Time to stop giving South Africa the benefit of the doubt?


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South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility Eskom plans a third day of load shedding on Friday, following nationwide power cuts since Wednesday due to capacity constraints.

The blackouts will fuel growing doubts about pledges by president Cyril Ramaphosa to kick-start sorely needed growth and investment following years of mismanagement and alleged corruption under his predecessor Jacob Zuma.

Despite ample rhetoric since taking office in February 2018 growth remains anaemic, amid an increasingly gloomy outlook for South Africa’s sluggish economy.

Faced with structural economic problems that will take time to address markets have, just about, been willing to give Ramaphosa the benefit of the doubt – despite persistent policy uncertainty.

This week’s blackouts could tip the scales.

The last time the lights went out was in Q1, contributing to South Africa’s biggest economic contraction in a decade.

This has helped make Eskom – which has been called the biggest threat to South Africa’s economic stability – a focal point for gauging reform progress under Ramaphosa.

Put differently, if there’s one thing the government doesn’t need, it’s more power cuts. The decision to once again implement load shedding – which Ramaphosa apparently didn’t know about – makes it that much harder to buy into government promises on reform.

A much-anticipated rescue plan for Eskom is expected by the end of October. It needs to be flawless.

This report reflects the views of the author alone, not those of How we made it in Africa.


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