Power Struggle: How Load Reduction is Hitting South Africa's Poorest Hardest

Examining the Unseen Consequences of Efforts to Stabilize the Nation's Electricity Supply

People left in the dark without the spotlight of media and government continue as load reduction runs rampant in the poorest parts of South Africa. The media celebrates and applauds the 135 days without load shedding, neglecting the millions who have been left powerless for days on end to ensure businesses, schools, and other industries can operate. Yet, there has been little call for a more equitable solution.

Throughout the past few years, load shedding has been the talk of the town as businesses, schools, universities, and public service providers have had to grapple with an unstable power supply. Few opted for generators, inverters, and solar panels as means of generating independent power supply, which quickly became costly for even the most affluent individuals. The cost of burning diesel for up to 12 hours a day was an additional expense many industries did not budget for, and the infrastructure cost to install sufficient solar panel systems became even harder as technology was not getting cheaper. Load shedding quickly shifted from a livable social issue to a crisis as business activity began to slow down and factories began retrenching workers as a means of staying afloat. The economy took a heavy hit due to financial mismanagement and entrenched corruption.

In early 2023, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa was appointed as Minister within the Presidency and was tasked with dealing with the electricity supply within the country. Nearly a year later, he “eliminated” load shedding from South Africa, overcoming the entrenched crime syndicates that had been identified by the media. He began to do the impossible and change how South Africa as a nation engaged with the idea of load shedding. Still, even by his own recognition, it is not yet a thing of the past but something that we are slowly improving as the months go by. However, the solution to load shedding came at the cost of cutting out the most vulnerable.

Already, in the Western Cape, crediting electricity to the loyal citizens who paid for their electricity has been happening for months on end as a means of prioritizing the city center of Cape Town, which is the business district within the province. Thousands of paying South Africans were left in the dark due to a lack of willingness to find an adequate solution to the power problem.

The problem appears to be twofold in South Africa. The first is that power is becoming increasingly more expensive as the years progress. According to Daily Investor, it is estimated that by 2025, South Africans will pay five times more for electricity than in 2010. With more families falling below the poverty line and job opportunities being non-existent for most families, it means families have had to opt for alternative solutions or remain in the dark. This is where the second problem comes in: the alternatives which have been used as justification for load reduction—electricity theft.

Electricity theft, as defined by Eskom in their media statement released on July 9, 2024, ranges in activities which include “illegal connections, network equipment theft, vandalism, meter bypasses and tampering, unauthorized network operations, and purchasing electricity from illegal vendors,” and has led to an overload on transformers. So, as a means of protecting state infrastructure, they thought it best to simply switch off these areas between 05:00 and 07:00 and 17:00 and 19:00 in the evening. However, it has been significantly worse than this.

Many communities have gone days without power. With 7 out of 9 provinces falling under load reduction, major townships and informal settlements which opted for alternative power supply have been left without power. Major townships such as Soweto in Johannesburg have been left in the dark while the media neglect the issue and crisis. Moreover, even the Minister of Electricity acknowledged the risk of power inequality, stating, “It’s the poor that are carrying the brunt of this.” It is clear that in an already unequal country, according to the Gini coefficient, the degree of inequality faced by millions of South Africans can worsen.

Thus, as we celebrate how a minority of individuals, the most affluent, have been able to continue their lives load shedding free, we must ask ourselves if we are simply failing to acknowledge another mass inequality that has the capacity to divide us even further as a country.