Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa has cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, due to the energy crisis in his own country, according to a report in The Guardian. The country is witnessing daily power cuts between eight to eleven hours. The disclosure was made in a statement released by his office late Sunday. Mr Ramaphosa was supposed to head a South African group to the Swiss town to pitch the nation as an investment location.
However, he has been obliged to convene urgent meetings at home due to the public outcry over the electrical issue. Up until further notice, the state-owned power company Eskom will continue to execute a high degree of power blackouts, leaving homes and businesses without energy for up to ten hours each day. Although Eskom has apologised, "but has given no indication of when more energy will be restored to the national grid" The Guardian stated.
The largest industrialised economy in Africa has been experiencing a worsening power shortage for a number of years. The outlet states that analysts attribute the gap to corruption, a lack of competent workers and an ageing fleet of primarily coal-fueled power plants. Offices, hospitals, factories, and tens of thousands of small companies are being forced to close, while outages are also causing an increase in crime, disruptions in traffic and significant wastage as food supply systems have collapsed.
Regulating authorities recently stated that they will permit Eskom to raise prices by almost a third over the next two years, despite the blackouts, as per the outlet. Although it is unlikely to happen in the near future, South Africa is trying to increase its electrical capacity through the emergency purchase of renewable sources like wind and solar energy.
