South African power outages enter 2nd day as workers protest

South Africa suffered power outages for the second straight day on Friday following protests over wages at national electricity provider Eskom, in a test of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s resolve to cut costs at struggling state companies.

Eskom, which produces more than 90% of South Africa‘s power, said it would implement outages throughout the day because of an “illegal protest action” by some of its employees.

The rand currency weakened after Eskom said outages were planned for Friday and that there was a high risk of further disruptions over the weekend.

The last time there were controlled power outages in Africa‘s most industrialised economy, in 2015, economic output suffered.

Labour unions have threatened a total shutdown of Eskom’s operations unless it meets their demands for a 15% pay rise. Eskom, which has obtained a court order declaring the labour protests unlawful, plans to offer no increase.

Cutting costs at troubled state entities such as Eskom is a top priority for Ramaphosa, and the current labour unrest will test his administration’s commitment to reforms.

The power firm started controlled outages – known locally as “load-shedding” – on Thursday after protesters at power plants blocked trucks carrying coal and buses ferrying staff, forcing some generating units to be switched off.