Today, mines resumed production after Eskom had shutdown power to mines last week. This shutdown had caused a lot of chaos in the South African economy as mining plays such a critical part of the economy. The mines now have 80% electricity and they hope to have 90% power by the end of the week.

The electricity situation in South Africa has been as a national emergency and calls have been made for the government to explain why this crisis has happened and what it was not prevented.

The impact of the 5 days without power to the mines was felt as prices of precious metals rose to record highs and the rand took a big knock against major currencies in that period.

But know the question for us consumers is, “If Eskom have resumed supplying power to the mines, where are they getting this power from?” It only makes sense that the power going to the mines now is being ‘taken away’ from the power that is meant to be ‘going’ somewhere else and this could mean electricity supply for domestic consumption will be cut down.

The Star, a local newspaper in South Africa ran with the headline “Four weeks of hell,” on Wednesday, citing Eskom’s plans to cut power over the next four weeks to most of its customers, followed by months of rationing in a bid to cut national power demand by 10%.

So now we are going to have power rationing in South Africa and this is not a good sign. For a country which is meant to be the power house of Africa and an ever growing economy, all this growth is going to slow down due to these power problems.

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