News One Hundred and Fourteen: South Africa power cuts: Eskom runs out of diesel

South Africa’s power utility Eskom has run out of money to buy diesel for its critical plants, according to the minister of public enterprises.

It means people will experience rolling blackouts of up to six hours a day.

In a statement, Minister Pravin Gordhan said that his department would be working with the national treasury to find money to buy supplies of diesel.

Mr Gordhan met with the Eskom board on Sunday night and called for “exceptional interventions to create more reliability” in power supply.

Eskom is constrained by a massive $26bn (£22bn) debt and has old, inefficient power stations that require constant work to keep them running.