South Africa’s Ramaphosa defends electricity minister appointment
SOUTH African President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his decision to appoint a minister to try to end crippling power cuts, rejecting criticism the role would cause confusion in government. State utility Eskom is implementing the worst power outages on record, constraining the country's economic growth prospects. That prompted Ramaphosa to declare a "state of disaster" and said he would appoint a new Minister of Electricity last week. Some lawmakers said the appointment would add a layer of bureaucracy as Eskom is overseen by the public enterprises minister while the energy minister is responsible for procuring additional power generation capacity. Ramaphosa told parliament some…
