Blackouts darken South African government’s electoral prospects

Internet service providers down and traffic lights off. Taps running dry. Cold supply chains at risk. 

These are just some of the problems that beset South African citizens and businesses each time a power cut descends. And, amid a major power supply crisis, the lights are now going out every day.

On Thursday, in his State of the Union speech to Parliament, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a “national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis and its effects.”

Eskom, the state-owned entity that supplies 90% of South Africa’s electricity, is creaking under the weight of aging, coal-fired power stations as well as corruption and sabotage. Uncertain policies and a lack of investment have added further pressure. Rolling blackouts – known locally as load shedding – have reduced economic growth in Africa’s biggest economy to a predicted 0.3% this year. 

The blackouts have also shone a harsh spotlight on the African National Congress (ANC) party that has ruled since apartheid ended in 1994, and which promised electricity and economic growth as dividends of democracy. Instead, officials now talk of trying to avert “Armageddon” – shorthand for a total collapse of the electricity grid.

Eskom’s relentless decline has become emblematic of a broader failure by the ANC to deliver services and tackle the growing corruption that is hollowing out state institutions.

“This is beyond just an inconvenience. The blackouts are a symbol of the service failures across a whole range of government departments,” says Chris Yelland, managing director and energy analyst at Johannesburg-based EE Business Intelligence consultancy. “It goes without saying there are economic impacts, but what we’re seeing now is the political impact,” ahead of elections next year.

As the country limps through the power crisis, almost every facet of life suffers. Learners study by candlelight and businesses are forced to rely on expensive diesel-guzzling generators, or to close altogether. Farmers’ broiler chickens suffocate, and dairy products spoil. 

Last month, Eskom’s CEO even urged citizens to think twice about how much water they boiled for a cup of tea in a bid to reduce their electricity consumption.

“Empty promises”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. 

Africa’s economic powerhouse boasts glittering malls, world-class infrastructure, and a sophisticated financial sector, built on the back of a liberation movement that swept into power promising to uplift millions of impoverished Black citizens. 

During apartheid, Beef Nguma’s family was among the 80% of South Africans forced to rely on firewood. Soon after the ANC took power in 1994, electricity came for the first time to Nkwaukazi, a scattering of huts in the spectacular, remote hills of the former Transkei. 

“When the ANC came, they promised us everything. Education, land, jobs, electricity,” Mr. Nguma recalls of the ANC’s early days, when supporters risked their lives and freedom for the party’s cause.

Now, youth unemployment of nearly 60% and stagnating growth threaten the stability of both South Africa and the wider region that relies on the continent’s most industrialized nation.

“It’s like it was all just empty promises,” says Mr. Nguma, who won’t be voting for the ANC in elections next year.

Ironically, around 90% of households today are hooked to the national electricity grid thanks to the ANC’s policies. That means millions of dollars’ worth of contracts annually to maintain and modernize a utility originally designed to serve only a white minority of the population. Under former President Jacob Zuma, a bloated Eskom became the biggest source of enrichment for ANC-connected business people and some criminal cartels who deliberately sabotage infrastructure so as to win contracts to repair it, at the expense of the public.

The state’s most important asset was “the main theater where corruption, state capture was taking place,” said Jabu Mabuza, the former chairman of Eskom’s board, during the wide-reaching Zondo inquiry into public corruption, which also dissected the collapse of state-owned companies like the Post Office and South African Airways.

That corruption can be life-threatening. Andre de Ruyter, the outgoing Eskom CEO, resigned in December, citing a lack of political support for reform. That same day, he survived an assassination attempt after drinking a cup of tea laced with cyanide. 

“I know one manager at Eskom who goes about wearing a bulletproof vest to work, who has two stand-in personal protectors at any given time,” President Ramaphosa said recently. 

Ol’ King Coal

One morning last month, Thando Makhubu went to renew his car registration papers at a government office in Soweto, Johannesburg’s lively, sprawling township.  But the power was out, which meant the government website on which he needed to update his details was down.

In all, what should have been a 20-minute errand to renew his car papers turned into a six-hour ordeal for Mr. Makhubu.

As an entrepreneur, he is familiar with trying to find solutions. Stuck at home during the pandemic, he began saving a monthly 350 rand ($21) social grant. Last year he received praise from the president for using those savings to launch a gourmet ice cream shop in the township.

But like many small-business owners, he has struggled to cope with load shedding, which sometimes means he has no electricity for three 4.5-hour stretches a day. Mr. Makhubu says he’s now mulling over whether to install solar panels and lithium batteries, which would cost upwards of 100,000 rand ($5,700.) In his speech on Thursday, President Ramaphosa promised policies to encourage the deployment of rooftop solar panels.

“We do have a generator, fortunately, but running it [for hours] is expensive. It’s eating away at our profits,” Mr. Makhubu says. It’s also costly in other ways. “Some customers believe we’re not operational when there’s load shedding,” he laments. 

Such woes are hurting the economy as a whole. The South African Reserve Bank cut its forecast for economic growth this year to 0.3%, from 1.1%, citing the energy crisis.

Construction delays and cost overruns at two giant, coal-fired plants, Medupi and Kusile, have magnified the problem. When construction began 15 years ago, they were expected to shore up the rickety grid, but they are still not fully operational. 

Key to ending the shortages, experts say, is increased use of renewable energy sources. But that idea has faced opposition from high-ranking officials within the ANC: South Africa’s coal industry provides around 90,000 jobs, and the country’s exports have also plugged a major shortfall in Europe as the continent cranks up coal burning to make up for banned Russian gas.

Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, nicknamed “Ol’ King Coal” by the local press, has often delayed approving renewable energy projects. He once labeled environmental activism “colonialism and apartheid of a special type.”

“The minister of energy is the biggest problem for Eskom because he is delaying the procurement of new energy,” says David Walwyn, a professor at the University of Pretoria’s Graduate School of Technology Management. “Eskom is trapped politically and economically.” 

Analysts say the blackouts are eroding ANC support.

“As a South African citizen, I feel disappointed,” Mr. Makhubu, the ice cream store owner, says. “We were told [democracy] is for the people, by the people, but it’s for them by them,” he says of former liberation fighters-turned-political elites.

Last month, the Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party, received public support for its bid to block a planned 18.5% electricity tariff increase even amid the shortages. The party also organized well-attended rallies under the banner of protesting what it called “the ANC-engineered electricity crisis.” 

“Load shedding has taken away your power. It is time to take away the ANC’s,” tweeted party leader John Steenhusien.