It’s “lights out” for business confidence as, despite assurances to the contrary less than a month ago, power parastatal Eskom implemented load shedding last weekend in the wake of mass action by its employees.
Economist Mike Schüssler warned that investment in the country was already on shaky ground as many international investors had pulled out of South Africa due to political uncertainty and protest action.
“South Africa is sending out a message that we have severe interruptions in economic activity, and that we are not quite as open for business as we’d like to advertise,” said Schüssler, adding that South Africa was earning a reputation of not implementing what its government claimed it would do.
Eskom admitted in a statement that the full recovery of the power system would take about 10 days.
