South African leader grapples with ever-worsening power cuts

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME
Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s ever-worsening power crisis — putting homes and businesses without electricity for up to 10 hours per day — is strangling Africa’s most developed economy. President Cyril Ramaphosa hopes that his new Electricity Minister Kgosientso Ramokgopa will help his government to curb the rampant corruption and mismanagement that have put the country in the dark. Ramaphosa made the appointment in a long-awaited Cabinet reshuffle late Monday. The new minister will focus solely on dealing with the crippling power cuts, Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation address last month, when he declared a state of disaster to deal with the electricity shortages.