Last week, the party announced that it might carry out a quote unquote national shutdown to protest the blackouts being implemented by Eskom. The government has published a vaguely market friendly plan for the rail network. If it implements that, it should get some more locomotives on the track and more commodities out of the country. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, South Africa had a world-leading auction-based system to allow renewable energy to come onto the grid. At the time, people were flocking from other emerging markets to look at this system. It fell to pieces under Jacob Zuma but it's still there.
South Africa’s infrastructure—its ports, railways and power grid—are struggling and poorly managed. Ordinary South Africans are increasingly fed up. We profile Russia’s new military commander in Ukraine. And our obituaries editor remembers one of Britain’s finest rural writers.
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