South Africa’s electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, had revealed on Sunday, July 2, that the country’s daily power cuts would soon come to an end, especially as warmer weather conditions are expected towards the end of the year.
No specific date has however, been mentioned.
In the meantime, South Africa is on track to break its record for most blackout days in history this year with the daily power cuts lasting for up to almost 10 hours a day- a situation that has been seriously affecting businesses and households in an economy already reeling from record level interest rates and inflation.
The South African Central bank had last month, stated that the power cuts, a.k.a load shedding in local language is expected to cut off 2 percentage points from the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP this year.
Blackouts have eased up for the past few weeks in the country but there is apprehension that as the southern hemisphere winter begins fully in July and August, the increased demand for heating may trip several power plants and lead to further blackouts, before temperatures begin to rise once more in September.
South Africa executes its power cuts in stages ranging from one to eight, with eight being the highest, resulting to more than 10 hours of daily power cuts.
However, Ramokgopa has assured citizens that the country was getting to a stage where power generation would be able to keep up with demand. This is seen with blackouts reducing from Stage 6 to Stage 3 in under six weeks.
In Ramokgopa’s words:
“South Africa could soon have no blackouts for 24 hours.”
