South Africa may declare power outages a national disaster

South Africa is considering declaring the power crisis in the country a national disaster.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said the governing ANC party had recommended that a national state of disaster be declared to ensure sufficient resources were allocated to alleviate the problem.

This would be similar to the state of disaster declared in 2020 to manage the effects of the Covid pandemic, he said in his closing remarks at an ANC strategy meeting.

“Work is already underway within government to establish whether the legal requirements of a national state of disaster are met and what specific actions we would be empowered to undertake,” he said.

“A national state of disaster will enable us to have the instruments necessary to fully implement the challenges that our nation faces,” he added.

South Africa has been grappling with an energy crisis for years and is currently experiencing lengthy power cuts blamed on ageing infrastructure and corruption.

The ruling party has been under increasing pressure to resolve the crisis.

The president said the issue would receive urgent attention and be discussed fully at the government level.