South Africa has been hit by rolling power cuts less than a month after President Cyril Ramaphosa gave renewed assurances that energy constraints were being addressed, making his pledges ring hollow and highlighting his administration’s inability to tackle the crisis. While Eskom Holdings, the State utility that provides about 95% of the nation’s electricity and is overseen by Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, has borne the brunt of the blame for the outages, criticism is increasingly being directed at another target: Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, who is also chairperson of the ruling party.
