1994 - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

South Africa’s electricity crisis: a series of failures over 30 years have left a dim legacy

IN 1994, apartheid ended and the African National Congress (ANC) won South Africa’s first-ever democratic elections, promising “Electricity for All” as part of its Reconstruction and Development Programme. Back then only 36% of all South Africans had electricity in their homes. The development programme promised to double that number by electrifying an additional 2.5 million homes by 2000. This seemed achievable – during the 1980s, the state-owned power utility Eskom’s build programme was so aggressive it had surplus electricity. Some power stations even had to be mothballed. By 1994, South Africa’s coal industry was generating high-quality coal which was exported…

Apr

2024

By JAMES OATWAY and THANDO HLOPHE

Man named Vote will cast ballot for change in South Africa

NEWS

WHEN Mariana Ubisi went into labour in her one-room home in rural South Africa, millions of Black citizens were queuing to vote in the election that would bring Nelson Mandela to power. It was April 27, 1994. Swept up in the excitement, Ubisi and her husband named their newborn son Vote. "I imagine it was because we were hearing the chants saying 'vote, vote, vote' on the radio," said Ubisi, a traditional healer in Lillydale, a poor village in Mpumalanga province. As Mozambican refugees who fled war in their country in the 1960s, Mariana and her husband Ernesto did not…

South Africa Independence Day

Independence Day: April 27th, 1994 South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline that stretches along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country of Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an…