South Africa's Power Crisis Deepens as Reform Delays Block Jobs and Growth

Millions of South Africans, particularly young people, are waiting for a job market that is not delivering. The latest unemployment figures make that reality plain. The path forward is not unknown: investors have said clearly what they are waiting for, which is credible implementation of the reforms that would unlock economic growth. Across multiple fronts, the signals point to hesitation rather than urgency.

The energy sector offers the starkest example of this implementation gap. Eskom’s board has resisted the unbundling of transmission assets into an independent transmission system operator, a restructuring that sits at the heart of South Africa’s plan to create a competitive electricity market. The complexity is real. Eskom’s lenders have billions of rand committed to the utility, and they worry that unbundling could damage the creditworthiness of the entity to which they have extended credit. That concern deserves respect.

Acknowledging complexity, though, is not the same as using it as a shield against change. Lenders and bankers engaged on this issue have signaled openness to the conversation. They are not opposed to reform. What they require is direct engagement, clear structures, and demonstrated confidence that the outcome will serve the broader economy. The Eskom board has not initiated that conversation. Instead, the pattern suggests delay, an emphasis on obstacles rather than solutions, and perhaps a calculation that political will may fade if the process stretches long enough.

Every month of postponement carries a cost that ordinary South Africans bear directly. Investment decisions are deferred. Jobs that could be created remain unfilled. The credibility of the government’s reform agenda erodes with each signal of half-heartedness. What investors need to see is not a board that recites the difficulties of restructuring but one that works methodically through them, proposing solutions and building confidence among lenders that the transition is viable.

The National Union of Mineworkers has moved to block these reforms in court, arguing they will destroy Eskom. That claim does not withstand scrutiny. Eskom’s lenders would never permit an outcome that compromised the utility’s viability; their own exposure makes that impossible. The real threat to Eskom’s future is not unbundling but the R114-billion in municipal arrears that continues to accumulate. That debt crisis must sit at the center of any restructuring process. The energy the NUM has directed toward opposing reform would be better spent pressing municipalities to address the arrears that genuinely threaten the utility’s sustainability.

By contrast, Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is pursuing litigation in the Supreme Court of Appeal against a high court judgment that halted new coal procurement. The 2025 Integrated Resource Plan contains zero new coal generation, meaning the government is fighting in court for a technology it has no intention of deploying. No financier will fund new coal projects in any case; the economics are prohibitive. This legal effort represents a misallocation of the minister’s time and public resources when the focus should be elsewhere.

What demands the minister’s attention is the work that will actually move the needle: direct engagement with lenders on the ITSO transaction structure, a clear timetable for launching the South African wholesale electricity market this quarter, and an unambiguous demonstration of political will to push these reforms through despite institutional resistance. South Africa once delivered on its commitments, achieving five percent annual economic growth, maintaining an investment-grade credit rating, and sustaining far lower unemployment. That capacity has not disappeared, but it requires follow-through on the reforms that have already been agreed and mapped.

A small number of actors in boardrooms, unions, and government offices currently hold the power to accelerate or delay this transition. Their choice to slow-walk change, while millions of South Africans wait for jobs that are not materializing, represents a failure of leadership at a moment when clarity and urgency are essential. The reforms that could restore growth and create the employment opportunities the country desperately needs are within reach. What stands between South Africa and delivery is not the absence of a plan but the absence of the will to implement it. Whether that will can be found before the costs compound further is the question citizens are now entitled to ask.