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South Africa's Ramaphosa rejects time out in power cuts is connected to election

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday rejected opposition allegations that a. recent pause in the electricity cuts that have plagued the. nation for many years was because of an election showing up on May 29.

Rolling power cuts imposed by state energy Eskom reached. record levels in 2023 and continued in the first quarter of this. year, but there has actually now been no load-shedding, as South Africans. call the cuts, for 48 straight days, the longest period for more. than 2 years.

Over the exact same 48-day period in 2015, there were power cuts. every day, according to data gathered by The Outlier, an. independent South African publication specialising in public. service information visualisations.

The remarkable improvement in power supply has been a talking. point in South African media and has led to allegations that the. timing was created to improve voter fulfillment with the. governing African National Congress.

The only reason why things are working is because the. elections are approaching, stated Carly Joubert, a main school. teacher.

Now the streets are being cleaned up, and there's power and. everything is good.

In a weekly newsletter, Ramaphosa said Eskom's enhanced. performance showed that the government's energy plan revealed. in 2022 was flourishing.

Yet, against all the available evidence, some individuals have. declared that the decreased load-shedding is a political ploy ahead. of the elections, he stated. This is not borne out by the. facts.

Ramaphosa attributed the enhancement to a renewed focus by. Eskom on maintenance, new generation capability from eco-friendly. energy jobs and strong take-up of roof solar panels. enhanced by tax rewards.

The ANC faces its most difficult electoral test to date, with. viewpoint surveys recommending it is on course to lose its. parliamentary bulk for the first time since it concerned power. Thirty years earlier at the end of apartheid.

BURNING DIESEL

The Democratic Alliance, the greatest opposition celebration, last. week attributed the better power supply to political. interference by the ANC, which it accused of putting pressure. on Eskom to keep the lights on.

South Africans must not be fooled by this brazen abuse of. power and they must act to decisively vote out the manipulators. on the 29th of May, it stated in a statement on its site.

A particular point of disagreement was whether Eskom was burning. more diesel to increase supply, as declared last week by the. energy's former CEO, Andre de Ruyter, who is honestly. antagonistic towards the ANC.

If the lights are on, well done, however they're on because we. are pouring cash into diesel at a rate of knots, de Ruyter,. who stepped down in February 2023, informed a conference in South. Africa, in remarks extensively reported by regional media.

South Africa's energy regulator Nersa said on Friday that in. April alone, Eskom had generated 168.5 GWh from diesel. generators, more than half of the quantity allocated per. quarter.

In telecasted remarks on Monday, Electrical Energy Minister. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa rejected that extreme usage of. diesel-powered turbines lagged the time out in load-shedding. and implicated Eskom's critics of attempting to soil the work. that the Eskom group has done.