South Africa declares energy crisis 'a national emergency'

Jan 25, 2008, 12:59 GMT

Johannesburg - It's official: the rolling blackouts that have caused havoc across parts of South Africa over the past two weeks constitute a national emergency, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said Friday.

Speaking on the power outages that have left homes and businesses in the dark for over two hours at a time costing the economy hundreds of millions of rands, Erwin also acknowledged the government was at least partly to blame.

'The president has accepted that this government got its timing wrong,' he said, referring to President Thabo Mbeki's recent admission that the government had failed to make provisions for the current energy shortages when warned of a looming power crisis 10 years ago.

The decision back then not to boost generating capacity has come back to haunt the government and forced state electricity supplier Eskom into loadshedding - cutting power to some areas when supply is tight, often without warning.

Eskom - dubbed 'Eish-kom' (Ouch-kom) by its critics - has warned that the power cuts could continue for five to eight years until it gets new and refurbished power stations up and running.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Pretoria with Erwin, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said government planned to implement electricity rationing as a 'quick-hit' solution to the energy crunch.

Residential areas would be fitted with meters allowing local authorities to monitor energy usage. Incentives and penalties to encourage consumers to save power would be part of the programme, she said.

Measures planned to help reduce household electricity consumption included fitting homes with energy-saving light bulbs and solar-powered water heaters while changes to building regulations would also make new homes more energy efficient.

The prospect of rationing as a substitute for years of loadshedding has already gained widespread acceptance among South Africans exasperated at the return of Africa's largest economy to what they jokingly call the Dark Ages.

Industries ranging from mining to tourism have warned of the potentially dire impact of the blackouts on growth, which looks set to fall to between 4 and 4.5 per cent this year from a 25-year high of 5.4 per cent in 2006.

Public Services Minister Erwin sought to allay those fears.

'The growth of South Africa's economy at the current healthy levels can continue if we change our behaviour and become more energy efficient.'