With South Africa suffering from daily power outages of up to 10 hours, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a “state of disaster” across the country on Thursday to address an electricity crisis so severe that a day’s chicks frozen, supermarket owners are rushing to sell meat before it spoils and many businesses are forced to close.
Power outages, caused by a fleet of aging coal-fired power plants whose state-owned power company, Eskom, are inefficiently running to keep afloat, have been a part of life in South Africa. for almost 16 years. But the past few months have been the darkest.
Last year, there were more than 200 consecutive days of blackouts, the most on record.
“We have therefore declared a state of national disaster in response to the electricity crisis and its effects,” Mr. Ramaphosa announced in his address to the nation. “South Africans want action; They want solutions.”
From large industries to small shops, many businesses have closed or laid off workers in a country where one in three people is unemployed. With power outages increasing the cost of doing business, daily commodity prices skyrocket, as does the frustration of citizens at the loss of confidence in the government’s ability to secure the future.
The power outage has consumed the president and his party, the African National Congress, who have promised to revive South Africa’s crumbling economy.
Political opponents and civic organizations staged massive street protests and dragged the government to court for failing to comply with its constitutional mandate because the blackout disrupted commerce, education and health care.
Despite the dramatic “disaster” declaration, effective immediately, Mr Ramaphosa did not offer any new plans to end the crisis. He said he was appointing an electricity minister and the declaration would allow the government to accelerate power projects and exempt power cuts for food producers and other key industries.
For all the political buzz, the crisis unfolds in life’s most mundane rituals, in places like Meyerton, a town 34 miles southwest of Johannesburg surrounded by farms and factory.
At Foodzone, a corner supermarket just off the main road, when the clock struck noon on a recent day, the music suddenly stopped, the refrigerator stopped ringing and the fluorescent lights went dark.
“Oh, see, it’s here,” said Karina da Silva, the store’s co-owner.
This is the second power outage of the day, the refrigerator is as hot as the kitchen cabinet. Mrs. da Silva and her husband, Eddie da Silva, rummaged through packages of hot dogs, chicken and burgers, checking their expiry dates. Mr. da Silva turned on the generator to keep the cash register running, and the supermarket’s chefs fried defrosted meat on a gas stove at a discount to customers whose kitchens at home won’t be available for a while. power outage time. The store has removed most of the egg dishes from the menu.
“You don’t want a rotten egg in your store,” da Silva said, smacking his nose.
Laying off their 14 already skinny employees would make running the store impossible, and the da Silvas family aren’t sure how they’ll survive.
“I don’t think things will change for us; it’s not going to get better,” said da Silva.
Since 2007, blackouts have become so pervasive that Eskom, the national electricity supplier, has scheduled outages for different neighborhoods at different times. It calls these periods of national frustration “loadshedding.”
Energy and economic experts said in interviews that Eskom’s troubles were the result of a century of mismanagement. During the apartheid era, the utility company, which supplied mainly the country’s white minority, subsidized the cost of electricity to large industries such as mining, meaning that many companies profits did not pay their fair share.
Jesse Burton, a researcher with the Energy Systems Research Group at the University of Cape Town, said the legacy of low taxes continues to hinder Eskom’s ability to cover basic costs like maintenance.
When ANC came to power in 1994, it failed to expand its utility at a time when the fleet began to struggle due to growing demand and shrinking revenues. Corruption and incompetence in building new power plants only make things worse. Mismanagement in successive presidential administrations left Eskom lame until its demise.
“It is an institutional failure on every level,” Ms. Burton said. “They’re in a debt spiral, and they’re in a maintenance spiral.”
Since taking office five years ago, Mr. Ramaphosa has crafted a far-reaching strategy to save Eskom. It includes a plan to repair existing power plants, introduce renewable energy and allow private companies to generate electricity.
But the plan has produced some visible results. Those responsible for solving the problem are bitterly divided. Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s energy minister and one of Mr Ramaphosa’s top aides in the ANC, accused Andre de Ruyter, Eskom’s chief executive, last December. trying to undermine the government led by the ANC.
Mr. de Ruyter, tapped by Mr. Ramaphosa to save Eskom, quit a week later. He said in a interview told The Financial Times that someone tried to assassinate him by lathering his coffee with cyanide. Eskom declined to comment on the allegation and Mr. de Ruyter did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Khaya Sithole, an economic analyst in Johannesburg, said the fatal flaw in Mr Ramaphosa’s attempt to rescue Eskom was that he was trying to do too many things at once. His plan, like those of previous administrations, did not focus on the fundamental challenge: maintenance.
“The maintenance doesn’t affect a new project, so if it’s not a new project, you won’t have a PR to cut the ribbon,” Mr Sithole said.
Analysts say solving the energy crisis will require bold measures, like going into debt or adopting a tiered tariff system in which the poor are subsidized while big companies pay more.
“The people who will suffer the most from all these problems are the poor and the marginalized, and that is where the seeds of a social revolution are,” Mr. society will be planted.”
However, the crisis of power has produced a number of winners. During the blackout, copper thieves tore up electrical wires for sale, leaving nearby areas without power for days. In Meyerton, a general supply store is trying to capitalize on demand for alternative energy sources by selling solar panels along with dog food and laundry detergent.
However, mostly suffering.
Prolonged power outages are threatening food supplies. Izaak Breitenbach, the association’s head, said the South African Poultry Association and other agricultural groups have lobbied the government to exempt them from discharge.
In December, KFC announced to temporarily close some stores due to shortage of chicken. The price of chicken in stores has gone up, along with eggs and other foods. Public attention turned to the farms as images of hundreds of dead birds began circulating on local news and social media.
When the heater was turned off during a power cut, some chicks froze to death.
Recently, on a small farm outside Meyerton, Dawit Goji picked up two lifeless chicks in a coop inside a concrete building, chasing away hundreds of chicks scurrying around them. The power went out early that morning, and a flock of chicks crammed into a corner of the building trying to stay warm.
Mr. Goji, who raised chickens for the first time this year, crouched down to a baby chick that was lying on its side.
“It’s leaving,” said Mr. Goji, stroking the chick.
John Eligon Contribution report from Johannesburg.
