South Africa: How Pretoria Needs to Fix Its Electricity Crisis
South Africans have in recent years joined the ranks of those on the continent suffering from regular power cuts.
While the government has accepted responsibility for failing to anticipate the energy needs of a growing economy during former President Thabo Mbeki's administration, the most recent outages sweeping the country have been triggered by a failure to maintain existing power stations and poor corporate governance within Eskom, the state-owned energy utility - problems which government ministers in charge are struggling to get to grips with.
Ola Bello and Busisipho Siyobi of the South African Institute of International Affairs say clearer prioritisation and coherence are needed to turn the country's energy fortunes around.
Is there clarity and coherence in current measures being taken by South Africa's government to address the country's critical energy challenges?