do with the electricity crisis».

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