Who is to pay for South Africa's electricity?

Coal-dependent South Africa is currently facing its worst electricity crisis in 40 years. Load shedding, or planned outages, which have been taking place regularly across the country since mid-2014, are now predicted to last until 2018. With the country’s reserve margin on a knife-edge, approximately a quarter of the population - 12.3 million people - lack access to electricity. South Africa’s energy-intensive industrial users consume over 40 per cent of the country’s electricity.