Worsening power cuts have forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to cut short his overseas visits to deal with troubles at home.
Ramaphosa made the decision after “an urgent virtual meeting with all the relevant ministers and officials”, spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said on Sunday.
Ramaphosa is in London to attend ceremonies related to mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth and the accession of King Charles. Magwenya said Ramaphosa wanted a briefing on what had led to so many units tripping. “He also wanted to understand what could be done at once to resolve the state of load-shedding.”
Ramaphosa’s short trip abroad has been subjected to last-minute changes. He travelled to the US on Thursday for a working meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington DC after being invited last month, and was going to stay on to attend a number of meetings related to African development at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.
On Tuesday, Ramaphosa was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly, but he was forced to change his plans to attend the queen’s memorial in London on Sunday and Monday.
Magwenya said late on Friday afternoon that Ramaphosa had decided to travel back to New York for the day on Tuesday because of the importance of the gathering. It is the first full in-person UN General Assembly session since 2019, when Covid-19 disrupted meetings. Though delegations are still not back in numbers, it is set to be an important gathering.
However, things were still uncertain until the last minute. The SA mission in New York said the reception it normally holds on the sidelines of the General Assembly would not be returning this year.
Stage 2 power cuts announced by Eskom earlier this month escalated rapidly to stage 6 after Ramaphosa left the country on Thursday.
This is not the first time Ramaphosa has had to cut a foreign trip short because of Eskom. In December 2019, he returned from Egypt earlier than planned to meet Eskom executives after six successive days of nationwide rolling blackouts.
TimesLIVE
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