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<\/p>\nEskom needs debt relief in combination with tariff increases to survive, said Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter, who has led the utility for three years as South Africa\u2019s power outages have intensified.<\/p>\n
The continent\u2019s most-industrialized nation has had 100 straight days of electricity cuts because of supply shortages largely caused by unreliable coal-fired power plants. Fixing the energy crisis that\u2019s crimping the economy has become a central focus for President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
Financial constraints at Eskom, which has R396 billion of debt, combined with breakdowns, theft and sabotage at its plants have caused the utility to impose blackouts for about 15 years, but the outages have progressively worsened in the past five months with Ramaphosa\u2019s administration scrambling to find a way out of the crisis.<\/p>\n
The blackouts, known locally as load-shedding, are costing South Africa\u2019s economy as much as R899 million a day, according to the central bank.<\/p>\n
“We need cost-reflective tariffs,” De Ruyter said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.<\/p>\n
“If debt relief isn\u2019t backed by tariff increases, we will be back to the National Treasury with a begging bowl in five years.”<\/p>\n
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South Africans have suffered through the worst levels of load shedding on record, with rolling blackouts hitting every single day of 2023 so far.<\/p>\n
Load shedding has been implemented on a near-permanent basis since 6 September 2022, with only two days where outages were completely suspended (9 and 30 October).<\/p>\n
Counting consecutive days with no suspended load shedding, South Africa has now hit 100 days with outages hitting every single day since 31 October 2022.<\/p>\n
The country experienced 207 days of load shedding in 2022, with the SARB projecting over 200 days in 2023.<\/p>\n