TimesLive reports according to President Cyril Ramaphosa, it may be easy to “blame our present woes on dysfunctionality” at Eskom, but a combination of factors have contributed to SA’s power crisis.

“As load-shedding continues to wreak havoc on businesses, households and communities, the last thing South Africans want to hear are excuses or unrealistic promises. The demands for an immediate end to power cuts are wholly understandable. Everyone is fed up,” Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly newsletter. He emphasised the importance of recalling the reasons for the situation, so that the government’s response tackled the causes of the crisis and not only the symptoms. The president said the country was in the grip of an energy crisis that had been years in the making. “While we all desperately want to, we cannot end load-shedding overnight. We must be realistic about our challenges and what it is going to take to fix them,” Ramaphosa stated. Lack of investment in new generating capacity, poor power plant maintenance, corruption and criminality, sabotage of infrastructure, rising municipal debt and a lack of suitable skills were the factors cited by the president as contributing to what he called “the perfect storm”. Ramaphosa reported that over the past few days he had held meetings with representatives of labour, business, traditional and religious leaders and the community. He had also met premiers, metro mayors and leaders of political parties and in each of those meetings “I stressed the importance of staying the course instead of coming up with unsustainable short-term solutions.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sisanda Mbolekwa at BusinessLive

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