a The South African head of state has canceled the trip to New York, USA, where he was also supposed to take part in the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, shortly after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, in London, United Kingdom, according to the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.
Ramaphosa met his American counterpart, Joe Biden, on Friday, September 16.
Speaking to the local press, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Maguinya confirmed that Rampahusa had already held a virtual meeting on Sunday with a number of ministers to discuss the country’s energy crisis, in which members of the new National Energy Commission participated. energy crisis.
The new ministerial structure was set up last month in the wake of several power outages that affected the country in July.
The state-owned electricity company Eskom, which supplies about 95% of the electricity in the country of more than 60 million people, has resumed blackouts at level 6 in recent weeks, with level 8 being the most severe, in an effort to maintain the national power grid, which depend on coal-fired power plants, are old and poorly managed by the South African State Corporation.
Blackouts lasting more than 10 hours a day also affect other public services, including the water supply in large urban areas, where electric pumps stop.
Eskom has announced that it needs to purchase at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity “urgently” from the private sector to ease the “burden” of the blackout.
The Eskom blackout, known locally as “loadshedding,” contributed to the economy contracting 0.7% in the second quarter, according to South Africa’s official statistics agency StatsSA.
The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s largest opposition party, confirmed Tuesday that President Cyril Ramaphosa and its chief executive had “entirely lost control of Eskom”, saying the public company was facing “imminent collapse”.
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