Ramaphosa’s massive load shedding headache

President Cyril Ramaphosa is talking up Operation Vulindlela’s (OV) second phase and how it will put South Africa on a stronger growth trajectory.

But economists at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) warn that the first phase isn’t even finished yet, and much more work still needs to be done.

Ramaphosa launched the second phase of OV this week, adding important tasks to the long list of issues that the country needs to address to reform the economy.

While the first phase of the operation was remarkably successful in areas such as electricity, the return of load shedding this year is a stark reminder that the work is not complete.

OV kicked into high gear between 2022 and 2024 with rapid reforms in the electricity sector to save South Africa from load shedding escalating beyond stage 6.

This appeared to be a huge success, with nine months of no load shedding in 2024 as South Africa’s energy market opened up to renewable energy projects and own generation through rooftop solar.

However, load shedding made an unwelcome comeback in 2025, hitting on five separate occasions as multiple units were lost and other factors reminded the country that the national grid is still walking on a knife’s edge.

BER chief economist Lisette Ijssel de Schepper said it is evident that, despite OV’s interventions, more work needs to be done—on electricity transmission in particular.

“Specifically, (more work needs to be done) to crowd in more private sector investment,” she said, which appears to be a priority in OV phase 2, along with the same in other phase 1 objectives, like water and logistics.

Ijssel de Schepper noted that a lot of OV phase 1 projects are incomplete. The only reform agenda that could be considered complete from phase 1 is in telecommunications, she said.

“As such, phase 2 looks to deepen the reform agenda by ensuring that the original set of reforms is completed,” she said.

At the same time, though, it also expands into new areas that are critical for long-term economic growth,a dding more to the president’s plate.

These include addressing spatial imbalances, digitalising the government’s engagement with its citizens, and strengthening local government to improve the delivery of services are new focus areas.

The economist said that digitalisation is probably the ‘easiest’ fix, “but generally speaking, the to-do list for OV is now long”.

She said that the hope is that the OV team gets the authority and capacity to implement what needs to be done, and quickly.

Not enough to do the job

Regardless, she warned that it is unlikely to be enough to spur South Africa’s economy to the degree that the president and his team hope.

She said that South Africa’s growth prospects are faltering, with the economy buffeted by huge uncertainty caused by the Trump tariff war and rising concern about local political instability.

The former is likely to play out over the longer term as markets continue to react and adapt to unpredictable moves by US President Donald Trump.

After throwing markets into chaos with the launch of his global tariff war in early April, Trump has since pulled back significantly, bringing more specific trade wars into focus.

Trade talks with the UK and China this week have spurred some optimism that things will not escalate further, but as is the norm for the Trump administration, other moves point to potential escalation in other ways.

The latter concern—local political instability—will continue to be a focus as South Africa heads towards tabling its third budget later in May.

The key question is whether or not the government of national unity (GNU) in its current composition will survive amid growing calls from within the ANC to give the DA the boot.

Ijssel de Schepper said these factors have pushed the 2025 forecast down to 1.5%, in line with what ratings agency Moody’s announced earlier in the week.

This is in line with Bloomberg economist consensus, but is on the upper-end of predictions, with the IMF projecting just 1% growth, and other banks falling somewhere in between.

The BER said that, more worrying, is that the medium-term outlook is also more subdued than before.

“This means that, while phase 2 of Operation Vulindlela could help address concerns about the medium-term growth outlook for South Africa, it remains a daunting task,” it said.