South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a “national state of disaster” due to ongoing power outages that have disrupted businesses that rely heavily on electricity and made refrigerators as warm as cupboards, disrupting transportation, communications, and other essential services.

“We are therefore declaring a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis and its effect,” announced Mr Ramaphosa in his 2023 state-of-the-nation address Thursday evening. “The people of South Africa want action; they want solutions.”

South Africans are forced to endure a minimum 10-hour power outage in a day, a crisis that has left supermarkets and restaurants scrambling to sell meats at steep discounts before they spoil and become inedible.

The cause has been attributed to Eskom, the state-owned electricity utility, struggling to maintain outdated coal-fired power plants that can barely keep up with powering the entire nation.

Businesses that can no longer cope with the high cost of operations are shutting down, and those who have not are laying off workers in a nation where unemployment is already prevalent.

Mr Ramaphosa said he would appoint a minister of electricity to oversee projects that will deescalate the electricity crisis.

“The state of disaster will enable us to provide practical measures that we need to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including for the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply,” the South African president added.