{South African President Jacob Zuma said the ruling party shouldn’t be embarrassed about the first rolling power blackouts in six years because they are a legacy of white-minority rule that ended in 1994. }
“We must not feel guilty about the energy issue,” Zuma told a rally in Cape Town today that marked the 103rd anniversary of the founding of the ruling African National Congress. “We are in fact solving the apartheid problem, that must be very clear.”
State-owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. instituted managed cuts for the first time in six years in 2014 as aging plants struggle to meet demand for power in Africa’s second-biggest economy. There’s a high risk of more blackouts in February and March and electricity supplies will remain constrained for another two years as the company builds new generating facilities.
While Zuma spoke, Eskom said in a Twitter post it’s been running diesel generators hard and frequently and was stretching the company’s budget for fuel.
The government is accelerating the pace of bringing the delayed Medupi and Kusile power plants onto the electricity grid, the president said.
Zuma is due to give more details of his administration’s plans and priorities when he delivers his state-of-the-nation address on Feb. 12. The Economic Freedom Fighters party, which is led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, has threatened to disrupt the speech unless Zuma agrees to pay back money spent on non-security renovations to his home, as recommended by Thuli Madonsela, the nation’s graft ombudsman.
Weak Demand
With municipal elections scheduled for next year, Africa’s oldest political movement is looking to curtail losses of support to the opposition Democratic Alliance and EFF. The ANC won 62 percent of the vote in national elections in May, down from 66 percent five years earlier, as discord mounted over a 25 percent unemployment rate, poverty and corruption.
The party has limited scope to turn the situation around, as the power shortages, low commodity prices and weak demand for the nation’s exports from Europe constrain efforts to spur growth and create jobs. The National Treasury projects the economy will expand 2.5 percent this year, up from 1.4 percent in 2014.
Bloomberg
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