SENIOR members of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress blamed a range of factors outside their control for an electricity crisis that one major ally said is likely to cost the party victory in next year’s elections.
Energy minister Gwede Mantashe told a meeting in Johannesburg that the national power utility, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., isn’t showing the required urgency to improve its coal-fired plants and an emergency-procurement program has been scuppered by lawsuits.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan added that Eskom, which he oversees, has suffered a series of mishaps and is hobbled by corruption.
The ANC has come under increasing pressure to resolve South Africa’s power crisis after more than two decades of indecision, graft and political interference reduced Eskom to a dysfunctional entity reliant on government handouts.
The country has suffered 87 consecutive days of zonal blackouts, known locally as load-shedding, often for 10 hours or more
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