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Once the highly infrastructure developed economic powerhouse of Africa, South Africans these days are more interested in the outlook for rolling blackouts. The country’s most-downloaded app provides schedules, alerts and forecasts for power outages.
Eskom, the state power monopoly, is struggling to generate enough electricity to meet needs, and has re-introduced a byzantine system of rotating outages known as “load-shedding.” On February 11th a whopping 4,000 megawatts of power, enough to power some 3m households, was cut from the national grid to prevent it from collapsing. Some businesses have bought generators and battery systems; others close during outages. In big cities, there is chaos at rush hour as traffic lights go dark. The blackouts suit copper-cable thieves, who can steal without fear of electrocution. And when the electricity is switched backed on, substations sometimes explode, resulting in secondary outages.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2019/02/21/why-the-lights-keep-going-out-in-south-africa
[paywall: you can see the whole article in 'anonymous view' through startpage.com]
More on the situation:
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/267263-south-africas-electricity-system-is-falling-apart-and-it-is-much-bigger-than-just-eskom.html
How to bring back the lights in South Africa?
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday April 24 2019, @04:06AM (2 children)
The ruling ANC is in a partnership with the South African Communist Party. Eskom is a state-owned, vertically-integrated, monopoly power company and a Marxist's dream.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @11:59AM (1 child)
So you're saying that Eskom workers have a democratic voice and are able to vote to raise their own wages and change business policies, and that the larger working class is able to do things like deciding whether or not to accept parasitic IMF loans for example, by direct democracy? Yes? No?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:46PM
Name a socialist state that remained democratic in the face of economic reality. I'll wait...