South Africa declares 'State of Disaster' over electricity crisis

South Africa on Thursday declared a national 'state of disaster' over power shortages in the country. In his annual State of the Nation Address to parliament, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the crisis posed an existential threat to the economy and social fabric."We are in the grip of a profound energy crisis," Ramaphosa said. "The crisis has progressively evolved to affect every part of society. We must act to lessen the impact of the crisis on farmers, on small businesses, on our water infrastructure and our transport network," he added.The country has been facing an electricity crunch for years, which is causing a delay in building new coal-fired power stations, thus leading to corruption in coal-supply contracts, criminal sabotage and failures to ease up regulations to enable private providers to swiftly bring renewable energy on tap. State electricity utility Eskom is implementing the worst rolling blackouts on record, leaving households in the dark, disrupting manufacturing and hurting businesses of all sizes.The power cuts are expected to reduce economic growth in Africa's most industrialised nation to just 0.3 per cent this year.

Meanwhile, the country's biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it would challenge the declaration of 'state of disaster' in court.The Opposition also alleged Ramaphosa's party issued nonsensical regulations and abused procurement processes during the pandemic.Ramaphosa's speech on Thursday began nearly 45 minutes late after opposition lawmakers, mainly from the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party, disrupted proceedings and tried to barge onto the stage.